Battle of the Denmark Strait

The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a naval engagement in the Second World War, which took place on 24 May 1941 between ships of the Royal Navy and the ''Kriegsmarine''. The British battleship and the battlecruiser fought the German battleship and the heavy cruiser , which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to attack Allied merchant shipping (Operation Rheinübung).

Less than 10 minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from ''Bismarck'' struck ''Hood'' near her aft ammunition magazines. Soon afterwards, ''Hood'' exploded and sank within three minutes, with the loss of all but three of her crew. ''Prince of Wales'' continued to exchange fire with ''Bismarck'' but suffered serious malfunctions in her main armament. The British battleship had only been completed in late March 1941, and used new quadruple gun turrets that were unreliable. ''Prince of Wales'' soon broke off the engagement.

The battle was a tactical victory for the Germans, but its impact was short-lived. The damage done to ''Bismarcks forward fuel tanks forced the abandonment of the breakout and an attempt to escape to dry dock facilities in occupied France, producing an operational victory for the British. Incensed by the loss of ''Hood'', a large British force pursued ''Bismarck'', resulting in her loss three days later.

Background

German plans

In April 1941, the German ''Kriegsmarine'' intended to send the recently completed fast battleship into the Atlantic Ocean to raid the convoys carrying supplies from North America to Britain. The operation was intended to complement the U-boat attacks on British supply lines during the Battle of the Atlantic. The two fast battleships and had just completed a similar operation, code-named Berlin, between January and March that year. The number of major warships available to the Germans was limited; ''Bismarck''s sister ship was not yet operational, ''Scharnhorst'' was in need of a boiler overhaul after Operation Berlin, and ''Gneisenau'' had been torpedoed while in Brest, France. Work on the heavy cruisers and , both under refit in Germany after their own raiding operations, was delayed by British air attacks that struck supply depots in Kiel. Admiral Günther Lütjens, the fleet commander who was to command German forces during the planned Operation Rheinübung, sought to delay until repairs to ''Scharnhorst'' were completed or ''Tirpitz'' could join ''Bismarck'', but the ''Oberkommando der Marine'' (Naval High Command) instructed Lütjens to begin the operation as soon as possible to keep pressure on Britain's supply lines. As a result, the only vessel available to support ''Bismarck'' was the heavy cruiser .

British plans

The British Royal Navy learned of ''Bismarck''s sortie after the Swedish cruiser spotted the vessels passing through the western Baltic Sea on 20 May; ''Gotland''s report was passed to the British naval attache in Stockholm, who forwarded it to the Admiralty. British reconnaissance aircraft confirmed the Germans' presence in Norway. Now aware that major German warships were at sea with the intention to break into the Atlantic, the Royal Navy began to despatch vessels to patrol the likely routes, including the heavy cruisers and to cover the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. Another group, consisting of the battleship ''Prince of Wales'', the battlecruiser , and a screen of six destroyers, under the command of Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland in ''Hood'', cruised to the south of Iceland to intercept the Germans once they were detected. ''Norfolk'' and ''Suffolk'' spotted ''Bismarck'' and ''Prinz Eugen'' on the evening of 23 May; ''Suffolk'' was fitted with radar that allowed them to shadow the Germans through the night whilst remaining outside of German gun range.

''Prince of Wales'' was a newly commissioned ''King George V''-class battleship, similar to ''Bismarck'' in size and power. ''Prince of Wales'' had not yet been properly "shaken down", and her crew was inexperienced. She still had mechanical problems, especially with her main armament. The ship had sailed with shipyard workers still aboard working on her.

For 20 years after her commissioning in 1920, ''Hood'' was the largest and heaviest warship in the world. Combining eight massive BL 15-inch Mk I naval guns with a top speed greater than any battleship on the sea, ''Hood'' was the pride of Great Britain's navy, and embodied the world dominance of British naval power. Despite this, ''Hood'' had one conspicuous flaw as compared to the super-dreadnought battleships she served alongside: as a battlecruiser, much of her bulk was dedicated to extra engine power instead of comprehensive armour coverage. This came from her design as a Admiral-class battlecruiser to meet the threat of the German ''Mackensen''-class battlecruisers during World War I.

While her 12-inch belt armour was considered sufficient against most capital ships she was likely to encounter, her 3 inches of deck armour left her vulnerable to plunging fire at long range. At the time of her commissioning in World War I, naval gunnery was severely inaccurate at the ranges necessary to produce plunging fire, and ''Hood's'' greater speed and maneuverability were seen as an acceptable trade-off. However, as the accuracy of naval gunfire increased in the inter-war period, ''Hood'' was eventually scheduled to receive an upgrade in 1939 that would have doubled her deck armour to 6 inches, but the outbreak of World War II meant the upgrade never took place. She thus sortied to war at a marked disadvantage against the new capital ships of the Axis powers.

