Bismarck was ordered under the name ("
Hannover replacement"), a replacement for the old
pre-dreadnought , under contract "F". The contract was awarded to the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, where the
keel was laid on 1 July 1936 at Helgen IX. The ship was launched on 14 February 1939 and during the elaborate ceremonies was christened by Dorothee von Löwenfeld, granddaughter of Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck, the ship's namesake.
Adolf Hitler made the christening speech.
Fitting-out work followed the launch, during which time the original straight
stem was replaced with a raked "Atlantic bow" similar to those of the s.
Bismarck was commissioned into the fleet on 24 August 1940 for
sea trials, which were conducted in the Baltic.
Ernst Lindemann took command of the ship at the time of commissioning. On 15 September 1940, three weeks after commissioning,
Bismarck left Hamburg to begin sea trials in
Kiel Bay.
Sperrbrecher 13 escorted the ship to
Arcona on 28 September, and then on to
Gotenhafen for trials in the
Gulf of Danzig. The ship's power-plant was given a thorough workout;
Bismarck made measured-mile and high speed runs. As the ship's stability and manoeuvrability were being tested, a flaw in her design was discovered. When attempting to steer the ship solely through altering
propeller revolutions, the crew learned that
Bismarck could be kept on course only with great difficulty. Even with the outboard screws running at full power in opposite directions, they generated only a slight turning ability.
Bismarcks main battery guns were first test-fired in late November. The tests proved she was a very stable gun platform. Trials lasted until December;
Bismarck returned to Hamburg, arriving on 9 December, for minor alterations and the completion of the fitting-out process. The ship was scheduled to return to
Kiel on 24 January 1941, but a merchant vessel had been sunk in the
Kiel Canal and prevented use of the waterway. Severe weather hampered efforts to remove the wreck, and
Bismarck was not able to reach Kiel until March. The delay greatly frustrated Lindemann, who remarked that "[
Bismarck] had been tied down at Hamburg for five weeks ... the precious time at sea lost as a result cannot be made up, and a significant delay in the final war deployment of the ship thus is unavoidable." While waiting to reach Kiel,
Bismarck hosted Captain Anders Forshell, the Swedish naval attaché to Berlin. He returned to Sweden with a detailed description of the ship, which was subsequently leaked to Britain by pro-British elements in the
Swedish Navy. The information provided the
Royal Navy with its first full description of the vessel, although it lacked important facts, including top speed, radius of action, and displacement. On 6 March,
Bismarck received the order to steam to Kiel. On the way, the ship was escorted by several
Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and a pair of
armed merchant vessels, along with an
icebreaker. At 08:45 on 8 March,
Bismarck briefly ran aground on the southern shore of the Kiel Canal; she was freed within an hour. The ship reached Kiel the following day, where her crew stocked ammunition, fuel, and other supplies and applied a coat of
dazzle paint to camouflage her. British bombers attacked the harbour without success on 12 March. On 17 March, the old battleship , now used as an icebreaker, escorted
Bismarck through the ice to Gotenhafen, where the latter continued combat readiness training. The Naval High Command ( or OKM), commanded by Admiral
Erich Raeder, intended to continue the practice of using heavy ships as surface raiders against
Allied merchant traffic in the Atlantic Ocean. The two
Scharnhorst-class battleships were based in
Brest, France, at the time, having just completed
Operation Berlin, a major raid into the Atlantic.
Bismarcks sister ship
Tirpitz rapidly approached completion.
Bismarck and
Tirpitz were to sortie from the
Baltic and rendezvous with the two
Scharnhorst-class ships in the Atlantic; the operation was initially scheduled for around 25 April 1941, when a new moon period would make conditions more favourable. Work on
Tirpitz was completed later than anticipated, and she was not commissioned until 25 February; the ship was not ready for combat until late in the year. To further complicate the situation, was torpedoed in Brest and damaged further by bombs when in
drydock. required a boiler overhaul following Operation Berlin; the workers discovered during the overhaul that the boilers were in worse condition than expected. She would also be unavailable for the planned sortie. Attacks by British bombers on supply depots in Kiel delayed repairs to the heavy cruisers and . The two ships would not be ready for action until July or August. Admiral
Günther Lütjens, (Fleet Chief) of the Kriegsmarine, chosen to lead the operation, wished to delay the operation at least until either
Scharnhorst or
Tirpitz became available, but the OKM decided to proceed with the operation, codenamed
Operation Rheinübung, with a force consisting of only
Bismarck and the heavy cruiser . At a final meeting with Raeder in Paris on 26 April, Lütjens was encouraged by his commander-in-chief to proceed and he eventually decided that an operation should begin as soon as possible to prevent the enemy gaining any respite.
