Ian Ballantyne
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
BOOK REVIEWS Ian Ballantyne. Killing the Bismarck: journalistic history. Ballantyne buttresses Destroying the Pride of Hitler’s Fleet. his narrative with passages, mostly brief, by Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword British eye witnesses drawn from letters, Books Ltd., www.penandsword.co.uk, 2010. published sources and websites. He was 301 pp., illustrations, maps, appendices, end also able to interview 11 participants, 50 notes, bibliography, index. UK £ 25.00, years and longer after their involvement in hardcover; ISBN 978-1-84415-983-3. the epic pursuit of the German battleship. He explains that he wanted to portray, “The whole operation, moreover which among other things, how a spirit of culminated in her destruction is of vengeance after the loss of the battle-cruiser exceptional interest…in point of dramatic HMS Hood to Bismarck’s guns on 24 May reversals of fortune, of the frequent animated the British fleet. Ballantyne also alternation of high optimism and blank wanted to reveal the “necessary brutality of disappointment, of brilliant victory followed the Bismarck episode’s finale” (p.15). quickly by utter defeat, it is probably unique The narrative is supported by on warfare.” These words are from Captain informative endnotes (which, however, do Russell Grenfell’s The Bismarck Episode not provide page numbers for references (1949), the first authoritative book on the cited) and five pithy appendices on topics attempt by a powerful new German such as the myths that have circulated about battleship to break into the Atlantic to the sinking of the Bismarck and whether attack Allied merchant shipping in late May Hood, before being blown up, had 1941. A career naval officer turned succeeded in firing torpedoes at Bismarck’s respected defence correspondent, Grenfell consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. drew on unique first-hand insights from many of the key senior British players. His Ballantyne’s focus is firmly on the book is a minor classic and laid out a Royal Navy participants. This single- narrative of events that has become standard minded emphasis results in an uneven in the many subsequent books about this narrative. In fact, aircraft of the RAF’s celebrated contest between the British and Coastal Command were involved in two of German navies. The epic story continues to the critical episodes over the long eight days sell and Killing the Bismarck: Destroying after Bismarck exited the Baltic. The first, the Pride of Hitler’s Fleet by Ian Ballantyne photo reconnaissance by Spitfires is one of three new books on this topic establishing that the battleship and Prince published in the U.K. in the past two years. Eugen had anchored in a Norwegian fjord Ian Ballantyne is a seasoned writer: after leaving the Baltic, is not mentioned at he is a defence correspondent, the editor of all. (Nor is a subsequent daring flight by the magazine Warship, a scriptwriter for TV shore-based Fleet Air Arm target-towing documentaries and the author of several aircraft which verified that the German earlier books about British warships. ships had left the anchorage.) The second Killing the Bismarck is a popular, critical event involving Coastal Command The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XXII No. 3, (July 2012), 309-359 310 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord was several days later, on May 26. A Bismarck, by then reduced to a burning Catalina flying boat (recently supplied by hulk. A rating in Rodney’s 16-inch gun the U.S. under Lend-Lease, and with one of director apparently observed a black flag at its two pilots a USN Ensign on loan) flying Bismarck’s yardarm and reported this. The out of Northern Ireland located Bismarck same rating also reported having seen a after contact had been lost for 31 hours. German sailor waving semaphore flags. This development is described tersely as a Moreover, he apparently told the gunnery sighting by the RAF of a “mystery officer sitting above him in the director that battleship” (p.131). he had seen Bismarck flashing signalling The Bismarck breakout coincided lamps at Rodney. The gunnery officer is with critical events in the Mediterranean— said to have told the rating not to make the British had been ejected from Greece further reports, since if the Germans had the previous month and were now losing wanted to surrender, it was too late now. Crete. Ballantyne’s story is framed within Around the same time, an officer in the popular war narrative current in May Rodney’s air defence position is said to have 1941. The British were “fighting alone” observed what he thought was a light on (p.16); the foreward by the former first sea Bismarck’s mainmast, apparently sending a lord Admiral Band sounds the same note: message which was cut short when the mast “Britain stood very much alone in May was shot down. Finally, a rating in 1941” (p.9). This was