Aware of ''Hoods inadequate protective armour, distant to the southeast of where the battle took place, Holland's superior (Admiral Sir John Tovey) considered ordering him to have ''Prince of Wales'' sail ahead of ''Hood''. With the ships in this position, Tovey concluded the better-protected ''Prince of Wales'' could draw the German battleships' large-shell gunfire. Ultimately, Tovey did not give the order, later saying "I did not feel such interference with such a senior officer justified."

Prelude

Both plans go awry

The ''Kriegsmarine'' had hoped that the ''Bismarck'' force would enter onto trans-Atlantic commerce raiding, from the Norwegian Sea via the Denmark Strait, undetected and unopposed. The Germans based this hope upon a transit from German territorial waters on the North Sea; and, through the territorial waters of German-occupied Norway into the Norwegian Sea, undetected by aerial searches; neutral ship encounters; and traditional "coast-watching" observations performed by formal and informal efforts of maritime intelligence gathering, in the neutral and occupied countries surrounding the North Sea.

In the event, the ground-level coast-watching observations from both neutral and occupied territories identified the principal combatant units sortied for the Exercise Rhine operation from the moment they left German territorial waters. The combatants (''Bismarck'' and ''Prinz Eugen'') were identified by in-country coast-watchers located in Denmark; who were able to identify the ships and communicate with their clandestine contacts, the dates and times of the German surface units, moving in their designated coast-watch areas of responsibility.

The ships of neutral Sweden acknowledged the transit of the main combatants in the normal shipping lanes in the North Sea, and reported on them in their normal routine to their maritime authorities. Swedish territory as well hosted individual ground-level coast watchers who were able to follow and report on movements in Swedish coastal waters. These observations were passed directly to Royal Navy intelligence by routine maritime diplomatic channels maintained by the British naval attaché in Stockholm. Thus, when ''Bismarck'' and her escort moved into the unoccupied fjords of German-occupied Norway, for final coastal refuelling and topping off of ships' stores and supplies, the RAF (weather permitting) was able to keep a final watch on the location and timing of the German raider force.

Holland's battle plan was to have ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' engage ''Bismarck'' while ''Suffolk'' and ''Norfolk'' engaged ''Prinz Eugen'' (which, Holland assumed, still steamed behind ''Bismarck'' and not ahead of her). He signalled this to Captain John C. Leach of ''Prince of Wales'' but did not radio Wake-Walker, who as Commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron directed ''Suffolk'' and ''Norfolk'', for fear of disclosing his location. Instead, he observed radio silence. Holland hoped to meet the enemy at approximately 02:00. Sunset in this latitude was at 01:51 (ship's clocks were four hours ahead of local time). ''Bismarck'' and ''Prinz Eugen'' would be silhouetted against the sun's afterglow while ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' could approach rapidly, unseen in the darkness, to a range close enough not to endanger ''Hood'' with plunging fire from ''Bismarck''. The Germans would not expect an attack from this quarter, giving the British the advantage of surprise.

The plan's success depended on ''Suffolk''s continually unbroken contact with the German ships. However, ''Suffolk'' lost contact from 00:28. For 90 minutes, Holland neither sighted the German ships nor received any further news from ''Norfolk'' or ''Suffolk''. Reluctantly, Holland ordered ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' to turn south-southwest but he detached his destroyers which continued searching to the north. However, the loss of contact should be understood as temporary and tactical only; and not strategic in terms of the tactical outcome. ''Suffolk'' lost contact with its reconnaissance target (the enemy fleet) in what was essentially a closed, confined rectangular space; aligned generally northeast (the entrance to the Denmark Strait) to southwest (the exit of the Strait into the Atlantic). The enemy units were firmly constrained by the Greenland ice pack to the north, and the extensive Royal Navy minefield to the south along the coast of Iceland. Given the prior warning of the German sortie, there was ample time for the Royal Navy to place armed reconnaissance at both ends of this narrow alignment. ''Suffolk'' and ''Norfolk'' were at the eastern entrance to the Strait (where contact was made immediately upon ''Bismarck''s entry). Holland was waiting at the western end as the ''Bismarck'' force exited the Strait.

