My Grandfather was on Hms Rodney throughout the war and was allowed on deck to watch Bismark burn . He told me lots of stories of his time during the war . I got his medals
I in my 70's now and have always been interested in the Bismark battle as my uncle was killed on the Hood. He was a stoker 2nd class and was so proud to be assigned to the Hood.
This was the best presentation I have ever seen on the Bismarck! Iain shared so much information including details that I had never heard before. WW2TV always brings us the best guests, best discussions & the best shows. Another must watch episode!
The Bismarck story caught my attention in childhood, and Iain refreshed my distant memories with quite a riveting narration of the battle. As usual the live chat chipped in with nuggets of information that were new to me. This is a classic WW2 battle and Paul and Iain cover it thoroughly in WW2TV.
Currently rewatching this episode as i have just received my Great-uncles War records and found he was on HMS Rodney as and electrical engineer - Torpedo-man during the Hunt for the Bismarck. Brings a whole new emotion to the story.
Greatly appreciate that this show begins with an explanation as Paul notes of "the main points of the battle", an overview for those of us like myself unfamiliar with the fundamentals as Mr. Ballantyne explains, before they launch into the specifics of the famous Bismarck battle. (I'm listening now to the show in its entirety, having missed much of the live show yesterday.)
My Uncle Fred was a Royal Marine on HMS Sheffield during the Bismarck chase and the Swordfish attack!! He survived and also managed to survive several Murmansk convoys!! He was also a great Clarinet player with the RM band!
After WW2 Bekker an ex Kriegsmarine wrote the book Swastika at Sea with the assistance Chief of Operations Executive at the German Naval HQ. The Bismarck had a radar receiver onboard that received the High Frequency signals from the British Radar. The Admiral thought that as long as he was receiving the radar transmissions the British ships they could “see” the Bismarck. This was a mistake, but was the reason he continued to transmit signals to Germany not knowing he had lost his pursers. There was a return signal from both Berlin and Gruppe West in Paris that the British had lost him and for heaven’s sake stay silent. That was too late as the British had taken bearings on his signals.
British listening stations were a huge part of wing the Atlantic war. It’s amazing how accurately they could triangulate radio signals. Even the later fast busts from U-Boats were captured.
@@davidelliott5843 They were also used to coverup Bletchley Parks success at cracking Enigma. I have used DF for position finding at sea and it is not very accurate at longer distance's the signals get bounced at unknow angles.
Sink the Bismarck and Battle of the River Plate were the two movies I was allowed to stay up past bedtime to watch when I was a kid. Great episode. I don't think I'd heard before that the Prince of Wales got hit by a shell that didn't explode. If it had, it would have been another day when "something is wrong with our bloody ships today." Even without that, it was a major mistake for the Germans not to finish off the Prince of Wales when they had a two-on-one situation.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 No, it was a mistake. PoW was also damaged, and the other ships were hundreds of miles away. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen would have been able to catch up and sink her before any other ships could intervene.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Oh dear oh dear you don't need a map to know you should destroy the enemy who is right there in front of you. Engage the enemy more closely, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy, as the British say. Not going to read your condescending wall of text, buddy. Now get lost.
Drachinifel tells that Bismarck hit KGV beneath the waterline. The shell stopped by her keel but was decapped and facing backwards. His opinion is that it landed short and tumbled before bashing through beneath the belt armour. The shell which hit Hood went in where the high speed wake exposes the thin lower hull.
Drachinifiel is very thorough, but the hit on Hood is not really plausible. She was turning to port, which means her starbord side would have been lower, thus putting the armoured belt even lower than it was. And since Hood was already sitting very low in the water, her armoured belt was reaching further down than what most people realise. No one from PoW who looked at Hood saw a splash from a shell falling short becoming a swimmer. The dekc penetration is also a myth. For a shell to penetrate any kind thickness of armoured deck, it must come at an angle of at least 30 degrees. Bismarck's own tables showed the angle at 16.000 yards to be be 13 degrees. Even with the heeling of the turn, it would never have been even close to 20 degree angle of fall. If the plunging fire version was true, Bismarck would have had the worst possible capital ship guns and shell propellant in the 20th century to give such bad ballistics. The most likely event was that a part of the armour plate - which was described and scheduled to be rectified with a future refit - where plates were overlapping meant at a steep oblique angle, the shell could pass and enter the 4 inch aft magazine. It was only made into a magazine with the addition of the DP 4 inch battery. If it hadn't been installed, the shell would have penetrated and exploded... And done nothing, since the 4 inch magazine set off and penetrated to the neighbouring 15 inch magazine. So it was likely a freak shot that hit the weak oblique path through the belt armour and ignited the 4 inch ammunition. This theory is consistent with what was observed from PoW and Bismarck. The shell found in the bottom of PoW was also likely not likely to have detonated under or inside the ship. The detonator - if working properly - would have set it off before it reached the depth of water to be able to "climb up". Water is very dense and the detonator timer would start the instant the shell hit the surface. The Japanese experimented with "swimmer" shells, to go under the armour belt but it required a longer fuse timer which in turn made the shells more likely to through most armoured targets without exploding. Sorry for the long rant, it's just not easy to properly explain in a few paragraphs.
