Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Saturday 28 May 2011

the sinking of the Bismarck

There was an interesting article in The Times yesterday about the sinking of the Bismarck during WW2. I’ll try and summarize here the main gist of the article written by Simon de Bruxelles.



It would seem that the German’s biggest battleship did try to surrender before she was sunk seventy years ago. Well this is what a new account of the battle is suggesting.

We know that the ship sunk after a 2 hr shelling and that the 50,000 tonne ship sank in the Atlantic. The map below shows her last days. During the sustained shelling it was always reported that the Bismarck carried on battling to the end showing no signs of surrender. Her rudder was knocked out and most of her guns destroyed.



However, there is a new book which apparently suggests that at least three observers from HMS Rodney saw signals associated with surrender. The book has been published on the 70th anniversary of her sinking in 1941.

One testimony came from a gunnery observer called Tommy Byers onboard the Rodney. He died in 2004 but in an interview recorded with him before his death, he said he was watching the Bismarck through binoculars and saw a German sailor signalling the ship’s surrender in semaphore from the top of a gun turret. When Byers reported this to the gunnery officer he was told ‘I don’t want to know about any signal now’.

 The Bismarck then flew a black flag which is the internationally recognised signal for parley but again the gunnery signal officer wasn’t accepting it. Finally the Bismarck started using Morse lamps from her yard arm, four lamps at a time, and again the gunnery officer said ‘I don’t want to know. Don’t report anything like that.’

Tommy Byers was haunted for the rest of his life by the scenes and by the deaths of 1,995 of the Bismarck’s 2200 crew. He was most definite about what he saw throughout his whole life said his son. “He had the skill to read semaphore and therefore it fell upon him to do something about it. He felt guilty he didn’t do more at the time but he wasn’t of high enough rank to get his voice heard”.

HMS King George V

The sinking of the Bismarck is the stuff of legend. A week or so earlier she has sunk HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy with a huge loss of life. Only 3 out of 1400 crew survived. The loss led Churchill to give his famous order ‘sink the Bismarck’. The book raises the possibility that this was the reason why the Rodney refused to acknowledge the signals of surrender.

HMS Hood

The article does suggest that Tommy Byers account is collaborated by an unpublished account from Lieutenant Donald Campbell who was the air defence officer on the Rodney. There is an HMS Rodney archive and a statement from this has him describing the shells bursting against the Bismarck’s armour like ‘eggs on a wall’. He saw what he thought were a series of flashes in Morse code signalling surrender.

The Bismarck had been heavily damaged by her tangle with HMS Hood. She was attacked by 15 swordfish torpedo bombers and she tried to limp into the French port of St. Nazaire, but without sufficient rudder steerage, she was a sitting target and so the shells from HMS Rodney, HMS King George V, HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire found her easily. 300 out of 3000 shells hit her and she eventually keeled over sinking at 10.40 on 27th May 1941. Her wreck now lies in 5000 feet of water.

The Bismarck being shelled

The theory is that the captain of the Bismarck, a fanatical Nazi Captain Ernst Lindemann, had already been killed and so the crew unable to communicate with the heavily damaged bridge, probably tried to surrender.

On the other hand, it would have been hard to put ships alongside to take off all hands. HMS Dorsetshire picked up 200 survivors but with so many U boats in the area, the Royal Navy would have severely risked their own ships and personnel.

The book is called ‘killing the Bismarck’ written by Ian Ballantyne and it is to be published in July by Pen and Sword Books.

I found this website for those of you who would like to find out more about the Bismarck.

http://nineteenkeys.blogspot.com/2010/05/remembering-battleship-bismarck.html
You can find out more about Captain Ernst Lindemann at http://www.ask.com/wiki/Ernst_Lindemann

I will be sharing plans for sailing this week soon

Steve


HMS Rodney

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Steve, Great pictures and fascinating commentary. The picture of HMS King George V, however, is actually HMS Rodney or Nelson. Best wishes.

Rod Kardorff said...

A lot of information here is questionable. For example, the photo showing the Bismarck being shelled is actually a photo her her firing her guns in the Denmark Strait. The Captain was not noted as being a fanatical Nazi. According to German survivors, Lindemann survived the shelling and chose to go down with his ship. The Royal Navy thought there may be U-boats in the area, but there weren't any. That, in addition to the error about the KGV, does not make this article a good one.