Operation Rheinübung On 5 May 1941, Hitler and Wehrmacht High Command Chief
Wilhelm Keitel, with a large entourage, arrived to view
Bismarck and
Tirpitz in Gotenhafen. The men were given an extensive tour of the ships, after which Hitler met Lütjens to discuss the forthcoming mission. On 16 May, Lütjens reported that
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen were fully prepared for Operation Rheinübung; he was therefore ordered to proceed with the mission on the evening of 19 May. As part of the operational plans, a group of eighteen supply ships would be positioned to support
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen. Four
U-boats would be placed along the convoy routes between
Halifax and Britain to scout for the raiders. By the start of the operation,
Bismarcks crew had increased to 2,221 officers and enlisted men. This included an admiral's staff of nearly 65 and a prize crew of 80 sailors, who could be used to crew transports captured during the mission. At 02:00 on 19 May,
Bismarck departed Gotenhafen and made for the
Danish straits. She was joined at 11:25 by
Prinz Eugen, which had departed the previous night at 21:18, off Cape Arkona. The two ships were escorted by three
destroyers—, , and —and a
flotilla of
minesweepers. The
Luftwaffe provided air cover during the voyage out of German waters. At around noon on 20 May, Lindemann informed the ship's crew via loudspeaker of the ship's mission. At approximately the same time, a group of ten or twelve Swedish aircraft flying reconnaissance encountered the German force and reported its composition and heading, though the Germans did not see the Swedes. An hour later, the German flotilla encountered the Swedish
cruiser ; the cruiser shadowed the Germans for two hours in the
Kattegat.
Gotland transmitted a report to naval headquarters, stating: "Two large ships, three destroyers, five escort vessels, and 10–12 aircraft passed
Marstrand, course 205°/20'." The OKM was not concerned about the security risk posed by
Gotland, though both Lütjens and Lindemann believed operational secrecy had been lost. The report eventually made its way to Captain Henry Denham, the British naval attaché to Sweden, who transmitted the information to the
Admiralty. The code-breakers at
Bletchley Park confirmed that an Atlantic raid was imminent, as they had
decrypted reports that
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen had taken on prize crews and requested additional
navigational charts from headquarters. A pair of
Supermarine Spitfires was ordered to search the Norwegian coast for the flotilla. German aerial reconnaissance confirmed that one
aircraft carrier, three battleships, and four cruisers remained at anchor in the main British naval base at
Scapa Flow, which persuaded Lütjens that the British were unaware of his operation. On the evening of 20 May,
Bismarck and the rest of the flotilla reached the Norwegian coast; the minesweepers were detached and the two raiders and their destroyer escorts continued north. The following morning, radio-intercept officers on board
Prinz Eugen picked up a signal ordering British reconnaissance aircraft to search for two battleships and three destroyers northbound off the Norwegian coast. At 7:00 on the 21st, the Germans spotted four unidentified aircraft, which quickly departed. Shortly after 12:00, the flotilla reached
Bergen and anchored at
Grimstadfjord, where the ships' crews painted over the Baltic camouflage with the standard "outboard grey" worn by German warships operating in the Atlantic. In addition, while the Germans cruised past
Flekkefjord, members of the
Norwegian resistance radioed observations of their movement to the British. , Norway When
Bismarck was in Norway, a pair of Bf 109 fighters circled overhead to protect her from British air attacks, but Flying Officer Michael Suckling managed to fly his Spitfire directly over the German flotilla at a height of and take photos of
Bismarck and her escorts. Upon receipt of the information, Admiral
John Tovey ordered the
battlecruiser , the newly commissioned battleship , and six destroyers to reinforce the pair of cruisers patrolling the
Denmark Strait. The rest of the
Home Fleet was placed on high alert in Scapa Flow. Eighteen bombers were dispatched to attack the Germans, but weather over the
fjord had worsened and they were unable to find the German warships.