@@bofoenss8393 You may have misunderstood something about that that turn to port. As I recall, it had just started, and the very first motion when the rudder is turned is to thrust the bottom of the ship in the opposite direction of the turn, so water higher up retards the motion of the ship causing it to lean into the turn when it first begins. So the starboard side would have been more exposed, along with the trough from the bow wave exposing it even lower at the point where the shell lands. in the turn, the starboard side would have been lower as the ship leaned to starboard, but PoW had not begun its own turn to follow Hood yet.
Finally, after all these years, someone FINALLY decided that they missed one of the nearly game-ending facts: When one ship is following another, it is likely that they will all run out of fuel at nearly the same time. All that brass and no one planned for that eventually. I would be interested in knowing how much time passed between the time the Brits decided to go after Bismark and the time they dispatched from the Med. Since I first saw the movie, I always "hated" the Bismark. It was not until I learned that "people don't really hate one another. It's governments that hate each other." A comment in this video brought to mind of what I learned years ago, that I really didn't hate the Bismark, it was the Nazi regime that I hated. Thank you for not only reminding me and others who are like thinkers, but letting people who had never considered its truth hear the words.
O.N.I. Weekly In the morning the horizon to the northeast was clear, while rain squalls to the south and east made a poor background, The commander in chief of the British Home Fleet decided to approach on a bearing west-north-west, At 0848 the Bismarck came into sight, about 25,000 yards distant, steering directly towards the British heavy units. The Rodney opened fire at 0847, the King George V at 0848 and the Bismarck at 0850. The Bismarck's second salvo straddled the Rodney, one round being only 20 yards short, but the accuracy of her fire then deteriorated. At 0857 the Bismarck sustained her first hit. Five minutes later a 16-inch shell from the Rodney apparently put the German battleship's A and B turrets out of action. C and D turrets were firing on the King George V when a shell from one of the British warships carried away the rangefinder and paralyzed the control position. These exchanges took place at a range of about 20,000 yards. By 0020 range had been narrowed to 11,500 yards; 10 minutes latter the Bismarck was on fire and virtually out of control, though her C and D turrets were still firing independently and her secondary battery was in use. Demoralization of the Bismarck's crew was now apparent. One officer is said to have drawn his revolver and shot several seamen who refused to obey him. Officers were reported to have committed suicide, and scores of the crew jumped overboard before the action ceased. Almost all of the 400 anti-aircraft gunners, for whom no special protection had been provided during surface action, became casualties. The upper deck was being pounded into a mass of twisted steel. Hatches and doors were jammed in all parts of the ship. Crews in two magazines were drowned when it became necessary to flood the chambers because of fire. A direct hit crashed into a forward compartment where 200 men were trapped under jammed hatches. Fires on the gun deck cut off the forward half of the ship. The air was dense with smoke, fumes and the gases generated by the bursting shells. Paint was burning off the bulkheads and many men without gas masks were suffocated. By 1000 all the Bismarck's 15-inch guns were out of action, and fire from the secondary battery was spasmodic. The Rodney, King George V, and the Norfolk, which had joined the action after spotting from the flanks, fired their last salvos front a range of only 8,300 yards. At 1010, out of the Bismarck's entire armament, only one anti-aircraft gun remained workable, The ship was a wreck, on fire fore and aft, and wallowing heavily. The British commander in chief broke off the gun action at 1022. The cruiser Dorsetshire then fired three torpedoes into the Bismarck, and she sank at 1037.
The film “Sink the Bismarck” was made in 1960 after the 1959 book of the same name. It’s very likely that signals intelligence and triangulation were glossed over so the methods were not exposed to the Soviets.
