Episode 13

A flight of Swordfish speeds east toward the Bismarck. The hope of the Royal Navy rests on their wings.

20:47 hours

The 15 Swordfish pilots know that this is their last shot. Soon it will be dark, and by dawn the next day, the Bismarck will be in range of the Luftwaffe air bases on the French coast. No one else can get here in time. They sight the Bismarck and start their attack run, coming in piecemeal after losing formation in the clouds. They fly low, some only 50 feet above the cresting waves. The Bismarck lights up with anti-aircraft fire, filling the air so thick with shells that the pilots hunch in their open cockpits. Crewman scream as shrapnel tears their unprotected bodies. One Swordfish takes 175 hits. But they don't go down. Torpedoes hit the water. One strikes Bismarck on it's thick armor belt. The great ship waves and dodges. Huges waves send the tinfish at crazy angles. One pilot is about to loose when he hears his navigator yell "Not now!" He turns to see the man hanging upside-down from the side of the plane. Judging wave patterns so that the torpedo runs straight. "Ok, let it go!" It's a textbook shot two ship lengths ahead. The Bismarck makes an evasive turn, but the torpedo strikes its stern. There's a blast of flame and water, but the great ship sails on unaffected. As the bloodied Swordfish crews climb out of their aircraft they report that they've failed. But a report comes in saying that the Bismarck is behaving erratically. She hasn't recovered from her evasive turn and has circled northwest, into the wind and directly away from the French coast. The torpedo knocked out her steering. The pilots erupt in celebration.

7th of May. 00:00 hours. On the King George V.

Admiral Tovey finally has the opportunity he's needed to close the jaws on Bismarck. Over the last few hours, he's ordered destroyers to bracket the ship in order to ensure that Bismarck doesn't escape again. A few harassed it with torpedoes. One Polish destroyer flashing message "I AM A POLE" while firing. But mostly they're keeping their distance. There will be no night attack, Tovey decides. Catching up will cost precious fuel, and Bismarck has proved too dangerous to fight in less than ideal conditions. He'll wait until morning.

08:45 hours,

for the first tie since beginning this mission Tovey sees Bismarck with his own eyes. Behind him is the HMS Rodney. The Rodney is old, slow and leaking below decks, but it's 16-inch guns are the largest in the Royal Navy. Though barely able to maneuver, Bismarck's guns are still fully operational. Tovey's plan is to approach Bismarck from all sides, forcing the ship to split its fire between his four ships. But first the battleships must drive in hard from the west with only their forward turrets firing. The same maneuver that doomed the Hood. The Rodney opens fire at a range of 12 miles. Spray leaps up in front of the Bismarck high enough that it spoils the targeting on King George V's first salvo. Three minutes later, Bismarck answers, its opening salvo landing all around Rodney. Back and forth the three ships trade fire, the Rodney and King George V plunging forward at top speed in the heavy seas. The pace renders the Rodney's engine room nearly uninhabitable. Crewman hose her overheating boilers down with sea water. Every salvo blows the boiler doors open with a rush of flame. And each curtain of fire from the Bismarck creeps closer to the Rodney. On the Bismarck's third salvo fountains of water bracket the old ship. Shrapnel lances through her superstructure. The Rodney is dead to rights, expecting a hit. But then, she fires. The 16-inch shell smashes into Bismarck's main fire control director. Her guns fall quiet in the absence of orders. The British battleships turn and split up, surrounding the Bismarck, pounding her with broadsides from two angles. After a pause the Bismarck turns slightly to put King George V in view of its undamaged aft fire director, its salvoes barely missing Tovey's flagship. But the British have found their range. Three minutes after her first hit Rodney nails Bismarck's B-turret, penetrating the armor with a blast so powerful the concussion temporarily knocks neighbouring A-turret out of action. Bismarck's counter-fire dwindles, each turret firing erratically and independently. Now even Tovey's cruisers have joined the pummeling. The 8-inch guns of Norfolk and Dorsetshire are too small to sink the Bismarck, but they tear through its unarmoured upper decks. The Bismarck's superstructure begins to come apart. An ammunition locker explodes. The fire director station flies through the air like a kicked can. Flames reach as high as the mainmast. The bridge collapses forward. By 09:30 hours, Bismarck's four great turrets have fired their last salvo,and shots from her secondary guns dwindle. The Rodney closes to point-blank range, 2,000 yards, and begins slamming broadsides into the hull. Three fires rage on Bismarck's deck. Holes appear in the upper hull. So many shells are pounding the bow that it's red-hot,hissing with steam every time it plunges into the heavy sea. Watching through binoculars, Royal Navy officers see a little trickle of men emerge from Bismarck. They run along the deck, sheltering behind the blasted turrets or jumping in bunches into the sea. For many of the British, it's the first time they've seen the enemy. It sickens them. German sailors try to signal surrender, but the next volley cuts them down. Aboard the Rodney, a chaplain tearfully begs the ship's captain to stop. But their orders are clear: the Bismarck must be sunk. Yet the ship stubbornly refuses to go under. Tovey's ships circle, hammering her with every weapon they have, pounding away until the stress of their guns shatter windows and open leaks in their own ships. For fifty minutes they dismember the Bismarck, firing over 2,800 shells. At 10:21 hours, the guns go quiet. Tovey's ships have expended so much fuel that they're in danger of not being able to get back home. Tovey orders his ships to make for Scapa Flow. The Dorsetshire will finish the Bismarck. Dorsetshire moves to point-blank range and fires two torpedoes into the Bismarck's starboard side and another into the port side. The pride of Hitler's fleet heels over, her lower hull glowing from internal fires, and gradually sinks by the stern. Within 15 seconds, she's gone. The Dorsetshire throws nets over its side to pick up German survivors. Her sailors try to haul as many as they can aboard, but some are badly burned or missing limbs. Safe on deck, crewmen hand their half-frozen enemies rum and hot cocoa, pity eclipsing their anger over the loss of the Hood. But then a lookout spots a U-boat periscope. German submarines are known to converge on sinking ships, and in order to save his crew the Dorsetshire's captain gives an unthinkable order unless they want to join the Bismarck, they must get underway. The ship begins to pull forward with hundreds of wailing men still floating around her. Some cling to the nets as she begins to move, losing their grip and drifting to stern as she gains speed. 2,200 men served on Bismarck, only 114 survived. The time is 12:00 hours. Churchill tells Parliament that the Bismarck has been sunk. The news goes out via radio minutes later, greeted by three cheers in the Bletchley Park canteen. It's a major victory for the codebreakers, proof that their program can deliver results. The victory comes at a crucial time. It distracts the press from Royal Navy losses in the Mediterranean, and signals to the US Congress, still divided over American convoys, that the Royal Navy can defend American shipping. In Germany, propagandists spin the Bismarck's sinking as a noble last stand, but Hitler receives a different message. He's never trusted naval power. Capital ships are too expensive, too vulnerable to air raids, and their loss is too public, plus they gobble up Germany's limited fuel resources. The Royal Navy could have the Atlantic. From now on he would use his capital ships defensively, and employ U-boats to harass convoys. After all, his focus was needed elsewhere. In three weeks, Germany's forces would invade the Soviet Union, and he'd have plenty of time to deal with the troublesome English once he'd captured Moscow. Or so he thought.

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