Battleship Bismarck

A Design and Operational History

William H. Garzke, Robert O. Dulin, William Jurens, James Cameron

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781526759757
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"A complete operational history of the Bismarck... with period photos [and] underwater photography of the wreck, allowing a forensic analysis of the damage." — Seapower This new book offers a forensic analysis of the design, operation, and loss of Germany's greatest battleship, drawing on survivors' accounts and the authors' combined decades of experience in naval architecture and command at sea. Their investigation into every aspect of this battleship is informed by painstaking research, including extensive interviews and correspondence with the ship's designers and the survivors of the battle of the Denmark Strait and Bismarck 's final battle. Albert Schnarke, the former gunnery officer of Tirpitz, Bismarck 's sister ship, aided the authors greatly by translating and supplying manuscript materials from those who participated in the design and operations. Survivors of Bismarck 's engagements contributed to this comprehensive study including D.B.H. Wildish, RN, damage control officer aboard HMS Prince of Wales, who located photographs of battle damage to his ship. After the wreck was discovered in 1989, the authors served as technical consultants to Dr. Robert Ballard, who led three trips to the site. Filmmaker and explorer James Cameron has also contributed a chapter, giving a comprehensive overview of his deep-sea explorations on Bismarck and sharing his team's remarkable photos of the wreck. The result of nearly six decades of research and collaboration, this is an "encyclopedic and engrossing" account ( Naval Historical Foundation ) of the events surrounding one of the most epic naval battles of World War II. And Battleship Bismarck finally resolves some of the major questions around her career, not least the most profound one of all: Who sank the Bismarck, the British or the Germans?

1

THE ORIGINS OF THE BATTLESHIP BISMARCK

For the first forty-two years of the twentieth century, battleships were acknowledged as the primary instruments of sea power. They were, therefore, the strategic naval weapons of choice for all the great naval powers.

Suffering defeat and the loss of its empire at the end of World War I, Germany was obliged to sign the Versailles Treaty, which placed crippling restrictions on its armed forces. Contrary to the terms of the 11 November 1918 armistice, which designated internment at a neutral port, the German fleet was to be interned in Scapa Flow, under control of the Royal Navy. On 21 November, units of the German High Sea Fleet under the command of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter arrived at the Firth of Forth to surrender to the allied fleet under Admiral David Beatty. From there, the German ships were taken to Scapa Flow for internment until a peace treaty could be negotiated.

The Versailles Treaty was to have been signed at 1200 on 20 June 1919, but the event was postponed to 23 June while the victorious powers argued over the disposition of the German ships. France and Italy each wanted a quarter of the ships in the anchorage. Great Britain wanted all the ships scrapped or sunk, aware that any redistribution of them would be detrimental to the Royal Navy’s proportional advantage. Although clause XXXI of the armistice forbade Germany to scuttle its ships, Admiral von Reuter settled the issue by ordering the sinking of fifty-two of the seventy-four interned ships on 21 June 1919.

The Kaiserliche marine, second in size to the Royal Navy at the beginning of World War I, was reduced by the onerous treaty terms to six pre-dreadnought battleships and six obsolete cruisers that had been built between 1899 and 1906.1 Article 190 forbade the new Reichsmarine to construct or acquire any warships other than those intended to replace ships in commission.

French and British naval constructors decided on 10,000 long tons (2,240 pounds)—the light-ship displacement of the six pre-dreadnought battleships of 1902–6 vintage—as a limiting displacement for armored ships. After twenty years of service, these battleships could be replaced by a vessel of the same displacement, which was incapable of supporting battleship-scale armament or protection, and with a gun caliber limited to 280 millimeters (mm).

On 16 April 1919 the National Assembly of the Weimar Republic formally established the Reichsmarine, a development marked by strife and mutiny. By October 1922 the Reichsmarine had come to terms with its reduced status. The battleship would become the prime element when the decision was made to rebuild the fleet. However, doing so in compliance with the Versailles Treaty limitations would be difficult. The Germans interpreted the treaty displacement limitation terms in long tons, as had the French and English.2

The Versailles Treaty dictated some important changes in the Construction Office and shipyards controlled by the Reichsmarine. The long-established Wilhelmshaven Navy Yard and its veteran workforce were deemed essential to the construction needs of a postwar Reichsmarine, but the former navy yard at Kiel was taken over by the private shipyard Deutsche Werke Werft in 1925.3 Private shipyards, such as Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and Deschimag in Bremen, would meet most of the navy’s future needs. The Construction Office, which had produced the designs for German ships before and during World War I, was also affected. Funds were too severely limited for it to continue as it had under Kaiser Wilhelm II; many naval constructors had to be dismissed. These developments would lead to difficulties when naval construction began during the Adolf Hitler regime about a decade later.

