THE HUNTING OF THE BISMARCK
OPERATION RHEINUBUNG
HISTORY THE BATTLE:
PROLOGUE
(Drawn from: "Great German battle ships of the Second World war" of M.J. Whitley, 1989)
The new battleship Bismarckfu launched in February 1939 and in the summer of 1940 was ready to definitely leave the yards Blohm & Voss in Hamburg.
It already had a nucleus of crew, constituted for 10 more from technical climbed on board when the ship was still in construction, and in July you/he/she was assigned her as commander the quarantasettenne Captain of vessel Ernst Lindemann, been born to Altenkirchen, that had entered the Marina Imperiale in 1913 and you/he/she had fought in the first world war. How expert of artillery had taken office to earth and in sea pearl Reichsmarine, inclusive that of officer of artillery of the Á. d I contemplated Graf Spee.
To the beginning of the war Lindemann was assigned to the command of the school of naval artillery and of here it passed to that some unity more prestige he/she knows about the harbor the Bismarck.
The battleship within on call shortly after midday the. August 24 th 1940, when Lindemann climbed on board for the opening ceremony, and it almost immediately entered action because that same night the RAF sferrò an attack style Hamburg.
The low clouds and the obscurity prevented the individualization of the enemy but the curtain of fire of the anti-aircraft light protesse the ship that didn't accuse some damage.
In the following days they followed other raids, as many fruitless. Immediately after the inauguration, the crew was submitted to a long period of training and the structures of the ship to the tests of rigor. On August 27 touched later to the side boilers and the day to that central, there was then the test of the three apparatuses together, but the Bismarck was ready to leave alone Hamburg on September 14, when the tow put later her in position for ridiscendere the Elba the day.
The sun rose on a day of calm with a light fog to earth and the 14.20 the Bismarck you/he/she was hauled out of its bench and along the course of the river. The crossing recorded only a small accident with the tow Atlantik and at 19.02 o'clock the battleship threw he/she anchors him to Brunsbiittel.
The telemeters and the plants of draught still missed her, that had suffered some delays, but not to waste other time in the yard was decided immediately to send her/it in the Baltic one to begin the exercises.
Reaches Kiel, the Bismarck stopped him in the fiord up to September 28, then he/she left again in east direction for Gotenhafen.
In the gulf of Danzica and outskirtses you/he/she was submitted to a series of tests with different experimental commands (SVK, NEK, EKK, etc.) and to the testing of all of his/her structures, from the artillery to the motors, because the admiral Raeder demanded almost for a long time still a program of training of peace before giving the assent to the service in first line.
The calm of this routine was shaken only from the news that the bombardiers RAF you/they were pushed in him ex "Polish corridor" and, remembering what had happened in Taranto November 1'11 th 1940, expressed Lindemann its worry for the presence to Gotenhafen of well three battleships (Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau), but you/he/she could not do anything else other than to increase the state of allerta of his anti-aircraft.
This first phase of exercise finished on December 5, then the Bismarck set sail from Gotenhafen and reached Kiel in the afternoon of 9 for the additions and the final changes, while to big part of the crew a license was granted. The presence of the battleship instigated some fruitless attack of the RAF, but motives were other that delayed its return in the Baltic one. First of all, in the channel of Kiel you/he/she was sunk a ship that the passage had stopped and to avoid to expose too much the ship anchoring her/it to Brunsbiittel, was her orderly to remain to Hamburg.
L 'alternative, to revolve Skagen and to come down the Skagerrak, was under the veto of the tall command. In according to place, sweet water in the pipings was frozen for the intense winter cold; with -15° of temperature plumbings and manometers to the exit of the boilers had become some pieces of ice.
Other big apparatuses were under the same conditions, therefore the ship was unusable. The changes to the net of pipings lasted up to half February, five weeks from the berth to Hamburg.
A lot of useful time was wasted for the exercises, and at the end the Bismarck could finally go out of yard on April 6.
I widen of Brunsbuttel, before entering the dams, places side by side from a rompighiaccio and two Sperrbrechers of it, as perceives against the torpedos. To Kiel the Bismarck was hospitalized to the port C for some reparations to the fund of the hull, then you/he/she was repainted and supplied of provisions and ammunition. I115 March you/they were put on board two airplanes and two days after the ship it set sail again for Gotenhafen. With his great disappointment, Lindemann you have to shorten some tests and exercises with the Á. VKS, because of the delay accumulated to Hamburg and it discovered some defects. The crane were inaffidabili and the catapult of damaged right: to the dawns of the radar this meant to have out use two vital apparatuses for the aerial recognition. The catapult was replaced then with one of the Tirpitz and on April 2 other two airplanes, the T3+DL and the T3+MK they arrived, that went to add him to the T3+IH and the T3+AK (Werk n° 0123,0150, 0052 and 0110).
The battleship was supplied then of escorts for three months, while almost every day they salivate on board correspondents of war, operating of newsreels and high officers.
It crew understood that he was preparing something. Lindemann had received the order to get ready himself/herself/themselves to enter action a few weeks before the expectation, of here the cut to the tests of the experimental commands for the artillery (Á. VKS), but it didn't have any precise indication on the mission that waited for it yet.
The right catapult broke again him on April 17 and 20 it was replaced.
The Bismarck was finally ready to the action, after days of exercise in actions combined with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in the interception radio and in the anti-aircraft tactics and antisommergibile; instead on April 25 the commander of the fleet communicated to Lindemann that the operation was postponed of one or two weeks, because two days first the Prinz Eugen was met with a magnetic mine around 1a rout for Kiel. Lindemann feared that a prolonged delay could notch the moral one of its men that didn't know anything of the delay yet, therefore on April 28 communicated to the GROUP Nord and the Flottenkommando that "ship and operational equipaggio"erano fully and supplied for three months of trip.
LE PIU' GRANDI BATTAGLIE NAVALI