WHO SANK THE BISMARCK
- 4 years ago
The German battleship Bismarck, her steering gear knocked out by a torpedo and unable to maneuver, is finally cornered and sunk by ships and planes from the Royal Navy, ending one of the most intensive naval manhunts in history.
*Schlachtschiff *Bismarck, pride of the Kriegsmarine, was a state-of-the-art warship in all respects save one: Battleships were already in their twilight as a dominant offensive naval weapon when the Bismarck slid down the ways at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, although few yet grasped this reality. The advent of carrier-borne aircraft, including dive bombers and torpedo planes, meant that the battleship, despite its bristling array of weaponry, was terribly vulnerable and therefore obsolete.
The British were no more cognizant of this fact than the Germans were when the Bismarck, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, weighed anchor in Norway on May 21 for Operation Rheinübung, its first sortie against enemy merchant shipping. The British Admiralty, made aware of the Germans' departure, alerted its squadrons at sea that Bismarck was breaking out into the North Atlantic.
*Schlachtschiff *Bismarck, pride of the Kriegsmarine, was a state-of-the-art warship in all respects save one: Battleships were already in their twilight as a dominant offensive naval weapon when the Bismarck slid down the ways at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, although few yet grasped this reality. The advent of carrier-borne aircraft, including dive bombers and torpedo planes, meant that the battleship, despite its bristling array of weaponry, was terribly vulnerable and therefore obsolete.
The British were no more cognizant of this fact than the Germans were when the Bismarck, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, weighed anchor in Norway on May 21 for Operation Rheinübung, its first sortie against enemy merchant shipping. The British Admiralty, made aware of the Germans' departure, alerted its squadrons at sea that Bismarck was breaking out into the North Atlantic.