“The clock showed 5.50. The British and German admirals saw each other at the same time. The distance was rapidly closing, and the gunners were frantically aiming their guns. Lutyens shouted:

Because of the shock, the ice clinging to the towers turned into crumbs, which were immediately carried away by the wind. The battlecruiser Hood, flying the admiral's flag, led the way, followed by the battleship Prince of Wales. Orange flashes flashed on the horizon, like distant lightning. Within seconds, British shells slammed into the morning sea, sending up brown fountains of water around the Bismarck. Using strong lenses, Lutyens tried to shorten the 12 miles that separated him from Holland.

The ship on the right has 2 funnels, a mast with bridges on it and 2 stern towers,” he said. “It could be the Hood.” Focus fire on him!

Captain 1st Rank Brinkmann was turning the Prinz Eugen around to bring the guns of the entire side into action when, with a terrifying roar, the Bismarck fired a second salvo. At 5.53 Lutyens radioed to Germany: “I am engaged in a battle with two heavy ships.”

Holland's squadron had 8 guns of 381 mm caliber and 10 guns of 356 mm caliber, that is, it had a clear superiority in firepower. However, Holland saw the Germans almost directly ahead, on the right bow, that is, he could not use the stern towers. This cut his firepower in half when the battle began. But the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen going south could fire with their entire side. In the first seconds of the battle, the Hood fired very inaccurately. The Prince of Wales immediately opened fire on the Bismarck, but spent almost 40 shells before achieving coverage. The Hood first fired at the Prinz Eugen, but its shooting was very inaccurate, and the German cruiser was only sprayed with splashes from nearby splashes.

At 0557, Admiral Holland ordered a turn so that Hood's rear turrets could enter the battle. But the second salvo of the Bismarck was already in the air. A few seconds later, heavy armor-piercing shells hit the fenders of the first shots of the Hood's anti-aircraft guns. A strong fire started, which quickly engulfed the entire middle part of the ship. Behind the stern of the flagship, the Prince of Wales tried to stay in the admiral’s wake. The clock showed 6.00, “Hood” had 3 more minutes to live.

Distance 22,000 meters or 12 nautical miles. Schneider ordered a third salvo. It struck the Hood like a giant iron fist, tore through her decks and penetrated deep into the hold, straight into the artillery magazines. A terrible volcanic explosion demolished one of the Hood's towers, sending it tumbling into the gray sky like a matchbox. A pillar of flame rose into the sky. Streams of water rushed through huge holes in the hull of the battle cruiser and instantly put out the fires. The Hood began to sink rapidly, clouds of smoke and steam engulfing the main deck. The stern of the ship was torn apart and turned into a pile of iron. The superstructure was engulfed in flames, and the Hood was now just a pitiful ruin. The Prince of Wales, coming in his wake, barely had time to turn to avoid colliding with the wreckage of the flagship. A minute later, the mighty Hood fell onto the port side and disappeared under the water. He took with him Admiral Holland, 94 officers and 1,324 sailors. Later, the destroyers managed to recover only 1 midshipman and 2 sailors from the oil slick. They were the only surviving witnesses to the most humiliating defeat of the British fleet.

When the Hood exploded, the crew of the Bismarck burst into wild screams."

Opponents Commanders

Gunter Lutyens Ernst Lindemann Helmut Brinkmann

Lancelot Holland † John Leach Ralph Kerr † Frederick Wake-Walker

Strengths of the parties Losses

Battle of the Atlantic
La Plata "Altmark" "Dervish" Norwegian Sea SC 7 HX-84 HX-106 "Berlin" (1941) Denmark Strait "Bismarck" "Cerberus" Gulf of St. Lawrence PQ-17 Barencevo sea North Cape ONS 5 SC 130

Battle of Denmark Strait- a naval battle of the Second World War between ships of the Royal Navy of Great Britain and the Kriegsmarine (naval forces of the Third Reich). The British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Hood tried to prevent the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen from breaking through the Denmark Strait into the North Atlantic.

Progress of the battle

At 05:35 on May 24, lookouts from the Prince of Wales spotted a German squadron 17 miles (28 km) away. The Germans knew about the enemy's presence from hydrophone readings and soon also noticed the masts of British ships on the horizon. Holland had a choice: either continue to escort the Bismarck, awaiting the arrival of the battleships of Admiral Tovey's squadron, or attack on his own. Holland decided to attack and at 05:37 gave the order to approach the enemy. at 05:52, the Hood opened fire from a range of approximately 13 miles (24 km). The Hood continued to approach the enemy at full speed, trying to reduce the time it took to come under overhead fire. Meanwhile, the German ships took aim at the cruiser: the first 203-mm shell from the Prinz Eugen hit the middle part of the Hood, next to the aft 102-mm installation and caused a strong fire in the stock of shells and missiles. At 05:55, Holland ordered a 20-degree turn to port to allow the rear turrets to fire on the Bismarck.