Strategically, it was an unquestioned fact (including the approximate timing) that ''Bismarck''s and ''Prinz Eugen''s entrance into the Atlantic (the fundamental objective of Rhine Exercise), was known from the moment the fleet left German territorial waters. And that was a long enough time span before the fleet's final fitting out for transit to the Denmark Strait, that Lütjens could not have helped but to realize, that his force would not under any circumstance enter the Atlantic undetected nor would it enter unopposed. And by the time it was opposed, it would occur with forces that would likely ensure his fleet's ultimate destruction. And such destruction would take place before any supply convoy units (the whole purpose of the operation) were threatened by Operation Rhine Exercise.

Before contact was re-established, the two squadrons missed each other narrowly. Had the German ships not altered course to the west at 01:41 to follow the line of the Greenland icepack, the British would have intercepted them much earlier than they did. The British destroyers were just to the southeast when the Germans made this course change. If the visibility had not been reduced to , the German vessels would probably have been spotted (since generally on a calm, clear day ship lookouts can observe large objects and ships about 12 miles (19 km) distant on the horizon. And if the ship's lookouts are in a crow's nest, the observable distance is even farther).

Just before 03:00, ''Suffolk'' regained contact with ''Bismarck''. ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' were away, slightly ahead of the Germans. Holland signalled to steer toward the Germans and increased speed to . ''Suffolk''s loss of contact had placed the British at a disadvantage. Instead of the swiftly closing head-on approach Holland had envisioned, he would have to converge at a wider angle, much more slowly. This would leave ''Hood'' vulnerable to ''Bismarck''s plunging shells for a much longer period. The situation worsened further when, at 03:20, ''Suffolk'' reported that the Germans had made a further course alteration to the west, placing the German and British squadrons almost abeam of each other.

At 05:35, lookouts on ''Prince of Wales'' spotted the German ships away. The Germans, already alerted to the British presence through their hydrophonic equipment, picked up the smoke and masts of the British ships 10 minutes later. At this point, Holland had the options of joining ''Suffolk'' in shadowing ''Bismarck'' and waiting for Tovey to arrive with ''King George V'' and other ships to attack, or ordering his squadron into action. He chose the latter at 05:37. The rough seas in the Strait kept the destroyers' role to a minimum and the cruisers ''Norfolk'' and ''Suffolk'' would be too far behind the German force to reach the battle.

Battle

Opening moves

''Hood'' opened fire at 05:52 at a distance of approximately . Holland had ordered firing to begin on the leading ship, ''Prinz Eugen'', believing from her position that she was ''Bismarck''. Holland soon amended his order and directed both ships to engage the rear ship, ''Bismarck''. ''Prince of Wales'' had already identified and engaged ''Bismarck'', whereas ''Hood'' is believed to have continued to fire at ''Prinz Eugen'' for some time.

Holland was a gunnery expert; he was well aware of the danger posed by ''Hood''s thin deck armour, which offered weak protection against vertical plunging fire. Holland therefore wanted to reduce the range as quickly as possible, because at a shorter range the trajectory of ''Bismarck''s shells would be flatter, and the shells would therefore be more likely to hit the armour belt protecting the sides of the ship or glance off the top deck, rather than penetrate vertically though the deck armour. Holland closed the range at an angle that placed the German ships too far forward of the beam, which meant that only 10 of the 18 British heavy guns could train and presented the Germans with a bigger target than necessary. One of ''Prince of Wales'' forward guns became unserviceable after the first salvo, leaving only 9 still firing.Barnett 1991, p. 292. ''Suffolk'' and ''Norfolk'' tried to engage ''Bismarck'' during the action but both were out of range and had an insufficient speed advantage over ''Bismarck'' to rapidly close the range.Naval Staff History, ''German Capital Ships and Raiders in WW2, Battle Summary No. 5'', p8.

The Germans also had the weather gauge, meaning that the British ships were steaming into the wind, with spray drenching the lenses of ''Prince of Wales "A" turret's Barr and Stroud coincidence rangefinder and both British ships' "B" turret rangefinders."A" turret was the furthest forward turret with "B" behind and above it. At the rear "Y" was the furthest aft with "X" behind and above, if present - the ''Prince of Wales'' did not have an "X" turret The shorter based () ones in the director towers had to be used instead. Holland had ''Prince of Wales'' stay close to ''Hood'', conforming to ''Hood''s movements instead of varying course and speed, which made it easier for the Germans to find the range to both British ships. It would have aided Holland's gunners if they had both fired upon ''Bismarck'' as originally planned, since they could time precisely each other's salvos to avoid mistaking one ship's fire for the other. The British could also use ''Concentration Fire'', where both ships' main armament salvos would be controlled by one ship's fire control computer—probably ''Prince of Wales'' modern Admiralty Fire Control Table.