Bismarck did not replenish her fuel stores in Norway, as her operational orders did not require her to do so. She had left port short of a full load, and had since expended another on the voyage from Gotenhafen.
Prinz Eugen took on of fuel. At 19:30 on 21 May,
Bismarck,
Prinz Eugen, and the three escorting destroyers left Bergen. At midnight, when the force was in the open sea, heading towards the Arctic Ocean, Raeder disclosed the operation to Hitler, who reluctantly consented to the raid. The three escorting destroyers were detached at 04:14 on 22 May, while the force steamed off
Trondheim. At around 12:00, Lütjens ordered his two ships to turn toward the Denmark Strait to attempt the break-out into the open Atlantic. The same bad weather that had encouraged Lütjens to start the break-out attempt, prevented any reconnaissance flights over Bergen. But at 16:00 a
Martin Maryland managed to take off from
RNAS Hatston and made it to Bergen where it could see the harbour was empty. On receiving the report, Tovey left Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet at 22:15. By 04:00 on 23 May, Lütjens ordered
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen to increase speed to to make the dash through the Denmark Strait. Upon entering the Strait, both ships activated their FuMO radar detection equipment sets.
Bismarck led
Prinz Eugen by about ; mist reduced visibility to . The Germans encountered some ice at around 10:00, which necessitated a reduction in speed to . Two hours later, the pair had reached a point north of Iceland. The ships were forced to zigzag to avoid
ice floes. At 19:22,
hydrophone and radar operators aboard the German warships detected the cruiser at a range of approximately .
Prinz Eugens radio-intercept team decrypted the radio signals being sent by
Suffolk and learned that their location had been reported. Lütjens gave permission for
Prinz Eugen to engage
Suffolk, but the captain of the German cruiser could not clearly make out his target and so held fire.
Suffolk quickly retreated to a safe distance and shadowed the German ships. At 20:30, the heavy cruiser joined
Suffolk, but approached the German raiders too closely. Lütjens ordered his ships to engage the British cruiser;
Bismarck fired five salvoes, three of which straddled
Norfolk and rained shell splinters on her decks. The cruiser laid a smoke screen and fled into a fog bank, ending the brief engagement. The concussion from the 38 cm guns' firing disabled
Bismarcks FuMO 23 radar set; this prompted Lütjens to order
Prinz Eugen to take station ahead so she could use her functioning radar to scout for the formation. At around 22:00, Lütjens ordered
Bismarck to make a 180-degree turn in an effort to surprise the two heavy cruisers shadowing him. Although
Bismarck was visually obscured in a rain squall,
Suffolks radar quickly detected the manoeuvre, allowing the cruiser to evade. The cruisers remained on station through the night, continually relaying the location and bearing of the German ships. The harsh weather broke on the morning of 24 May, revealing a clear sky. At 05:07, hydrophone operators aboard
Prinz Eugen detected a pair of unidentified vessels approaching the German formation at a range of , reporting "Noise of two fast-moving turbine ships at 280° relative bearing!"
Battle of the Denmark Strait At 05:45 on 24 May, German lookouts spotted smoke on the horizon; this turned out to be from
Hood and
Prince of Wales, under the command of
Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland. Lütjens ordered his ships' crews to
battle stations. By 05:52, the range had fallen to and
Hood opened fire, followed by
Prince of Wales a minute later.
Hood engaged
Prinz Eugen, which the British thought to be
Bismarck, while
Prince of Wales fired on
Bismarck.