There is/was (I couldn't find it) a contemporary WWII documentary on RU-vid about combat fatigue that did a really good job of highlighting what combat is like for sailors. One of the main characters was a sailor. His job was to watch a gauge and turn a valve in a noisy engine room, deep in the bowels his ship while listening to all of the sounds of combat. All of the soldiers who had been directly shot at couldn't fathom what his problem was, But it seemed like hell knowing that if his ship was hit, he was locked below and was unlikely to escape. All he could do to affect his fate was to do his job.
The Swordfish discussion is certainly correct that the Swordfish was capable of delivering a torpedo, but only in a theater where the British had air superiority or were able to strike with poor air defenses. But it is not just that they looked obsolete. In terms of speed, altitude, and open cockpit, they were very much obsolete. If they had had to fight in the Pacific they would have been torn to pieces.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 That is interesting about being able to operate in rougher weather than the Devastators and the Avengers. Of course, the Devastators were a disaster. The Avenger was another matter. Do you have a source for this assertion? if so you are absolutely correct. Even so, you are correct that the Swordfish compiled an amazing record. Although personally I think that the Roya Navy air service showed the impact of losing out in the bureaucratic struggle with the RAF
@@alganhar1 I do not disagree that the Swordfish was a remarkable plane. I do disagree with some of your assertions. An open cockpit is hardly ideal for operations in the North Atlantic and gives no operational advantage--in fact, it was a serious disadvantage. In addition, biplanes had some advantages such as stability, but a well-designed mono-plane had many more advantages. Actually, I do not understand your post. While a night-time attack plane would be useful. Far more important would have been a day-time attack one like the Americans and Japanese had. It seems absurd to build a night-time attack plane and not a daytime attack plane.
the sink the bismarck movie got everything backwards it showed hood firing to port when it fired to starboard and it showed bismarck sinking to starboard when it actually sank to port. who the hell was the naval advisor on that one?
Swordfish is often caricatured as a sticks-n-string box kite. But it very much wasn’t. It had a powerful engine, significant lift capacity that could operate without catapult on decks heaving over Atlantic swells. Nothing else of the time could do that.
Makes me wonder, if i heard correctly, that the mission was launched without Hitler's knowledge/ consent what the repercussions were for the German naval high command when Bismarck was sunk? I can imagine Hitler was none too pleased. Thanks Paul and Iain, rivetting stuff. RIP to all the brave sailors on both sides.
Woody/Iain, Thanks for a FABULOUS presentation! I have seen many Documentaries and films, I have read many books but this presentation has been so interesting and enthralling! Regards, Bob
Certainly gunnery officers held crucial positions in the battle. HMS Rodney attacked with gunnery officer William Godfrey Crawford. Having established new and accurate firing.
Detailed presentation that truly gives you an incredible understanding of how the Bismark was sunk. If you haven't seen it Iain was on panel show about the Battle of the Atlantic last July I believe, great followup to Battle of Atlantic show earlier this week
I found out about this channel after the interview with Drach and this is just AMAZING! It made me wish I could see an interview with somebody about Graf Spee. You're a very good interviewer, you know your stuff, you give them the time, you don't go off-topic, and you hit all the right moments that need to be tackled. Well done! Gonna watch your Battle of the Atlantic and then Stalingrad after this :D
I've heard after the Bismarck's rudder was jammed by the torpedo, that divers could not repair it and a suggestion to use an explosive to break it loose or knock it off was declined.
Another great listen Paul ...I'm catching up bit by bit...I've seen loads of documentaries about sinking Bismarck, but It's great to learn more things, like we all do listening to your shows. Who'd have thought a big hole in Prince of Wales was caused by a German shell skimming the water and acting like a torpedo?!. Fascinating. I'm going to look for Ian's books now...he's a great guest as ever. I hope you get the viewers you deserve during this year, as this channel is fabulous Paul, it really is. Even gay people are represented to your great credit!. Vitally, your voice and presentation style is perfect also. Best of luck, but I'm certain the channel will grow and increase in the views it so deserves. Sadly though, I don't think the Tractor boys are going to give you further reasons to celebrate this year though...lol...
@@WW2TV I agree. Ipswich too inconsistent ...I'm optimistic about the Boro though🤞👍🤣....we also have a great new manager in Chris Wilder....I'd like to see Ipswich Town back in the championship. Lovely place, nice people...even getting beat 3-0 on a cold rainy Saturday many years back.lol.