War reparations devastated the German merchant marine, which had lost some of the world’s largest passenger ships. The incomplete passenger liner Bismarck, whose construction by Blohm and Voss had been suspended during World War I, was made a war reparation. Upon completion, Bismarck was to be handed over to Great Britain as compensation for the loss of the hospital ship Britannic. The workers at Blohm and Voss showed their disgust at this decision by causing innumerable delays and even painting Bismarck’s stacks in the colors of the Hamburg-American Line before she left Germany under the British flag; she became Majestic, operated by the White Star Line. The passenger ship Vaterland, interned in the port of New York during the war, was assigned to the United States, becoming Leviathan. The liner Imperator would become Berengeria, operated by the Cunard Line, in compensation for the loss of Lusitania.

Admiral Erich Raeder would rise to a position of leadership in the Reichsmarine by 1928. Although convinced of the primacy of the battleship, Raeder understood that as a markedly inferior naval power, the Reichsmarine also would have to rely heavily on the submarine—of which it had none, by terms of the Versailles Treaty. Admiral Raeder believed that the loyalty of the navy and its personnel—the true core of the fighting force—was achieved through discipline and training. During the last months of World War I, some German naval officers and petty officers had become actively involved in political action, contributing to the eventual abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm. Admiral Raeder was convinced that the only proper path for a career naval officer was complete abstinence from politics and absolute loyalty to the state.

From 1920 to 1923 Raeder immersed himself in compiling a study of Kaiserliche marine operations in World War I that became the basis of a two-volume book, Kreuzerkrieg. The concept of “cruiser warfare” would manifest itself (and be fully supported by Adolf Hitler) when Raeder’s unprepared navy was thrust into war on 3 September 1939.

The Washington Naval Treaty and the Postwar Battleship

Even after World War I ended, the victorious naval powers continued to design and construct new and more powerful battleships and battle cruisers armed with 406- to 460-mm guns. Only Italy and France were unable to compete; the interned German ships they wanted under the Versailles Treaty had been scuttled by their crews, and they lacked the finances to build their own capital ships. The financial burdens associated with naval construction programs were overwhelming, especially following a ruinously expensive and destructive world war. These programs also increased tensions among the leading naval powers.

The United States already had eleven battleships under construction in 1921, along with five battle cruisers of the Lexington class. Faced with the possibility that these new ships could be outclassed by Japanese and British battleships armed with 457-mm guns, the U.S. Navy also began developing a 457-mm/48-caliber gun. In tests at the naval proving grounds at Dahlgren, Virginia, this gun fired a shell farther than any other gun thus far tested. Mounting nine of these guns with the requisite protection and a speed of 25.2 knots, however, would have required a battleship of 80,000 tons. Additional complications for American designers were the restrictions imposed by the Panama Canal and by harbor depths that collectively limited designs to a beam of less than 33.5 meters and a draft of 10.5 meters.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder

Born on 24 April 1876 near Hamburg, Erich Raeder entered the German navy in April 1894 as a cadet. Three years later, he graduated first in his class from the naval school at Mürwik as a sub-lieutenant. Upon graduation, he was assigned to Sachsen as a signal officer but was transferred to the armored cruiser Deutschland, which had been assigned to the Far East to be part of a cruiser squadron protecting Germany’s concession in Tsingtao, China.

In 1901 Raeder was appointed a watch officer on the battleship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse and later Kaiser Friedrich III. He was appointed to the information section of the German navy as a press officer, where he showed great talent in the handling of reporters and foreign journalists. His next assignment was as the navigator of the kaiser’s yacht, Hohenzollern, where he had the opportunity to meet influential politicians and naval personnel. He showed great promise and rose in rank very quickly. He spent some time in the Far East and a year in Russia, where he learned their language.

In 1912, as commander, he became a staff officer for the scouting forces. In 1913 he became the chief staff officer for Admiral Franz von Hipper, the commander of the scouting force of the High Seas Fleet. During World War I he was aboard the battle cruiser Seydlitz during the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland as von Hipper’s chief of staff. Due to damage to that battle cruiser, flag personnel, including Raeder, later shifted to the battle cruiser Moltke after a brief respite aboard a destroyer. Shortly before the armistice that ended World War I, he commanded the light cruiser SMS Koln.

After World War I, Raeder was wrongly accused of taking part in the Kapp rebellion. After being vindicated, Raeder had increasingly more important assignments, starting as the chief of the central bureau, inspector of naval education as a rear admiral in 1922, and command of the Naval District of the Baltic as vice admiral from 1922 until 1928. On 1 October 1928, Admiral Raeder was appointed the head of the German navy. He was determined not to allow ships under his command to waste away in harbor as did his predecessors, Admiral Hugo von Pohl and Admiral Reinhard Scheer. His first objective was to establish sound discipline and morale in the German navy and then a spirit of cooperation and understanding with the German army. Once these were firmly established, Raeder had to face the problem of the requirement for new ships to replace badly obsolete ones.