Adalbert Schneider, the first gunnery officer aboard
Bismarck, twice requested permission to return fire, but Lütjens hesitated. Lindemann intervened, muttering "I will not let my ship be shot out from under my ass." He demanded permission to fire from Lütjens, who relented and at 05:55 ordered his ships to engage the British. The British ships approached the German ships head on, which permitted them to use only their forward guns;
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen could fire full
broadsides. Several minutes after opening fire, Holland ordered a 20° turn to port, which would allow his ships to engage with their rear gun turrets. Both German ships concentrated their fire on
Hood. About a minute after opening fire,
Prinz Eugen scored a hit with a high-explosive shell; the explosion detonated
unrotated projectile ammunition and started a large fire, which was quickly extinguished. After firing three four-gun salvoes, Schneider had found the range to
Hood; he immediately ordered rapid-fire salvoes from
Bismarcks eight 38 cm guns. He also ordered the ship's 15 cm secondary guns to engage
Prince of Wales. Holland then ordered a second 20° turn to port, to bring his ships on a parallel course with
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen. Lütjens ordered
Prinz Eugen to shift fire and target
Prince of Wales, to keep both of his opponents under fire. Within a few minutes,
Prinz Eugen scored a pair of hits on the battleship that started a small fire. Lütjens then ordered
Prinz Eugen to drop behind
Bismarck, so she could continue to monitor the location of
Norfolk and
Suffolk, which were still to the east. At 06:00,
Hood was completing the second turn to port when
Bismarcks fifth salvo hit. Two of the shells landed short, striking the water close to the ship, but at least one of the 38 cm
armour-piercing shells struck
Hood and penetrated her thin deck armour. The shell reached
Hoods rear ammunition magazine and detonated of
cordite propellant. The massive explosion broke the back of the ship between the main mast and the rear funnel; the forward section continued to move forward briefly before the in-rushing water caused the bow to rise into the air at a steep angle. The stern also rose as water rushed into the ripped-open compartments. Schneider exclaimed "He is sinking!" over the ship's loudspeakers. In only eight minutes of firing,
Hood had disappeared, taking all but three of her crew of 1,419 men with her.
Bismarck then shifted fire to
Prince of Wales. The British battleship scored a hit on
Bismarck with her sixth salvo, but the German ship found her mark with her first salvo. One of the shells struck the bridge on
Prince of Wales, though it did not explode and instead exited the other side, killing everyone in the ship's command centre, save Captain
John Leach, the ship's commanding officer, and one other. The two German ships continued to fire upon
Prince of Wales, causing serious damage. Guns malfunctioned on the recently commissioned British ship, which still had civilian technicians aboard. Despite the technical faults in the main battery,
Prince of Wales scored three hits on
Bismarck in the engagement. The first struck her in the
forecastle above the waterline but low enough to allow the crashing waves to enter the hull. The second shell struck below the armoured belt and exploded on contact with the
torpedo bulkhead, completely flooding a turbo-generator room and partially flooding an adjacent boiler room. The third shell passed through one of the boats carried aboard the ship and then went through the floatplane catapult without exploding. At 06:13, Leach gave the order to retreat; only five of his ship's ten guns were still firing and his ship had sustained significant damage.
Prince of Wales made a 160° turn and laid a smoke screen to cover her withdrawal. The Germans ceased fire as the range widened. Though Lindemann strongly advocated chasing
Prince of Wales and destroying her, Lütjens obeyed operational orders to shun any avoidable engagement with enemy forces that were not protecting a convoy, firmly rejecting the request, and instead ordered
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen to head for the North Atlantic. In the engagement,
Bismarck had fired 93 armour-piercing shells and had been hit by three shells in return. The forecastle hit allowed of water to flood into the ship, which contaminated fuel oil stored in the bow. Lütjens refused to reduce speed to allow damage control teams to repair the shell hole which widened and allowed more water into the ship. The second hit caused some additional flooding. Shell-splinters from the second hit also damaged a steam line in the turbo-generator room, but this was not serious, as
Bismarck had sufficient other generator reserves. The combined flooding from these two hits caused a 9-degree
list to port and a 3-degree
trim by the bow. While
Prince of Wales was retreating, the hydrophone operators on
Prinz Eugen detected torpedoes. It was unlikely that torpedoes were actually fired but both German ships took evasive manoeuvres. At the same time a shadowing
Short Sunderland flying boat from
No. 201 Squadron RAF approached too closely and the German heavy anti-aircraft artillery fired on it. A
Lockheed Hudson from
No. 269 Squadron RAF witnessed the battle from a distance and remained in touch until 08:08. After the battle, the Sunderland reported the oil slick and guided the destroyer to the site where
Hood had blown up. The destroyer found only three survivors.