''Prince of Wales'' struck her target first. She would ultimately hit ''Bismarck'' three times. One shell struck the commander's boat and put the seaplane catapult amidships out of action (the latter damage not being discovered until much later, during an attempt to fly off the ship's War Diary on the eve of her final battle). The second shell passed through the bow from one side to the other without exploding. The third struck the hull underwater and burst inside the ship, flooding a generator room and damaging the bulkhead to an adjoining boiler room, partially flooding it. The last two hits caused damage to ''Bismarck''s machinery and medium flooding.Garzke and Dulin, Bismarck's Final Battle, part 1.
> The hit also severed a steam line and wounded five of ''Bismarcks crew by scalding. The damage to the bow cut access to of fuel oil in the forward fuel tanks, caused ''Bismarck'' to leave an oil slick and reduced her speed by . ''Bismarck'' was soon listing 9° to port and lost of freeboard at her bow.Garzke and Dulin, Bismarck's Final Battle, part 1.
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The Germans held their fire until 05:55, when both German ships fired on ''Hood''. Lütjens did not immediately give the order to begin firing. ''Bismarck''s first gunnery officer, ''Korvettenkapitän'' Adalbert Schneider, asked "" (Permission to open fire?) several times without receiving a response, until the captain of ''Bismarck, '' ''Kapitän zur See'' Ernst Lindemann, impatiently responded: "" (I'm not letting my ship get shot out from under my arse. Open fire!)

A shell hit ''Hood''s boat deck, starting a sizable fire in the ready-use ammunition store but this fire did not spread to other areas of the ship or cause the later explosion. It is possible that ''Hood'' was struck again at the base of her bridge and in her foretop radar director. There has been contention over which German vessel struck ''Hood''; ''Prinz Eugen'' (''Kapitän zur See'' Helmuth Brinkmann), was firing at ''Prince of Wales'', following an order from the fleet commander. The Gunnery Officer of ''Prinz Eugen'', Paul Schmalenbach is quoted as saying that ''Prinz Eugens target was ''Hood''.

Sinking of ''Hood''

At 06:00, Holland ordered his force to turn once again to port to ensure that the aft main guns on both ''Hood'' and ''Prince of Wales'' could bear on the German ships. In terms of the force balance this would nominally give Holland's force the advantage of 18 large caliber (14/15 in.) guns (10 in ''Prince of Wales'', 8 in ''Hood''); to 8 (8 - 15 in. in ''Bismarck'').

During the turn, a salvo from ''Bismarck'', fired from about , was seen by men aboard ''Prince of Wales'' to straddle ''Hood'' abreast her mainmast. This straddle meant that some of the salvos fell to port, some to starboard (of the hull), and some precisely aligned over the center of the main deck of ''Hood''. It is likely that one shell struck somewhere between ''Hood''s mainmast and "X" turret aft of the mast. A huge pillar of flame shot upward 'like a giant blowtorch' in the vicinity of the mainmast.

This was followed by an explosion that destroyed a large portion of the ship from amidships clear to the rear of "Y" turret, blowing both after turrets into the sea. The ship broke in two and the stern fell away and sank. Ted Briggs, one of the survivors, claimed ''Hood'' heeled to 30 degrees at which point 'we knew she just wasn't coming back'. The bow rose clear of the water, pointed upward, pivoted about and sank shortly after the stern. "A" turret fired a salvo while in this upright position, possibly from the doomed gun crew, just before the bow section sank.

Splinters rained down on ''Prince of Wales'' away. ''Hood'' sank in about three minutes with 1,415 members of the crew. Only Ted Briggs, Bob Tilburn and Bill Dundas survived to be rescued two hours later by the destroyer .

The Admiralty later concluded that the most likely explanation for the loss of ''Hood'' was a penetration of her magazines by a shell from ''Bismarck'', causing the explosion. Recent research with submersible craft suggests that the initial explosion was in the aft magazine and that it spread to the magazines via the ammunition trunks. It has been suggested from examination of the wreckage, found in 2001, that the magazine explosion in the armament near the mainmast caused the vertical blast of flame seen there, and this in turn ignited the magazines of the aft guns that caused the explosion that wrecked the stern. This explosion might have travelled through the starboard fuel tanks, igniting the fuel oil there, setting off the forward magazines and completing the destruction of the ship.