At approximately 06:00, before completing the turn, the cruiser was hit by a salvo from the Bismarck from a distance of 8 to 9.5 miles (15 - 18 km). Almost immediately, a gigantic fountain of fire appeared in the area of ​​the mainmast, after which a powerful explosion occurred, tearing the cruiser in half. The stern of the Huda quickly sank. The bow section rose and swayed in the air for some time, after which it sank (at the last moment, the doomed crew of the bow tower fired another salvo). The Prince of Wales, half a mile away, was buried under the wreckage of the Hood.

The cruiser sank in three minutes, taking with it 1,415 people, including Vice Admiral Holland. Only three sailors were saved, who were picked up by the destroyer HMS Electra, which arrived two hours later. After the death of the Hood, the Prince of Wales found itself under fire from two ships, and retreated after receiving several hits and the failure of its still unconfigured main battery turrets. At the same time, he managed to hit the Bismarck, which determined the further course of the battle - one of the shells opened extensive oil storage facilities on the Bismarck, and the thick oil trail did not allow the Bismarck to break away from the British ships pursuing it.

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An excerpt characterizing the Battle of the Denmark Strait

Shinshin had not yet had time to tell the joke he had prepared for the count’s patriotism, when Natasha jumped up from her seat and ran up to her father.
- What a charm, this dad! - she said, kissing him, and she again looked at Pierre with that unconscious coquetry that returned to her along with her animation.
- So patriotic! - said Shinshin.
“Not a patriot at all, but just...” Natasha answered offendedly. - Everything is funny to you, but this is not a joke at all...
- What jokes! - repeated the count. - Just say the word, we’ll all go... We’re not some kind of Germans...
“Did you notice,” said Pierre, “that it said: “for a meeting.”
- Well, whatever it is for...
At this time, Petya, to whom no one was paying attention, approached his father and, all red, in a breaking, sometimes rough, sometimes thin voice, said:
“Well, now, daddy, I will decisively say - and mummy too, whatever you want - I will decisively say that you will let me into military service, because I can’t ... that’s all ...
The Countess raised her eyes to the sky in horror, clasped her hands and angrily turned to her husband.
- So I agreed! - she said.
But the count immediately recovered from his excitement.
“Well, well,” he said. - Here’s another warrior! Stop the nonsense: you need to study.
- This is not nonsense, daddy. Fedya Obolensky is younger than me and is also coming, and most importantly, I still can’t learn anything now that ... - Petya stopped, blushed until he sweated and said: - when the fatherland is in danger.
- Complete, complete, nonsense...
- But you yourself said that we would sacrifice everything.
“Petya, I’m telling you, shut up,” the count shouted, looking back at his wife, who, turning pale, looked with fixed eyes at her youngest son.
- And I’m telling you. So Pyotr Kirillovich will say...
“I’m telling you, it’s nonsense, the milk hasn’t dried yet, but he wants to go into military service!” Well, well, I’m telling you,” and the count, taking the papers with him, probably to read them again in the office before resting, left the room.
- Pyotr Kirillovich, well, let’s go have a smoke...
Pierre was confused and indecisive. Natasha's unusually bright and animated eyes, constantly looking at him more than affectionately, brought him into this state.
- No, I think I’ll go home...
- It’s like going home, but you wanted to spend the evening with us... And then you rarely came. And this one of mine...” said the count good-naturedly, pointing at Natasha, “and she’s only cheerful when you’re around...”
“Yes, I forgot... I definitely need to go home... Things to do...” Pierre said hastily.
“Well, goodbye,” said the count, completely leaving the room.
- Why are you leaving? Why are you upset? Why?..” Natasha asked Pierre, looking defiantly into his eyes.
“Because I love you! - he wanted to say, but he didn’t say it, he blushed until he cried and lowered his eyes.
- Because it’s better for me to visit you less often... Because... no, I just have business.
- From what? no, tell me,” Natasha began decisively and suddenly fell silent. They both looked at each other in fear and confusion. He tried to grin, but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently kissed her hand and left.
Pierre decided not to visit the Rostovs with himself anymore.