Chase After the engagement, Lütjens reported, "Battlecruiser, probably
Hood, sunk. Another battleship,
King George V or
Renown, turned away damaged. Two heavy cruisers maintain contact." At 08:01, he transmitted a damage report and his intentions to OKM, which were to detach
Prinz Eugen for commerce raiding and to make for
Saint-Nazaire for repairs. Shortly after 10:00, Lütjens ordered
Prinz Eugen to fall behind
Bismarck to determine the severity of the oil leakage from the bow hit. After confirming "broad streams of oil on both sides of [
Bismarcks] wake",
Prinz Eugen returned to the forward position. About an hour later, the shadowing Sunderland reported the oil slick to
Suffolk and
Norfolk, which had been joined by the damaged
Prince of Wales. Rear Admiral
Frederic Wake-Walker, the commander of the two cruisers, ordered
Prince of Wales to remain behind his ships. When
Dönitz offered the assistance of all Atlantic U-boats, Lütjens requested to set up a patrol line on the extrapolated route of
Bismarck into the open Atlantic. Five U-boats—, , , , and were ordered to take up positions south of Greenland where they were expected to make contact in the morning of 25 May. Since Lütjens had intentions to make for a French port, a second group of U-boats consisting of , , , , and was stationed in the
Bay of Biscay. Three other U-boats—, , and —were rushing to reinforce the trap. and were ordered to sail from port to reinforce the Biscay group. Prime Minister
Winston Churchill ordered all warships in the area to join the pursuit of
Bismarck and
Prinz Eugen. Tovey's Home Fleet was steaming to intercept the German raiders, but on the morning of 24 May was still over away. The Admiralty ordered the light cruisers , , and to patrol the Denmark Strait in case Lütjens attempted to retrace his route. The battleship , which had been escorting and was due for a refit in the
Boston Navy Yard, joined Tovey. Two old s were ordered into the hunt: , from Halifax, and , which was escorting Convoy HX 127. In all, six battleships and battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers, thirteen cruisers, and twenty-one destroyers were committed to the chase. By around 17:00, the crew aboard
Prince of Wales restored nine of her ten main guns to working order, which permitted Wake-Walker to place her in the front of his formation to attack
Bismarck if the opportunity arose. With the weather worsening, Lütjens attempted to detach
Prinz Eugen at 16:40. The squall was not heavy enough to cover her withdrawal from Wake-Walker's cruisers, which continued to maintain radar contact.
Prinz Eugen was therefore recalled temporarily. The cruiser was successfully detached at 18:14.
Bismarck turned around to face Wake-Walker's formation, forcing
Suffolk to turn away at high speed.
Prince of Wales fired twelve salvos at
Bismarck, which responded with nine salvos, none of which hit. The action diverted British attention and permitted
Prinz Eugen to slip away. After
Bismarck resumed her previous heading, Wake-Walker's three ships took up station on
Bismarcks port side. Although
Bismarck had been damaged in the engagement with
Hood and forced to reduce speed, she was still capable of reaching , the maximum speed of Tovey's . Unless
Bismarck could be slowed, the British would be unable to prevent her from reaching Saint-Nazaire. Shortly before 16:00 on 25 May, Tovey detached the aircraft carrier and four light cruisers to shape a course that would position her to launch her
torpedo bombers. At 22:00,
Victorious launched the strike, which comprised nine
Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of
825 Naval Air Squadron, led by Lt Cdr
Eugene Esmonde. The inexperienced aviators nearly attacked
Norfolk and the U.S. Coast Guard cutter on their approach; the confusion alerted
Bismarcks anti-aircraft gunners.
Bismarck also used her main and secondary batteries to fire at maximum depression to create giant splashes in the paths of the incoming torpedo bombers. None of the attacking aircraft were shot down. One of the Swordfish lost its way in the cloud and failed to attack.
Bismarck evaded seven of the torpedoes launched at her, but the eighth struck amidships on the main armoured belt, throwing one man into a bulkhead and killing him and injuring five others. The explosion also caused minor damage to electrical equipment. The ship suffered more serious damage from manoeuvres to evade the torpedoes: rapid shifts in speed and course loosened
collision mats, which increased the flooding from the forward shell hole and eventually forced abandonment of the port number 2 boiler room. This loss of a second boiler, combined with fuel losses and increasing bow trim, forced the ship to slow to . Divers repaired the collision mats in the bow, after which speed increased to , the speed that the command staff determined was the most economical for the voyage to occupied France. Shortly after the Swordfish departed from the scene,
Bismarck and
Prince of Wales engaged in a brief artillery duel. Neither scored a hit.