The wreck of ''Hood'' revealed the bow section bereft of any structure. A huge section of her side is missing, from the 'A' barbette to the foredeck. The midship section had its plates curled outward. Moreover, the main parts of the forward structure, including the conning tower, were found about away from the main wreckage. This has sparked theories that the forward magazines exploded as a result of the force, flames and pressure, caused by the detonation of the aft magazines. However, a team of marine forensic scientists has found that implosion damage to the forward hull due to the rapid sinking of the ''Hood'', is the most likely cause of the state of the forward hull, and they do not support any theory that the forward magazines exploded.

''Prince of Wales'' alone

''Prince of Wales'' found herself steering towards the sinking ''Hood''. Her commanding officer, Captain Leach, ordered an emergency avoidance turn away from ''Hood''s wreckage. This violent change of course disrupted her aim and put her in a position that made it easier for the Germans to target her. She resumed her previous course but was now under the concentrated fire of both German ships. ''Prince of Wales'' was struck four times by ''Bismarck'' and three times by ''Prinz Eugen''. One shell passed through her upper superstructure, killing or wounding several crewmen in the Compass Platform and Air Defence Platform. Pieces of another shell struck her radar office aft, killing the crewmen within.Garzke and Dulin 1980, p. 181

A shell from ''Prinz Eugen'' found its way to the propelling charge/round manipulation chamber below the aft gun turrets, and a shell from ''Bismarck'' hit underwater below the armour belt, penetrating about into the ship's hull, about below the waterline, but was stopped by the anti-torpedo bulkhead. Fortunately for ''Prince of Wales'', neither shell exploded, but she still suffered minor flooding and the loss of some fuel oil. Contrary to some mistaken opinion, the shell that struck ''Prince of Wales'' below the waterline did not endanger her magazines, as it came to rest abreast an auxiliary machinery room.

By this time, serious gunnery malfunctions had caused intermittent problems with the main armament, leading to a 26% reduction in output. According to Captain Leach, he decided that continuing the action would risk losing ''Prince of Wales'' without inflicting further damage on the enemy. He, therefore, ordered the ship to make smoke and withdraw, 'pending a more favourable opportunity'. ''Prince of Wales'' turned away just after 06:04, firing from her rear turret under local control until the turret suffered a jammed shell ring, cutting off the ammunition supply and making the guns inoperable.

Despite efforts by crew members and civilian technicians to repair the shell ring, it took until 08:25 for all four guns to be back in service, although two of the guns were serviceable by 07:20. This temporarily left only five guns operational, but nine of the ten were operational in five hours. The final salvos fired were ragged and are believed to have fallen short. The ship retired from the battle around 06:10. Thirteen of her crew had been killed, nine were wounded. The timing of ''Prince of Wales'' withdrawal was fortunate for her, as she had come into torpedo range of ''Prinz Eugen'' and turned away as the German cruiser was about to fire.

Breaking off the action

On ''Bismarck'' there was tremendous elation at the sinking of ''Hood''. There was also a keen expectation that they would close on ''Prince of Wales'' and possibly finish her off. Lindemann requested that Lütjens allow ''Bismarck'' to do just that. Even if Tovey's squadron had left Scapa Flow the previous day, he would still be more than away from ''Bismarck'' – even if ''Bismarck'' diverted to sink ''Prince of Wales'' (a chase Lindemann calculated would take only two or three hours).

Lütjens refused to allow Lindemann to give chase, giving no explanation. Lindemann repeated his request, this time more assertively.Bercuson and Herwig 2001, p. 166. Lütjens held firm orders from the German Naval Commander, ''Großadmiral'' Erich Raeder, to avoid unnecessary combat with the Royal Navy, especially when it could lead to further damage that could hasten delivering ''Bismarck'' toward the waiting hands of the British. He broke off combat instead of pursuing ''Prince of Wales''Barnett 2004, p. 295. and ordered a course of 270°, due west. ''Bismarck'' had fired 93 of her 353 base-fused Armour Piercing (AP) shells during the engagement.

This clash between the two senior German officers reflected their disparate and distinct command functions. As captain of ''Bismarck'', Lindemann operated first and foremost as a tactician. As such, he had no doubt that his ship's immediate objective was to destroy ''Prince of Wales'', and he had pressed his case as far and hard as he should. Lütjens, as fleet chief and task force commander, operated at the strategic and operational levels. To some degree, his orders were clear – attacking convoys was his priority, not risking "a major engagement for limited, and perhaps uncertain, goals". Nevertheless, Raeder had also ordered Lütjens to be bold and imaginative, to accept battle if unavoidable and conduct it vigorously to the finish.Bercuson and Herwig 2001, pp. 166–167.