Petya, after receiving a decisive refusal, went to his room and there, locking himself away from everyone, wept bitterly. They did everything as if they had not noticed anything, when he came to tea, silent and gloomy, with tear-stained eyes.
The next day the sovereign arrived. Several of the Rostov courtyards asked to go and see the Tsar. That morning Petya took a long time to get dressed, comb his hair and arrange his collars like the big ones. He frowned in front of the mirror, made gestures, shrugged his shoulders and, finally, without telling anyone, put on his cap and left the house from the back porch, trying not to be noticed. Petya decided to go straight to the place where the sovereign was and directly explain to some chamberlain (it seemed to Petya that the sovereign was always surrounded by chamberlains) that he, Count Rostov, despite his youth, wanted to serve the fatherland, that youth could not be an obstacle for devotion and that he is ready... Petya, while he was getting ready, prepared many wonderful words that he would say to the chamberlain.

May 24, 1941 became a dark day for Great Britain: the battle cruiser Hood, the most famous and strongest ship of the Royal Navy at that time, was sunk in a short-lived battle in the Denmark Strait. His rival, the German battleship Bismarck, broke into the operational space of the Atlantic, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The Bismarck's campaign, which ended with its death on May 27, its successful battle with the Hood became one of the central episodes of the Battle of the Atlantic, and its influence on the course of the war and the post-war development of the fleet turned out to be much greater than could be expected.

Dangerous situation

By the spring of 1941, a paradoxical situation had developed in the Atlantic theater of operations. The British Royal Navy, of course, had an overwhelming superiority over the Kriegsmarine of the Third Reich - including in the ships of the line class, which at that time were the basis of the main forces of the fleet. The British could formally oppose the two combat-ready German battleships - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau - and two more at the stage of commissioning, the more powerful Bismarck and Tirpitz, with a battle line of nine old battleships - four "mobilization" ships of the First World War II type "R" (the fifth ship of this type, "Royal Oak", was sunk by the submarine U-47 in the fall of 1939), five of their more advanced peers "Queen Elizabeth", three of which were radically modernized, two more modern - “Nelson” and “Rodney” built in the 1920s, two newest battleships of the “King George V” type and three high-speed battlecruisers - “Repulse”, “Rinaun” and “Hood”, also built at the end of the First World War.

Total - sixteen pennants in the battle line against four, while the British had three more battleships in construction, and the Germans had none (which, however, the British did not know about). However, this formal superiority instantly fades when analyzed in detail. Firstly, the geographical factor played a role. The original British war plan called for maintaining dominance in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and counterbalancing the Japanese deployment in the Far East. However, a key element in these calculations was the position of France, whose strong navy would support the Royal Navy in European waters. The defeat of France in 1940 deprived London of an ally, and a series of operations under the general name “Catapult”, which involved the capture and destruction of French ships in English and colonial ports in order to prevent them from passing under German control, turned the remnants of the French fleet into an enemy. Whether the actions of the British in the summer of 1940 were justified is debatable, but in any case, now they had to deal alone with both the Germans and the Italians who had joined them, without forgetting about the Far East.

Italy added to the naval forces of the Axis countries four battleships from the First World War that had undergone modernization, and four new ships of the Littorio class that were being completed. Potentially, this gave Berlin and Rome 12 battle-class ships, including 8 new and 4 old, against 19 (also taking into account the ships under construction) English ones, of which only 5 would have been new. Military preparations of Japan, which by 1941 had ten modernized battleships built in the 1910-1920s and the construction of three battleships of a new type, finally reduced the former naval dominance of the British to nothing - an attempt to be strong everywhere threatened with defeat in any of the three key naval theaters of war for the empire.

The comparative characteristics of the ships in these conditions were of secondary importance, but they did not add optimism: economic problems allowed the empire to modernize only three battleships and one battle cruiser of the old construction, and also forced them to seriously reduce the characteristics of the new ships being built, which seriously reduced the chances in the event of probable military clashes of the main fleet forces.

However, the Royal Navy would be unworthy of its name if it did not seize chances even in these conditions: after the cold-blooded reprisal of the French ships in July 1940, the Italians began to suffer. On November 12, 1940, in an attack on the main base of the Italian Navy Taranto, 20 torpedo bombers and Swordfish bombers, rising from the deck of the British aircraft carrier Illustrious, achieved torpedo hits on three battleships - Conte di Cavour, Caio Duilio and the newest Littorio " Cavour was out of action for the rest of the war, Littorio and Duilio for several months each, making things much easier for British forces in the Mediterranean. Among other consequences of the attack, one can note a careful study of its results by the office of the Japanese naval attaché in Rome, but Tokyo representatives did not share their conclusions with anyone then.