Bismarcks damage control teams resumed work after the short engagement. The sea water that had flooded the number 2 port side boiler threatened to enter the number 4 turbo-generator feedwater system, which would have permitted saltwater to reach the turbines. The saltwater would have damaged the turbine blades and thus greatly reduced the ship's speed. By morning on 25 May, the danger had passed. The ship slowed to to allow divers to pump fuel from the forward compartments to the rear tanks; two hoses were successfully connected and a few hundred tons of fuel were transferred. As the chase entered open waters, Wake-Walker's ships were compelled to zig-zag to avoid German U-boats that might be in the area. This required the ships to steam for ten minutes to port, then ten minutes to starboard, to keep the ships on the same base course. For the last few minutes of the turn to port,
Bismarck was out of range of
Suffolks radar. At 03:00 on 25 May, Lütjens decided to abandon the plan to lure the pursuers to the U-boat trap and to head directly for France. He ordered an increase to maximum speed, which at this point was . He then ordered the ship to circle away to the west and then north. This manoeuvre coincided with the period during which his ship was out of radar range;
Bismarck successfully broke radar contact and circled back behind her pursuers.
Suffolks captain assumed that
Bismarck had broken off to the west and attempted to find her by also steaming west. After half an hour, he informed Wake-Walker, who ordered the three ships to disperse at daylight to search visually. The Royal Navy search widened, despite the fact that many of the British ships were low on fuel.
Victorious and her escorting cruisers were sent west, Wake-Walker's ships continued to the south and west, and Tovey continued to steam toward the mid-Atlantic.
Force H, with the aircraft carrier and steaming up from
Gibraltar, was still at least a day away. Unaware that he had shaken off Wake-Walker, Lütjens sent long radio messages to Naval Group West headquarters in Paris. The signals were intercepted by the British, from which bearings were determined. They were wrongly plotted on board
King George V, leading Tovey to believe that
Bismarck was heading back to Germany through the Iceland-Faeroe gap, which kept his fleet on the wrong course for seven hours. By the time the mistake had been discovered,
Bismarck had put a sizeable gap between herself and the British ships. British code-breakers were able to decrypt some of the German signals, including an order to the Luftwaffe to provide support for
Bismarck making for Brest, decrypted by
Jane Fawcett on 25 May 1941. The
French Resistance provided the British with confirmation that Luftwaffe units were relocating there. Tovey could now turn his forces toward France to converge in areas through which
Bismarck would have to pass. Two
Consolidated Catalina flying boats from
No. 209 Squadron RAF and
No. 240 Squadron RAF based out of
RAF Castle Archdale in
Northern Ireland joined the search, covering areas where
Bismarck might head in the attempt to reach occupied France. At 10:30 on 26 May, a Catalina piloted by British Flying Officer Dennis Briggs and co-piloted by Ensign
Leonard B. Smith of the US Navy located her, some northwest of Brest. At her current speed, she would have been close enough to reach the protection of U-boats and the Luftwaffe in less than a day. Most British forces were not close enough to stop her. The only possibility for the Royal Navy was
Ark Royal with Force H, under the command of Admiral
James Somerville.
Victorious,
Prince of Wales,
Suffolk and were forced to break off the search due to fuel shortage; the only heavy ships remaining apart from Force H were
King George V and
Rodney, but they were too distant.
Ark Royals Swordfish were already searching nearby when the Catalina found her. Several torpedo bombers also located the battleship, about away from
Ark Royal. Somerville ordered an attack as soon as the Swordfish returned and were rearmed with torpedoes. He detached the cruiser to shadow
Bismarck, though
Ark Royals aviators were not informed of this. As a result, the Swordfish, which were armed with torpedoes equipped with magnetic
detonators, accidentally attacked
Sheffield. The magnetic detonators failed to work properly and
Sheffield emerged unscathed. Upon returning to
Ark Royal, the Swordfish loaded torpedoes equipped with contact detonators. The second attack comprised fifteen aircraft and was launched at 19:10. At 19:50,
Ark Royal and
Renown passed the position of
U-556. The U-boat was in an ideal shooting position, but had expended all torpedoes on previous operations and could not launch an attack. Before attacking, the Swordfish made first contact at 20:00 with
Sheffield, which gave them a direction to
Bismarck. They could not however find the German ship and at 20:30 asked again for direction from
Sheffield. Finally at 20:47, the torpedo bombers began their attack descent through the clouds. As the Swordfish approached,
Bismarck again fired her main battery at the aircraft, trying to catch planes in splash columns. The Swordfish then attacked;
Bismarck began to turn violently as her anti-aircraft batteries engaged the bombers. One torpedo hit amidships on the port side, just below the bottom edge of the main armour belt. The force of the explosion was largely contained by the underwater protection system and the belt armour but some structural damage caused minor flooding. The second torpedo struck
Bismarck in her stern on the port side, near the port rudder shaft. The coupling on the port rudder assembly was badly damaged and the rudder became locked in a 12° turn to port. The explosion also caused much shock damage. The crew eventually managed to repair the starboard rudder but the port rudder remained jammed. A suggestion to sever the port rudder with explosives was dismissed by Lütjens, as damage to the screws would have left the battleship helpless. At 21:15, Lütjens reported that the ship was unmanoeuvrable.
