WIFR Did Battleship Bismarck Try to Surrender?
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WIFR OCT 2010 FRONT COVER _WIFR OCT 2010 FRONT COVER 15/09/2010 13:28 Page 1 INTERNATIONAL FLEET REVIEW www.warshipsifr.com UK DEFENCE REVIEW & THE RN SPECIAL DID BATTLESHIP BISMARCK TRY TO SURRENDER? CHINA RISES AS USA FALTERS? WHY THE October 2010 £3.95 AUSTRALIANS NEED A SSTTRROONNGG RRAANN DANISH FLEET REVIEW...PORTUGAL’S PIRACY WAR...NAVIES LOOK NORTH...PAKISTAN’S FLOODS writing, alters perspective, and is Lef t , main image: ‘The End of therefore potentially controversial. the Bismarck’ by leading UK maritime artist Paul Wright RSMA. Having found the surrender angle I © Paul Wright. asked myself what else had gone For further information e-mail: untold? [email protected] In looking at already published Lef t , inset : HMS Rodney’s accounts of the Bismarck Action I Tommy Byers, w ho saw signs t hat realised that, while they covered Bismarck sailors w ere t rying t o DID BATTLESHIP surrender. the final battle - some quite vividly - none of them, in my opinion, quite Photo: Byers Collection. conveyed the full horror. When Tommy Byers wrote to Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg, the senior mind by the time they had been BISMARCK TRY TO surviving German officer, in the chased and harassed by the Royal early 1990s to ask if any Bismarck Navy for several days. On the day of survivors had seen signs of battle it only took 40 minutes, or surrender attempts aboard their less, to reduce Bismarck to a own ship, the Baron could not floating hell. It was understandable help. Nobody among those who that while some of the German could have revealed the truth had battleship’s crew fought on - being survived. The majority of survivors well protected - there were others, SURRENDER? came from either deep inside the in the forward part of the ship (and ship, within the armoured citadel, outside the citadel), who decided or were in some other well- they should try and give up. protected area, such as the main Tommy Byers did bring the fact armament turrets. Men outside that he had spotted light signals, those heavily protected zones, semaphore attempts and the black including the command team and flag, to the attention of the hundreds of others, were subjected Rodney’s gunnery officer, Lt Cdr to a murderous hail of 16-inch, 14- William Crawford. I cannot believe inch, 8-inch, 5.25-inch and 6-inch that other officers in the British shells. The four British ships fired ships did not see the same things - nearly 2,000 shells in total, with or have them reported to them - around 400 hitting Bismarck, plus but neither Admiral Tovey, the several torpedo strikes (by Rodney, Home Fleet Commander in HMS with her 24.5-inch torpedoes, as King George V, or Captain well as Dorsetshire’s 21-inch Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton, the torpedoes). The people who captain of HMS Rodney wrote a therefore saw the full scale of that detailed account containing final battle - the enemy battleship anything as graphic as those I have being ripped apart - were sailors uncovered from junior officers and and marines in British battleships ordinary sailors. On the bridge of and cruisers firing those shells and Rodney, one of the ship’s chaplains torpedoes, staring at their was so appalled that, in front of the gruesome handiwork through high- other officers and men, he begged powered optics. During the course Captain Dalrymple-Hamilton to of my research Major John Ruffer, stop the bombardment. His plea who in May 1941 was a Royal received a coldly furious response, Marine junior officer in the gunnery Dalrymple-Hamilton ordering him control position of cruiser HMS below decks with an admonition to Norfolk, sent me a first-person ‘mind his own business.’ account of the battle. I also found a Rodney’s Commanding Officer had It was six years ago, while I was WARSHIPS IFR EDITOR IAIN BALLANTYNE EXPLA INS Tommy died some years ago, but ceasefire? The Irish sailor said that down. However, isn’t it all a futile gripping account in the Imperial grown increasingly frustrated as his gathering primary research material HOW HE DISCOVERED EYEWITNESS EVIDENCE THAT, Kevin had interviewed his dad he saw Bismarck ‘flashing her discourse? Anyone with even a War Museum archives by A.E. ship’s broadsides slammed into for my previous book, that I came about his life in the navy and the signalling lights, sending us a Morse modicum of insight understands Franklin, a junior rating in the Bismarck but did not produce the across an eyewitness account in the WHILE OTHER GERMANS FOUGHT ON, SOME SAILORS transcripts of those interviews message.’ Byers scanned Bismarck that a ship is only as good as her cruiser HMS Dorsetshire. Both men destruction of the vessel. Rodney archives of the, now disbanded, IN THE FAMED BATTLESHIP BISMARCK MAY HAVE BEEN yielded more evidence relating to through his optics, finding the man crew, so the fact that sailors in the described the Bismarck’s death at had only Armour-Piercing shells, for HMS Rodney Association. Only a TRYING TO SURRENDER DURING COMBAT WITH THE the possibility that Bismarck, or at waving the semaphore flags again, forward part of the ship wanted to the hands of the Royal Navy in she had offloaded her High few dozen people in any British ROYAL NAVY ON MAY 27, 1941. DISCUSSING least some of her sailors, were only to see him ‘blown into the air surrender even while men searing terms, conveying the Explosive 16-inch gun ammunition battleship’s complement of more trying to surrender. I have heard a by a 16-inch shell.’ Byers felt very operating turrets in the stern horrific spectacle of the encounter. in the UK as she was about to go than 1,000 could actually see the ASSOCIATED ISSUES RAISED IN HIS NEW BOOK recording of an interview between sad for enemy, but conceded ‘it was section fought on, surely destroys Ruffer did not see any signs of into a refit at Boston in the USA. action, and the majority of those ‘KILLING THE BISMARCK’ (SEE REVIEW , ON P4 5 ) HE Kevin and his dad and there is no them or us.’ the idea of the ‘invincible surrender; Franklin indicates he The Rodney’s heavy shells therefore would be using high-powered ALSO PONDERS THE HORRIFIC REALITY OF WAR, AND doubt in my mind about the Bismarck’. It rather makes the might also have spotted the Morse cut though the less well-protected optical instruments as part of their reliability of Tommy’s account. THE widely accepted perception of whole debate over what exactly signals. The surrender claim ties in parts of Bismarck, like a hot knife jobs, either controlling the guns, IMPOSSIBILITY OF THE BRITISH PAUSING IN THEIR He had noticed men jumping the ‘invincible Bismarck’ is based sank her pointless. Not only was with the morale of the Bismarck’s through butter - one of the controlling the ship herself or ATTACK ON BISMARCK. overboard and then spotted on the myth of an impregnable she utterly shattered by the British crew, which it is widely known was Rodney’s junior ratings, watching out for air attack. something curious - a black flag warship that was so heavily bombardment - from two shaky prior to the battle. In various G. Conning, describing them as Lieutenant Donald Campbell was indications that somebody in but a bit tenuous - not enough to flying from Bismarck’s main protected that neither British shells battleships and two heavy cruisers previously published accounts fiery tennis balls, with some ‘going HMS Rodney’s Air Defence Officer, Bismarck was trying to surrender. build a whole theory on. However, yardarm, the accepted nautical nor torpedoes actually sank her. at close range, including numerous there have been references to panic through her bows and out the enclosed with his team of sailors in Lt Campbell spotted a white light in the course of further research for signal calling for ‘Parley’, or talks, According to this school of thought torpedo hits - it appears a portion when the finality of the ship’s other side’, bouncing and twirling a lightly armoured box perched sending a Morse code signal from that book (‘HMS Rodney’, about surrender. The black flag is the Germans scuttled their ship and of her ship’s company wanted to predicament set in on the morning into the distance until they right at the top of the battleship’s Bismarck’s main mast. published in 2008) I got in touch used to signify a plea for surrender, were therefore responsible for give up. Surely it was obvious that of the battle. It is also no secret that splashed. A sailor in King George V, command tower. His account of the He wondered: ‘was it surrender?’ with Kevin Byers whose dad, because a white flag still looks like a sinking her, rather than the British. at least some of the men in a ship some of Bismarck’s ordinary sailors whom I interviewed some years Bismarck Action makes a gripping A heavy shell fired by a British Tommy, was a junior rating in the battle ensign from a distance. For nearly 70 years a debate has so mercilessly pounded would try regarded Admiral Günther Lütjens, ago, even before the ‘Killing the read, conveying the dark majesty warship cut short the message, battleship’s main gunnery control German U-boats surrendering to raged, with shipwreck hunters who and surrender? And this brings us the commander of Bismarck’s Bismarck’ book was mooted, said and horror of the final battle on according to Campbell sending ‘the position.