When Admiral Raeder took command, funding for the armored ship Deutschland had been ordered by the German navy on 17 August 1928, but the Reichstag did not approve it until mid-November. Although Admiral Raeder had favored a more heavily armored and slower ship that would be suited for Baltic waters, discussions finally centered on a cruiser-type ship with a heavy main battery, modest armor protection, and high speed. It was now Admiral Raeder’s duty to see the construction of Deutschland through to completion. Her keel was laid on 9 February 1929 at the Deutsche Werke Yard in Kiel.

Raeder campaigned for a second ship but was met with political opposition, and approval was not given for the construction of Admiral Scheer until 1931. By this time the German government’s attitude toward the navy had changed. In 1932 approval was given for the third armored ship. When Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933, Admiral Raeder was able to work more closely with his Nazi government than he had with that of the Weimar Republic.

Admiral Raeder eventually won his battle for political recognition, and soon the Scharnhorst- and Bismarck-class ships would be built. After the launching ceremonies for Tirpitz on 1 April 1939, Adolf Hitler promoted Raeder to grand admiral in an elaborate ceremony aboard Scharnhorst.

When the invasion of Poland was discussed in April 1938, Admiral Raeder opposed it, believing it would risk war with France and the United Kingdom. He never thought that Hitler would go through with the invasion. It is difficult for historians and military personnel to comprehend how this masterful tactician could be so fooled by Hitler’s lies.

The German invasion of Norway was one of Admiral Raeder’s primary contributions to the war effort. During a naval conference with Hitler on 10 October 1939, Admiral Raeder first suggested that Germany and the Soviet Union pressure Norway for German naval bases in Norway, principally at Trondheim. Hitler demurred, but when the Soviet Union attacked Finland, there was concern that the British and French might send forces to aid Finland through Norway. To counter such a move, Admiral Raeder had the Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling meet Hitler during December 1939 to formulate a plan to overthrow the Norwegian government peacefully or by force.

The successes of the armored ships had convinced Admiral Raeder that a good offense would be the best defense. This was demonstrated when the two battle cruisers were sent to sea in January 1941. When Bismarck became operational in April 1941, the decision to send her to sea would be the most difficult one that Admiral Raeder had to make during the war. Although first planned to be a multi-battleship offensive operation, it eventually became a risky, isolated, and ultimately unsuccessful undertaking that cost him stature in the eyes of Adolf Hitler. Raeder was eventually forced to resign in December 1942.

The Imperial Japanese Navy had started an ambitious “8–8 program,” which called for eight battle cruisers and eight battleships to be completed by 1927. Construction of the first two battleships, Nagato and Mutsu, was well under way by the time of the armistice. These ships were well protected, had 406-mm guns, and were capable of 26.5 knots. The Japanese also began the construction of two similar but larger battleships in 1920 and four more in 1921. Designs were being prepared for four additional ships. All were to be ships of thirty knots and armed with 406-mm guns. In late 1921 the Japanese had prepared the design for four super battleships, to be armed with eight 457-mm guns in twin turrets and having a speed of thirty knots. This ambitious naval program threatened the balance of power in the Far East, where the United Kingdom had a number of possessions, as did the United States (including the Hawaiian Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Philippines). In addition, Japan had gained control of many former German possessions in the Pacific. The British could not ignore these developments. The Royal Navy ordered the construction of four large battle cruisers armed with nine 406-mm/45-caliber guns in triple turrets. Heavily protected and capable of more than thirty knots, these ships were to be larger than HMS Hood, currently the largest ship of her type.

Public opinion in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom began to turn against their countries’ contest for naval supremacy, which promised to be disastrously expensive. Battleship competition between the United States and Great Britain was regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as senseless. Foreseeing that the naval race would cause economic instability, the U.S. government proposed a naval disarmament treaty. Early in 1921 Congress passed a joint resolution favoring a conference to achieve such a treaty. The British foreign office indicated a willingness to follow the Americans in this effort; the two countries felt that if the Japanese could be persuaded to curb their naval program, the race would end. The Japanese government, facing social unrest and economic bankruptcy from the large naval expenditu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 The Origins of the Battleship Bismarck
• 2 Bismarck Joins the Kriegsmarine
• 3 German Naval Developments
• 4 Prelude to Operation Rheiniibung
• 5 The Royal Navy in 1941
• 6 Operation Rheiniibung Commences
• 7 Bismarck’s Norwegian Interlude and the British Reaction
• 8 Prelude to Battle
• 9 Contact!
• 10 The Destruction of HMS Hood
• 11 Aftermath
• 12 Decisions
• 13 Torpedo Attack by Victorious Aircraft
• 14 Bismarck Strives to Escape
• 15 Discovery
• 16 The Fateful Torpedo Attack
• 17 Crippled
• 18 The British Destroyers Attack
• 19 The Final Batde: Prelude
• 20 The Final Batde: 0847-0930
• 21 The Final Batde: 0930-1021
• 22 The Final Batde: Commentary
• 23 Survival and Aftermath
• 24 The Wreck
• 25 Reflections
• 26 Research
• APPENDIXES
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography