May 24, 1941, 6:30 a.m.
Paris, France,
Western Command of the German Navy.
The report on the situation sent back by the German squadron immediately surrounded the entire war room with an atmosphere of jubilation.
Bismarck sank and wounded the enemy capital ship and sank the enemy's deputy commander of the home fleet and the Hood, the symbol of sea power. Harvest such a big result. Undoubtedly, this was an unprecedented victory for the German surface fleet. It would take a serious blow to the morale of the British.
But soon, a telegram detected by the telecommunications department made everyone's hearts stir, that is, the British Admiralty had mobilized all its forces and was dispatching troops to prepare to launch a great encirclement and suppression against bismarck.
The Western Command of the German Navy hastened to forward the news to the German Squadron.
The news of the sinking of the Hood shocked the British.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced at a wartime cabinet meeting on Japan that the Bismarck would be sunk. The Navy is called upon to launch an immediate operation of revenge.
In accordance with this instruction, The Commander of the Admiralty of the British Admiralty, Marshal Pound, issued an order to mobilize the fleet escorting the Atlantic, plus Tovey's fleet, as well as the H fleet in Gibraltar, and the fleet in Canada, from east, west, south, and north to pounce on the German squadron.
In terms of the German squadron.
After receiving a reminder from the Western Command, Luteryns took into account: First, the British were dispatching troops to hunt down the Bismarck. The situation is not good.
Second, bismarck was injured and leaked oil, and the fuel was insufficient.
It was decided to suspend the Rhine exercise and return to his base.
However, in terms of how to act, he had a disagreement with his men led by Captain Lindemann of the Bismarck.
Lindemann and others believe that Norway should be returned.
Lüthaus believed that bismarck should sail to the French port of Brest. At the same time, the Prinz Eugen entered the Atlantic Ocean and continued to harass British shipping lines.
In the end, Lüteryns rejected the advice of Lindemann and others and decided to sail bismarck to France.
The German squadron sailed rapidly southwest on the undulating sea.
In the afternoon, fog and storms rose again at sea.
At 18:00, Bismarck suddenly reversed course and rushed towards the battleship Prince of Wales, which had been in hot pursuit, and the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Prince of Wales and other ships saw the ferocity of bismarck and hurriedly turned around and sailed eastward. After some scrambling, the British suddenly found that the Prinz Eugen had disappeared. Bismarck turned its course and sped southwest.
The Prince of Wales and other ships were busy increasing their horsepower to closely track bismarck.
Luteyns used a ruse to help the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen escape, and then turned the rudder and sailed southwest.
At that time, the sea was rain and fog, and the visibility was extremely poor.
Luteins thought he could shake off the British with the rain and fog. However, the British ships Norfolk and Suffolk relied on the new radar equipped with them to firmly lock on to the Bismarck in the wind and rain and clung to it. This annoyed the likes of Luterans and Lindemann.
When the Hood was sunk, Tovey's main fleet was 640 kilometers from the sea of the incident, a voyage of more than ten hours.
Hearing the bad news, Lieutenant General Tovey immediately ordered the fleet to sail west at full speed.
At the moment, he was under the most pressure. To avenge his comrades, the orders of Marshal Pound of the Admiralty, and the urging of Prime Minister Churchill were all pressed on him one by one, making him breathless.
Tovey knew that Bismarck must not be allowed to escape, or the royal Navy's reputation would plummet.
In the evening, based on information provided by the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, Tovey led the battleships King George V, Victory, and Strikeback, as well as 4 cruisers and 10 destroyers, to 220 kilometers from Bismarck.
At 22:10, Tovey ordered the carrier Victory to take off a group of nine Swordfish attack aircraft and launch an air strike on Bismarck.
At 23:27, the sailors on duty at the top of the bismarck bridge found the enemy plane in the air and immediately sounded the alarm.
The entire ship's anti-aircraft guns then opened fire fiercely in the direction of the British fighters' attack.
At 23:40, a torpedo fired by the British plane hit the bow of the Bismarck. Causing the bow to re-enter the water and spreading to boiler room 2, causing it to temporarily shut down.
Bismarck's speed plummeted to 16 knots.
Luterins knew that British aircraft carriers and the main fleet were nearby. Once Bismarck was unable to regain its speed, in three to four hours the enemy's main fleet would arrive close to him, awaiting his doom. Therefore, the damage management department was ordered to devote all its efforts to emergency repairs.
In the early morning, after emergency repair, the fault was basically eliminated. Bismarck resumed another 28 knots of speed.
At 1:12, the Prince of Wales approached bismarck about 15 kilometres.
Luteins ordered the shooting. Both sides played 2 or 3 salvos each other, hitting each other without hits.
Afterwards, the Prince of Wales turned the rudder and withdrew eastward. The battle ended.
Luteins considered that norfolk and the Prince of Wales could not be allowed to follow closely. If they could not be freed, the British main fleet came, and the consequences were unimaginable.
At 3:30 a.m., bismarck was steering on the Prince of Wales and other three ships, when it suddenly changed course and accelerated. Thus throwing off the Prince of Wales and other ships in one fell swoop.
An hour passed, another hour passed. By 7 a.m., Bismarck had not noticed a British warship catching up. At this point, Lütsens was convinced that the battleship Bismarck had been saved.
On the British side, after the loss of bismarck at about 3:30, the Norfolk and other three ships have searched for the ship's traces. Hours passed, but nothing was found.
At dawn, the Norfolk and other ships reported the results. Lieutenant General Tovey also accepted this fact impatiently.
The rainstorm is like a note, and the wind and waves are undulating.
On the morning of 25 May 1941, bismarck, which had escaped the British ship's pursuit and escaped pursuit, continued its high-speed voyage to the southwest. In a dozen hours, the Bismarck could safely reach the French port of Brest.
Just then, an unexpected event changed the fate of the battleship Bismarck.
In the morning, the ship's radar siren suddenly sounded. Luterans, Lindemann and others were horrified when they saw the situation: how could they be locked by the British radar again? When did the British heavy cruisers follow again?
Luteins hurriedly ordered the warship to turn and accelerate.
Before long, the radar siren stopped chirping. This shows that the warship has escaped the pursuit of the other side.
However, it only stopped for a moment. Soon the siren went off again.
Luteins wondered: How did the British heavy cruiser appear again? What's going on? How can I not get rid of it?
At 8 o'clock, Luteyns sent a telegram to the Western Command of the Navy asking where the Norfolk and Suffolk were. The answer was that the two ships were still far from Bismarck.
Such a telegram exchange took about half an hour.
At about 9 o'clock, the problem was finally clarified, and it turned out to be a false alarm reported that the radar siren had failed.
For the Germans, it was a devastating disaster. The failure of the radar siren caused Lütjens to suspect that the British warship was nearby, and he frequently sent a report to the Navy's Western Command for 30 minutes. As a result, the radio waves emitted by Bismarck were thus intercepted and located by the British.
At about 9:30 a.m., the British radio direction finding stations in Ireland and Gibraltar intercepted bismarck's telegram and accurately measured the german ship's position by triangulation.
Frustrated and disappointed, The Commander of the Home Fleet, Tovey, and Admiral Somerville, commander of the H Fleet, were overjoyed to hear the news, and each led the fleet to the direction of the Bismarck.
At 10:30 on 26 May, a Katarina seaplane from mainland Britain spotted bismarck and reported its location.
In the afternoon, Admiral Somerville's H fleet, consisting of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the Prestige class battlecruiser, approached Bismarck from the southeast.
At 19:25, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, to which the fleet belonged, released a swarm of Swordfish attack aircraft towards Bismarck.
At about 8 o'clock, the swordfish formation found the target and then attacked. At about 20:47, the carrier-based aircraft aboard the Ark Royal attacked Bismarck, hitting two torpedoes. The second torpedo was so bad that it broke the left drive of the Bismarck and stuck at 12 degrees, and the Bismarck was no longer able to sail properly.
At 21:40, Lütjens sent a telegram to the headquarters that the Bismarck was no longer capable of maneuvering and would fight until the last bullet. At about 22:38, five British destroyers first caught up with Bismarck, and the two sides began to fight. After a night of scuffle, no one hurt each other.
At about 8 a.m. on the 27th, two British battleships belonging to the Home Fleet, George V and Rodney, arrived near Bismarck.
At 8:47, rodney opened fire first at a distance of about 22 kilometers, and a minute later George V opened fire, and Bismarck counterattacked. At this time, the speed of the Bismarck was only 7 knots, and it could not turn back to the hull tilt, and the accuracy of the artillery fire was greatly reduced.
At 8:54, two British heavy cruisers also joined the fighting, firing on bismarck. About 26 minutes after the battle began, Bismarck had lost its mobility and ability to counterattack. The Bismarck, with no signs of surrender, continued to be besieged by the British. In total, the British warships fired more than 2800 shells and hit more than 400.
Amid the rumble of the cannon, the Bismarck was about to end in final defeat.
Almost unanimously, the officers and men of the ship remembered the instructions of Marshal Raeder, the commander-in-chief of the Navy:
Once the German navy was on the battlefield, it either fought with drums or sank in glory.
At about 10 o'clock, Lüteryns ordered the opening of the sea valve to avoid the capture of the warship by the British fleet.
Around 10:35, Bismarck began to capsize to the left, disappearing into the sea at 10:40.
At the last moment, the British saw that the battle flag of bismarck was still flying.