The reality was that Lütjens' orders did not cover a spectacular success like the one just achieved. His priority therefore was to stick to his instructions - to concentrate on sinking merchant shipping and avoid encounters with enemy warships whenever possible. Moreover, before leaving Germany, Lütjens had told Admirals Conrad Patzig and Wilhelm Marschall, that he would adhere to Raeder's directives. This meant he did not intend to become the third fleet chief to be relieved for contradicting Raeder's orders; Marschall, one of his two predecessors, had been relieved of command for not following his orders to the letter despite the fact that Marschall's analysis of the changes in the tactical situation since the orders were issued resulted in the sinking of the British aircraft carrier and its two escorting destroyers. Nor was he predisposed to discuss his command decisions with a subordinate officer.

Even if he had known it was the untried ''Prince of Wales'' he was fighting and not ''King George V'', Lütjens would probably have stuck to his decision. Following her would have meant exposing the squadron to further gunfire as well as to torpedo attacks from ''Norfolk'' and ''Suffolk''. He would have risked his ships and crews on an expressly forbidden opportunity.Kennedy, p. 98. Lütjens would also have been facing a foe that was still combat effective, despite the hits taken the RN's damage assessment was that damage sustained was limited and caused no significant reduction in combat efficiency.

Between 06:19 and 06:25, ''Suffolk'' fired six salvoes in the direction of ''Bismarck'', having mistaken a radar contact with an aircraft for ''Bismarck''. ''Suffolk'' was actually out of gun range of both ''Bismarck'' and ''Prinz Eugen'' at the time.

Aftermath

Holland's death led to responsibility for ''Prince of Wales'' falling to Wake-Walker in ''Norfolk''. With this command came the responsibility of coping with ''Bismarck'' until enough British warships could concentrate and destroy her. His choice was either to renew the action with ''Bismarck'', or ensure that she be intercepted and brought to action by other heavy units. Wake-Walker chose the latter course, continuing to shadow the German ships. Further offensive action, he concluded, would cause more damage to ''Prince of Wales'' than to ''Bismarck'' and endanger his cruisers, plus he knew Tovey was on his way. He ordered ''Prince of Wales'' to follow ''Norfolk'' at her best speed, so that ''Norfolk'' and ''Suffolk'' could fall back on her if attacked. At 07:57 ''Suffolk'' reported that ''Bismarck'' had reduced speed and appeared damaged.

Since ''Bismarck''s receiving the first hit in the forecastle, all six of the ship's 26-man damage control teams had worked to repair the damage. When it was reported that the tips of the starboard propeller could be seen above water, Lindemann had ordered counterflooding two compartments aft to restore the ship's trim. He then sent divers into the forecastle to connect the forward fuel tanks, containing a much-needed of fuel, first to the tanks near the forward boiler then to the rear fuel tank by way of a provisional line running over the upper deck.Bercuson and Herwig 2001, pp. 169–70.

Both these manoeuvres failed. Lindemann then requested permission to slow ''Bismarck'' and heel the ship first to one side then the other to weld patches from the inside to the holes in the forward hull. Lütjens refused, again without comment. Eventually, he had to agree to slow the ship to to allow hammocks and collision matting to be stuffed in the holes of the No. 2 boiler room and the auxiliary boiler room to stop the growing ingress of seawater. This attempt also failed. Boiler Room No. 2 was shut down, with a loss of speed to .

As well as taking on seawater, ''Bismarck'' was leaking fuel oil. Lütjens ordered ''Prinz Eugen'' to drop back and see how much of a trail she was leaving astern. The carpet of oil was broad enough to cover both sides of the ship's wake, was all colours of the rainbow and gave off a strong smell – all of which helped disclose ''Bismarck''s location.

The damage to ''Bismarck''s forward fuel tanks, combined with a missed opportunity to refuel at Bergen earlier in the voyage, left less than of fuel remaining, not enough to operate effectively against the Atlantic convoys. The element of surprise – which was considered essential for the operation's success – had most definitely been lost; the German ships continued to be shadowed by Wake-Walker's squadron. Lütjens concluded that he needed to abort ''Bismarck''s mission and head toward a convenient dockyard for repairs.

The question was which dockyard to head for. The nearest friendly ports were Bergen and Trondheim in Norway, a little over away. Steaming in that direction meant a return passage north or south of Iceland, with the enemy's air forces now fully alerted to their presence and the possibility of other heavy units between them and Scapa Flow. Lütjens knew his intelligence was unreliable. ''Hood'' had been reported by Group North to be off West Africa and there had been no reports of a ''King George V''-class battleship in the vicinity.Kennedy 2004, p. 100.