I had nightmares after reading "Killing Bismarck". An incredible journey from the sailors themselves who died in the stormy weather while tracking the huge ship.
A factor not mentioned in why Bismarck's crew didn't really hit any of the British battleships in the final battle, is the combination of crew fatigue caused by the nightly Destroyer attacks, and the optics of the fire-control. The German fire control optics from what I understand was very good at helping getting the range and the first shots in, when you are very fresh and well restet as a fire control crew, but when used for a long period the optics makes the users eyes more tired and fatigued, so after a while of constant action the accuracy precentage will steadily drop, just as it did for the German 1st scouting group at the battle of Jutland. The British firecontrol optics from what I understand is somewhat in reverse of the German optics, not as good at getting the range/accuracy at the beginning of the engagement, but as an engagement drags on the users eyes are not getting strained as much, and are more friendly for the fire control crews eyes to use over a longer period. So when the Bismarck fire control crews the whole night has been on the alert and in action shooting at Vian's Destroyer flotilla, and that Pesky Polish destroyer trolling them. They are tired and strained, and therefore not at their A-game to tackle the two British Battleships that comes over the horizon. So in a way Vian's destroyer attacks was not in vain, as it indirectly saved the Rodney and KGV from serious damage. Anyway that's my take on it, but I hope it adds to the many human factors discussed in this video. 🤔🤔🤔
Great talk. One issue small issue with the host :). Writing about the overview & the individual is a hallmark of Cornelius Ryan not so much James Holland?
Seems really odd for Ian to complain about Rodney off-loading HE shells before the trip to the US, and then sound like he's expecting the HE shells to get in and destroy Bismarck if theyd been available. USS Washington suffered a number of HE hits on November 15, 1942, to display how little a contact-fused HR shell will do when it hits heavy armor. Or the German warships at Jutland show what happens when a shell detonates immediately on armor rather than a fraction of a second layer from the delay fuse as designed.
The thing a lot don't talk about was the sea state, and in the vital few days that mattered the sea was very rough. This meant repairs on the fuel tank and rudder was extremely dangerous and difficult. Again the sea helped the Navy when needed.
Absolutely superb discussion ( as usual, and as expected ),…I wonder if your channel could do ( or perhaps you’ve already covered this ? ) a piece on lumbering Japanese fighter-bomber magnets like the sister ships Musashi and Yamato ?…
There is a non-naval dimension to this. Calculate the number of tanks, artillery, ect. that could have been from the resources that went into Bismarck. (And then make the same calculation with the other German ships.) You begin to see the importance of the war in the West. And then consider the industrial power that went into the Luftwaffe which was probably half of the German war economy. You can easily see that while German MANPOWER was committed to the Ostkrieg, German INDUSTRY was primarily committed to the War in the West. This diversion from supporting the Ostheer is a key to understanding the defeat of NAZI Germany.
Some being pulled out of the chill waters of the atlantic after their boat/ship goes down is a pathetic sight, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to look after them. Also a navy which gets a reputation for letting its foes drown after sinking is inviting similar sins against its survivors. Yes, the Navy's ability to defeat Bismarck along with surviving the daylight bombing campaign was a key moment in building US support.
The fil is excellent, but why did it show a couple of swordfish get shot down, when thy all got back without any loss? Also where did the destroyer Solent come from? s
The crew of a boat had their place and weren't allowed to go up and have a look. And they didn't have running commentary from the bridge! They were there to do whatever and maybe die. Basta!
What I've always wondered is the why of Bismarck not topping off her fuel when it would have been easy. That limiting factor is the most important unknown of the whole story, if Bismarck is not fuel critical she is not where the swordfish found her.
The picture you showed for the first few minutes is very early, she or should I say he does not yet have the for top or forward range finders installed.
Swordfish got slaughtered during the Channel Dash because RAF refused to provide fighter coverage. Any slow moving STOL aircraft would have been just as vulnerable.
Not sure of the point of firing at the _"wrong"_ ship. Unless _Bismarck_ would have been *closer* or something, if they fired at a *more lightly armored* ship, unsuccessfully, what would have been accomplish by firing at *_Bismark_* instead?
Damaging her. For a raider far away from home any penetrating hit on a vital part can turn fatal. Bismarck was hit with three 14 inch shells during the battle, one of them caused an oil leak that was the beginning of the end for her.