Sinking With the port rudder jammed,
Bismarck was now steaming in a large circle, unable to escape from Tovey's forces. Though fuel shortages had reduced the number of ships available to the British, the battleships
King George V and
Rodney were still available, along with the heavy cruisers
Dorsetshire and
Norfolk. Lütjens signalled headquarters at 21:40 on the 26th: "Ship unmanoeuvrable. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Führer." The mood of the crew became increasingly depressed, especially as messages from the naval command reached the ship. Intended to boost morale, the messages only highlighted the desperate situation in which the crew found itself. As the Swordfish returned to the carrier,
Bismarck briefly fired her main battery at the shadowing
Sheffield. The first salvo went a mile astray, but the second salvo straddled the cruiser. Shell splinters rained down on
Sheffield, killing three men and wounding two others. Four more salvoes were fired but no hits were scored.
Sheffield quickly retreated under cover of a smoke screen.
Sheffield lost contact in the low visibility and Captain
Philip Vian's group of five destroyers was ordered to keep contact with
Bismarck through the night. These destroyers encountered
Bismarck at 22:38; the battleship quickly engaged them with her main battery. After firing three salvos, she straddled the
Polish destroyer . The destroyer continued to close the range until a near miss at around forced her to turn away. Throughout the night and into the morning, Vian's destroyers harried
Bismarck, illuminating her with
star shells and firing sixteen torpedoes in nine separate attacks, none of which hit. Between 05:00 and 06:00,
Bismarcks crew attempted to launch one of the Arado 196 float planes to carry away the ship's war diary, footage of the engagement with
Hood, and other important documents. The third shell hit from
Prince of Wales had damaged the steam line on the aircraft catapult, rendering it inoperative. As it was not possible to launch the aircraft, it had become a fire hazard, and was pushed overboard. Lütjens then asked at 07:10 if a U-boat could rendezvous with
Bismarck to fetch these documents.
U-556 was assigned at once to this task, but the U-boat missed the signalled order because it was submerged.
U-556 was anyway too low on fuel to be able to carry out the order. After daybreak on 27 May,
King George V led the attack.
Rodney followed off her port quarter; Tovey intended to steam directly at
Bismarck until he was about away. At that point, he would turn south to put his ships parallel to his target. At 08:43, lookouts on
King George V spotted her, some away. Four minutes later,
Rodneys two forward turrets, comprising six guns, opened fire, then
King George Vs guns began firing.
Bismarck returned fire at 08:50 with her forward guns; with her second salvo, she straddled
Rodney. Thereafter,
Bismarcks ability to aim her guns deteriorated as the ship, unable to steer, moved erratically in the heavy seas and deprived Schneider of a predictable course for range calculations. As the range fell, the ships' secondary batteries joined the battle.
Norfolk and
Dorsetshire closed and began firing with their guns. At 09:02, a 16-inch shell from
Rodney struck
Bismarcks forward
superstructure, killing hundreds of men and severely damaging the two forward turrets. According to survivors, this salvo probably killed both Lindemann and Lütjens and the rest of the bridge staff, although other survivors stated that they saw Lindemann on the deck as the ship sank. The main fire control director was also destroyed by this hit, which probably also killed Schneider. A second shell from this salvo struck the forward main battery, which was disabled, though it fired one last salvo at 09:27. Lieutenant Müllenheim-Rechberg, in the rear control station, took over firing control for the rear turrets. He managed to fire three salvos before a shell destroyed the gun director, disabling his equipment. He gave the order for the guns to fire independently, but by 09:31, all four main battery turrets had been put out of action. One of
Bismarcks shells exploded 20 feet off
Rodneys bow and damaged her starboard torpedo tube—the closest
Bismarck came to a direct hit on her opponents. At 09:10
Rodney launched six of her
torpedoes from a distance of and
Norfolk launched four from . All torpedoes missed. With the bridge personnel no longer responding, the executive officer
Fregattenkapitän Hans Oels took command of the ship from his station at the Damage Control Central. Some near misses alongside the port side, and the fact that the ship was no longer able to fight back, caused Oels to decide at around 09:30 to scuttle
Bismarck to prevent the ship being boarded by the British, and to allow the crew to abandon ship so as to reduce casualties.