Disregarding Lindemann's recommendation to return to Bergen, Lütjens ordered ''Bismarck'' to head for the French port of Saint-Nazaire. ''Prince of Wales'' pursued for several hours and re-engaged on several occasions before the German ships evaded pursuit. Although the French coast was further away than Bergen, Saint-Nazaire held the potential of longer nights and wider seas in which to shake off ''Bismarck''s shadowers, plus the possibility of luring them across a line of U-boats. It would leave ''Bismarck'' poised on the edge of the British trade routes once the damage were repaired; it also meant the potential support of the battleships and . Both ships had been stationed at Brest in France, since the end of Operation Berlin earlier that year but had been kept in port for repairs and overhaul. While Brest was closer than Saint-Nazaire, it was within range of Royal Air Force bombers.

Lütjens detached the undamaged ''Prinz Eugen'' to continue raiding on her own. The cruiser went further south into the Atlantic, where she refuelled from a tanker at sea. She suffered engine trouble, abandoned her commerce raiding mission without having sunk any merchant ships, and made it to Brest.

Reaction

German

News of Lütjens' decision was received with shock in Berlin, Wilhelmshaven and Paris. A blizzard of urgent telephone calls raced across German-occupied Europe. While the Berlin Admiralty was satisfied with Lütjens' success, it was tempered by news of ''Bismarck''s damage and the decision to head for France. Grand Admiral Raeder was not clear whether Lütjens intended to steam for St. Nazaire immediately or after shaking off his pursuers and oiling in mid-Atlantic. Raeder immediately conferred with his chief of staff, Admiral Otto Schniewind, who in turn telephoned Admiral Rolf Carls, who commanded Group North in Wilhelmshaven.Kennedy 2004, pp. 100–101.

Carls had already drafted a message recalling Lütjens to Germany, but had not yet sent it. Schniewind pointed out that at noon Lütjens had crossed the demarcation line between the Northern Hebrides and Southern Greenland, thus passing from Group North's operational control to Group West; therefore, the decision to recall Lütjens was no longer Carls' to make. A subsequent call to Group West's commander, Admiral Alfred Saalwächter, revealed that he did not plan to recall Lütjens and that he felt such a decision should be discussed between Schniewind and Raeder.

Raeder was against issuing a recall himself, telling Schniewind they did not know enough about the situation at hand and that the person who would best know would be Lütjens. He then telephoned Adolf Hitler, who was at the Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps. Hitler received the news of ''Hood''s sinking stoically, exhibiting neither joy nor any other triumphant behaviour. After hearing Raeder's report, he turned to those who were with him and expressed his personal thoughts:

If now these British cruisers are maintaining contact and Lütjens has sunk the ''Hood'' and nearly crippled the other, which was brand new and having trouble with her guns during the action, why didn't he sink her too? Why hasn't he tried to get out of there or why hasn't he turned around?Cited in Müllenheim-Rechberg, ''Battleship Bismarck'', 149.

News of ''Hood''s destruction was seized upon more enthusiastically by Dr. Joseph Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry. That evening it was broadcast to the nation, accompanied by "We march against England" and other martial airs. The German public, already enjoying the news of Luftwaffe victories over the Royal Navy off Crete, received the news of ''Hood''s sinking euphorically.

British

The British public were shocked that their most emblematic warship had been destroyed so suddenly, with the loss of more than 1,400 of her crew. The Admiralty mobilised every available warship in the Atlantic to hunt down and destroy ''Bismarck''. The Royal Navy forces pursued and brought ''Bismarck'' to battle. The German battleship was sunk on the morning of 27 May.

Moves were subsequently made to court-martial Wake-Walker and Captain John Leach of ''Prince of Wales''. The view was taken that they were wrong not to have continued the battle with ''Bismarck'' after ''Hood'' had been sunk. John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, was appalled at this criticism. A row ensued between Tovey and his superior, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. Tovey stated that the two officers had acted correctly, ensuring that the German ships were tracked and not endangering their ships needlessly. Furthermore, ''Prince of Wales''s main guns had repeatedly malfunctioned and she could not have matched ''Bismarck''. Tovey threatened to resign his position and appear at any court-martial as 'defendant's friend' and defence witness. No more was heard of the proposal.

A British board of enquiry quickly investigated the cause of ''Hood''s explosion and produced a report. After criticism that the initial enquiry did not record all the available evidence, a second board of enquiry more extensively investigated ''Hood''s loss, and examined the vulnerabilities of other large British warships still in service in light of the probable causes of the explosion. It, like the first enquiry, concluded that a shell from ''Bismarck'' caused the explosion of ''Hood''s aft ammunition magazines. This led to refitting some older British warships with increased protection for their ammunition magazines and some other related improvements.