I know that there are two schools of thought about what actually sunk Bismark: was it British guns, torpedoes, and bombs or was it German scuttling charges? What do the FACTS tell you? I was a pee-wee when I saw a movie about this action. I was old enough to remember it but too young to understand it. What I remember most were the words of a song: "we've gotta sink the Bismark to the bottom of the sea." As we said on the carrier I was on, we "wanted to put her into Davey Jones' in-basket."
Northern vs southern hemispheres? Do you think Midway is in the South Pacific? It’s in the North Pacific…it is basically the end of the ancient Hawaiian Island chain. I think you meant Atlantic/European ETO vs the Pacific Theatre.
For Britain to have a centuries old super Navy, their ships were ghastly to look at, sorta like their ww2 tanks, helmets, firearms, whereas the Bismarck was aesthetically pleasing , like the Tiger, Mg42, SG44, Stahlhelm, etc....the spitfire was the one beautiful war machine the Brits came up with.
Is it true, The Kriegsmarine Admiral Reader quit after this Operation cause AH wanted to shelve the Capital Ships, and Concentrate on New UltraU-Boats like the smaller Coastal electric Type XXIII ones, and the Walter type, and the Type XX with 20 knot(submerged)speed, and never having to surface to charge batteries, but I also heard that Raeder and AH had a huge fight over the Bismarck/Prinz Eugen convoy raid mission, and that the Sacrifice of Bismarck which sucked in multiple Battle Fleets(2 Carriers, 4 Battleships, and dozens of Cruisers, destroyers, and submarines were deployed on One Ship, and not to the Mediterranean or other British Support roles, The German loss of 2,300 Kriegmarines, Fleet Commander Gunther Lutjens was worth dragging around 30-40 RN Ships around, not to mention the earlier Sinking of Hood and Bitch Slapping Prince of Wales, the death mission, might be the most Successful in Naval History?..
I think I understand what you're asking, but no. The battle you're thinking of was at the end of 1942 during an attack on one of the Arctic Convoys, the Battle of the Barents Sea and Convoy JW 51B. Admiral Hipper, Lutzow, and six destroyers attack the convoy and accomplish essentially nothing, sinking the minesweeper HMS Bramble in exchange for one of the destroyers. Raeder resigned, Doenitz took over, most building work on heavy ships was abandoned (including Gneisenau and Graf Zepelin), but the surface fleet was not summarily scrapped which had been Hitler's initial inclination. Unfortunately, there would be one more Arctic Battle with Scharnhorst and the Battle of the North Cape the following winter.
What's the point of having an expert guest if the host, seeming so enamored of the sound of his own voice, tends at times to crowd out the guest's expertise?
"No [battle] plan survives first contact with the enemy." Should yet another book be written about this sea battle [action], I have the perfect title: "A Tragedy of Errors " From Bergen to the bitter end off the coast of France, this action was fraught with the seemingly minor gaffes. Taken individually, no single one would have yielded the same result. Reading or hearing about the end of Bismarck. my heart is broken to learn of the final hours of the loss of life on that ship. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not even slightly remorseful about Hitler's governmental demise. My pity is for the ratings who never even saw the sky during the fight.
Iain made the statement that at that time the Royal Navy was still the world's most powerful or something to that effect. Is there a point in the war that it shifts to the US or did this occur after the war?
The feared modern German battleship was to a great extent brought low by the old, slow canvas biplane torpedo bomber--something that the vaunted H.M.S. Hood could not accomplish.
Not much of a surprise, Hood was old tech, unmodernised and with known issues with its less heavy battlecruiser armour. To have it lead the line against the Bismarck was always going to be high risk when going against a brand new battleship. It was supported by the POW which was hardly worked up and still had civilian contractors aboard. Perhaps if better use was made of the 2 x 8 inch county class cruisers and the POW was used to draw Bismark’s fire with its very heavy armour then perhaps things would have been different. A massive waste of life.
Not really. Hood's armor scheme was very similar to Bismarck's. VERY similar. She was getting pretty tired by 1941, but still capable. Bismarck did have better fire control with modern tachymetric fire control computers. Hood had the most advanced Dreyer tables, but it was obsolete tech. Hood's main problem in this fight was everything that could go wrong pretty much did. Things could have been very different if she had scored hits first, but she didn't. @@sobobwas6871
Why do all British historia and wannabe historians neglrct the rolę of the Polish destroyer ORP Piorun which stopień Bismarck for 1 HR till the Royal Navy arrived. Surprise? Whst did the Polish did to you to hush up their contribution to sinking the Bismarck???😢