Bismarck was also slowly sinking due to an increasing list that allowed water to enter the ship via damage to the main deck, leading to significant
free surface effects, although the ship's very large metacentric height kept her afloat. At around 09:30 Oels ordered the men below decks to abandon ship; he instructed the engine room crews to open the ship's watertight doors and to prepare scuttling charges. The order to prepare to scuttle meant that watertight hatches between decks would be left open, ensuring that water that entered the battery deck via shell damage would start to penetrate below the battery deck, significantly increasing the list and eventually causing
Bismarck to capsize. Gerhard Junack, the chief engineering officer, ordered his men to set the demolition charges with a 9-minute fuse but the intercom system broke down and he sent a messenger to confirm the order to scuttle the ship. The messenger never returned, so Junack primed the charges and ordered his men to abandon ship. They left the engine spaces at around 10:10. Junack and his comrades heard the demolition charges detonate as they made their way up through the various levels. Oels rushed throughout the ship, ordering men to abandon their posts. At around 10:05 to 10:10, a 14-inch shell from
King George V penetrated the upper citadel belt and exploded in the ship's aft canteen, killing Oels on the gun deck and about a hundred others. By 10:00, Tovey's two battleships had fired over 700 main battery shells, many at very close range.
Rodney closed to ,
point-blank range for guns of that size, and continued to fire.
Bismarck had been reduced to a shambles, aflame from bow to stern. She was slowly settling by the stern from uncontrolled flooding with a 20 degree list to port. Tovey would not cease fire until the Germans
struck their ensigns or it became clear they were abandoning ship. Overall the four British ships fired more than 2,800 shells at
Bismarck, and scored more than 400 hits, but were unable to sink
Bismarck by gunfire. The heavy gunfire at virtually point-blank range devastated
Bismarck's superstructure and the sections of the hull that were above the waterline, causing very heavy casualties, but it contributed little to the eventual sinking of the ship.
Rodney fired two torpedoes from her port-side tube and claimed one hit. According to
Ludovic Kennedy, "if true, [this is] the only instance in history of one battleship torpedoing another". The scuttling charges detonated around 10:20. By 10:35, the ship had assumed a heavy port list, capsizing slowly and sinking by the stern. At around 10:20, running low on fuel, Tovey ordered the cruiser
Dorsetshire to sink
Bismarck with torpedoes and ordered his battleships back to port.
Dorsetshire fired a pair of torpedoes into
Bismarcks starboard side, one of which hit.
Dorsetshire then moved around to her port side and fired another torpedo, which also hit. By the time these torpedo attacks took place, the ship was already listing so badly that the deck was partly awash. It appears that the final torpedo may have detonated against
Bismarcks port side superstructure, which was by then already underwater.
Bismarck disappeared beneath the surface at 10:40. Junack, who had abandoned ship by the time it capsized, observed no underwater damage to the ship's starboard side. Müllenheim-Rechberg reported the same but assumed that the port side, which was then under water, had been more significantly damaged. Some survivors reported they saw Captain Lindemann standing at attention at the stem of the ship as she sank. Around eight-hundred to a thousand men were now in the water;
Dorsetshire and the destroyer moved in and lowered ropes to pull the survivors aboard. At 11:40,
Dorsetshires captain ordered the rescue effort abandoned after lookouts spotted what they thought was a U-boat.
Dorsetshire had rescued 85 men and
Maori had picked up 25 by the time they left the scene.
U-74, which had been watching the action from a distance, rescued three men from a rubber dinghy in the evening at 19:30. The next day the German trawler rescued another two from a raft at 22:45. One of the men picked up by the British died of his wounds the following day. Out of a crew of over 2,200 men, only 114 survived. == Wreckage ==