Many naval historians and writers have analyzed the ''Bismarck'' engagement and weighed the participants' decisions. One of the most debated is Lütjens' decision to proceed into the Atlantic rather than continue the battle.

Parallels to Jutland

A number of parallels could be drawn from Holland's actions in this battle and those of Admiral David Beatty in the opening stages of the Battle of Jutland. From his actions, it seems clear that Holland felt he had to engage ''Bismarck'' immediately, rather than support Wake-Walker in shadowing until Force 'H' could arrive. Beatty, likewise, felt he needed to engage German Admiral Franz Hipper's battlecruisers with his own forces instead of drawing the Germans toward Admiral John Jellicoe and the British Grand Fleet.

Holland, like Beatty, possessed superiority in the number of heavy ships he possessed, yet he was encumbered by an inferiority in the fighting effectiveness of those units. Moreover, Holland's deployment of his units compared to Beatty's deployment at Jutland. Beatty and Holland both attacked while German units were well before the beam. As a result, the midship and aft turrets of Beatty's ships could barely fire on the enemy. Holland's ships could not use their aft turrets until the final turn to port just before ''Hood'' was sunk.

Beatty placed his lighter-armoured battlecruisers at the head of his line, leaving the more powerful and better-armoured ''Queen Elizabeth''s in the rear. Likewise, Holland placed the old and vulnerable ''Hood'' ahead of the better armoured (albeit new and untested) ''Prince of Wales''. Both admirals exercised tight tactical control over their units from their flagships. This prevented Captain Leach from manoeuvring ''Prince of Wales'' independently and possibly taking a different line of approach that might have confused the Germans.

Order of battle

Note: The British escorting destroyers were ordered to the battle coordinates as part of the overall forces sent to intercept the German ships; they were detached the evening before the battle.

Axis

* German battleship
* German heavy cruiser

Allied

* The British battleship .
* The British battlecruiser
* The British heavy cruisers ,
* The British destroyers , , , , ,

Notes

References

Further reading

* Adams, Simon. ''World War II''. London: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2000.
* Barnett, Correlli. ''Engage the enemy more closely: the Royal Navy in the Second World War''. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
*
* Bennett, Geoffrey. ''Naval Battles of WW2''. Barnsley, South Yorkshire UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2003. .
* Bonomi, Antonio.
The Battle of the Denmark Strait
, 2008.
*
* Boyne, Walter J. ''Clash of Titans: World War II at Sea''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN
* Chesneau, Roger. ''Hood: Life and Death of a Battlecruiser''. London: Cassell Publishing, 2002. .
* Dewar, A.D. ''Admiralty report BR 1736: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck"''. Naval Staff History (Second World War) Battle Summary No. 5, March 1950. Reproduced in facsimile in Grove, Eric (ed.), ''German Capital Ships and Raiders in World War II. Volume I: From "Graf Spee" to "Bismarck", 1939–1941''. London: Frank Cass Publishers 2002. .
* Garzke, William H and Dulin, Robert O. ''Allied Battleships in World War II''. United States Naval Institute, 1980. .
*
* Grützner, Jens (2010) (in German). ''Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann: Der Bismarck-Kommandant – Eine Biographie''. VDM Heinz Nickel. .
* Kennedy, Ludovic. ''Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Bismarck''. New York: The Viking Press, 1974. .
* Kennedy, Ludovic. ''Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck"''. London: Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2004. .
* Roskill, Stephen. ''The War at Sea 1939–1945''. Vol. I. (1954) ISBN (none)
* Storia Militare, ''La battaglia dello Stretto di Danimarca'', 2005.
* Schofield, B.B. ''Loss of the Bismarck (Sea Battles in Close-Up)''. London: Ian Allan Ltd. 1972.
* Tarrant, V E. ''King George V Class Battleships''. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1991. .
* Robert Winklareth. ''The Battle of the Denmark Strait: A Critical Analysis of the Bismarck's Singular Triumph''. Casemate Publishers

External links

HMS Hood Association: Battle of the Denmark Strait Documentation Resource







The Sinking of the Bismarck, Official Despatch


* ttp://hmshood.com/history/denmarkstrait/bonomi_denstrait1.htm Antonio Bonomi's reconstruction of the battle

{{DEFAULTSORT:Denmark Strait, Battle of
Conflicts in 1941
Germany–United Kingdom military relations
May 1941 events
Naval battles and operations of the European theatre of World War II
Naval battles of World War II involving Germany
Naval battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom
Operation Rheinübung