stirring propaganda Devonshire said that he saw light signals at the time, but now that 70 years have from the German battleship. Because no passed, this myth is simplistic. Troops from information is provided about how long Australia, India, New Zealand, Rhodesia after events and to whom these recollections and South Africa were fighting in North were told, the reader cannot judge whether Africa and the Mediterranean, as were this sequence of events is based on reliable Commonwealth airmen and warships. Two contemporary observations. As for the Canadian divisions were in Britain along reported black flag, information in the with Canadian airmen, while the RCN was Admiralty Naval Staff History (not in the steadily increasing its contributions in the bibliography of Killing the Bismarck and Battle of the Atlantic. At the same time, not mentioned in Ballantyne’s narrative) is Canada was producing military equipment perhaps pertinent. It notes that German and raw materials for Britain. Finally, the survivors, when interrogated after rescue, United States had initiated Lend-Lease in stated that Bismarck had hoisted a blue March 1941 and was pursuing a policy of ensign as a recognition signal for U-boats. “short-of-war” collaboration with Britain. (German Capital Ships and Raiders in While accounts from various World War II: Volume I (2002), individuals move the book along, their eye- “Interrogation of Survivors,” section V, (f) witness records are presented without p. 21.) evaluation. Nor do the endnotes always Killing the Bismarck is rich in indicate when statements were recorded. details about individuals and ships. One of These problems undermine the credibility of the arresting vignettes concerns a chaplain the narrative. The most sensational claims who came to the bridge of the battleship concern reports that men, still alive in Rodney to plead with his captain to cease Bismarck late in the final action, indicated a the slaughter as Bismarck was being desire to surrender (p.181). This is said to pounded at close range. The chaplain was have occurred around 0930, when Rodney ordered below. Interestingly, this was the was quite close—around 2,000 yards from first operation for several ships or ships’ Book Reviews 311 companies. For example, the captain of the presented uncritically without information new battleship, Prince of Wales, had about how long after events reminiscences reported his ship ready for operations only were recorded. Although the work focuses the day before Bismarck sailed; the carrier on action, the author has added some Victorious was still completing trials; on the introspection into his five appendices. It is same date, the heavy cruiser London had an easy read, thanks to Ballantyne’s emerged from a major two-year rebuild only experience as a journalist and veteran author weeks earlier; and the workup of Bismarck of books of popular naval history. Killing in the Baltic had been shortened by a severe the Bismarck is a re-telling of a classic tale winter. While Ballantyne notes that the 110 as experienced by Royal Navy participants. German survivors rescued (incredibly, a Jan Drent further five were picked up by a U-boat and Victoria, British Columbia a small German weather ship) were treated humanely, his focus on the British point of view results in a one-dimensional image of events. He relates how the senior surviving David S.T. Blackmore. Warfare on the German officer, Lieutenant Baron Mediterranean in the Age of Sail: A History, Müllenheim-Rechberg, remonstrated with 1571-1866. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, Captain Martin, of the heavy cruiser www.macfarlandpub.com, 2011. vii+393 Dorsetshire, because rescue operations had pp., illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, been broken off when it was thought that a bibliography, index. US $45.00, paper; U-boat has been sighted. Ballantyne quotes ISBN 978-0-7864-4799-2. a British account which says that the Baron “was quickly put in his place.” (p.200) David Blackmore’s lively study sets out to Müllenheim-Rechberg published his own provide a concise analysis of the campaigns account in Schlachtschiff Bismarck in 1980, and confrontations fought in the writing that Captain Martin had started their Mediterranean in the centuries between the conversation by giving him a whiskey and Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the soda. They eventually agreed to disagree development of the first prototype torpedo about the rescue and Müllenheim-Rechberg by Robert Whitehead in 1866. It is very notes that all the German survivors picked much aimed at the general reader rather up by two British ships were well treated. than the specialist, and is organized in an He ascribes this to both the friendly pre-war accessible and straightforward manner, with naval relations he had experienced directly narrative accounts of major confrontations and to the fact that Captain Martin reported arranged in chronological sequence.