In March 1941, the suffering of the Regia Marina - the Royal Italian Navy - continued: in the battle off Cape Matapan, the Italians lost three heavy cruisers sunk, and the newest battleship Vittorio Veneto was seriously damaged. This success of the British, which they themselves perceived as an offensive failure - the damaged enemy battleship managed to escape - firmly locked the Italian Navy in the bases, allowing the British to continue escorting convoys around the Mediterranean, despite heavy losses caused by attacks by aircraft and submarines. In general, despite all the “buts” and potential threats, this theater remained with the Royal Navy, and the material results were fairly reinforced by the self-confidence achieved in the battles - the Italians did not want to get involved in an open battle with British battleships - whether new or outdated.

This confidence also reigned in the Atlantic, even after the raid of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in February 1941. Despite the relative success - a breakthrough through the British operational zone from the North Sea to the Bay of Biysk, arrival in Brest without losses and the destruction of 22 enemy merchant ships with a total tonnage of 115,600 tons - the same pattern was confirmed as in the Mediterranean. The Germans, fearing losses, avoided contact with British battleships, retreating first from convoy HX-106, which was escorting the outdated and not modernized battleship Ramillies, and then from SL-67, in whose escort the Germans discovered a slightly more advanced, but also outdated ship "Malaya". Under these conditions, the readiness for battle of the two newest German battleships - the Bismarck and the Tirpitz - was perceived by the British rather philosophically: the Huns' submarines in the Atlantic and their bombers in the Mediterranean posed a much more significant threat.

Operation Rhineland Exercise

The February breakthrough of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau convinced the Germans of the need to continue raider operations of large surface ships in the Atlantic: the commissioning of new battleships promised a qualitative advantage more significant than that of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the 280-mm main caliber of which is all it was considered insufficient to successfully confront British battleships carrying main battery guns from 356 to 406 millimeters. "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz" carried 380-mm main caliber artillery, eight of the latest guns with increased rate of fire and accuracy in four turrets, surpassing in firepower both the new British "King George" with their ten 356-mm barrels, and older ships with eight 381-mm guns from the First World War, which were inferior to the Bismarck in terms of firing range, speed and protection, and the Nelsons, whose 406-mm guns were not very successful. Moreover, the battlecruisers Repulse and Renown were inferior to the new German ships, whose 30-knot speed, prohibitive for battleships of the First World War and high even for the Second World War, was bought at the cost of weakening armor protection and reducing the number of main caliber barrels from eight to six.

Battleship "Bismarck"
Built by Blohm&Voss shipyard, Hamburg.
Laid down: 07/01/1936
Launched: 02/14/1939
Transferred to the Navy: 08/24/1940
Reached combat readiness: 02.1941

Displacement: 41,700 t standard; 50,900 tons total.
Length/width/draft, meters: 251/36/10.2
Reservations: main belt 320 mm, upper belt 145 mm, belt at the ends 60/80 mm, main deck 80-110 mm, steering gear 110-150 mm, main gun turrets 180-360 mm, main gun barbettes 340 mm, SK turrets 35- 100 mm, conning tower 200-350 mm, torpedo bulkhead 45 mm.

Energy: boiler-turbine power plant, 12 steam boilers, three shafts, total power 110 MW.
Full speed: 30.6 knots.

Weapons:
main caliber - 8 × 380 mm SKC34 (4 × 2),
medium caliber - 12 × 150 mm (6 × 2)
anti-aircraft artillery - 16 × 105 mm (8 × 2),
16 × 37 mm (8 × 2),
20 × 20 mm (20 × 1).
Aviation group: four reconnaissance seaplanes, one steam catapult.

Crew on the day of going to sea: 2220 people.

Only the larger than both of these ships, the Hood, could compete with the new Germans on equal terms - although it had not undergone modernization, it was in good technical condition, gave almost 30 knots of speed, had adequate (as it seemed) armor protection and eight 381 -millimeter main caliber guns. The most famous and popular ship of the Royal Navy at that time, named after the famous officer dynasty, the last representative of which was Rear Admiral Horace Hood, who died in the Battle of Jutland, was the first in its series - and the only one: the construction of three more ships was canceled after the First global for financial reasons. Combined with the excellent training of the crew, who had solid combat experience, the characteristics of the Hood made it the most valuable ship in the fleet. These qualities also determined its place in the structure of the Royal Navy: the ship was part of the Home Fleet, which was responsible for maintaining dominance in the North Atlantic, that is, in the “home” theater of war, the most important from the point of view of the empire.

On May 18, 1941, two ships left the German naval base of Gotenhafen - the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen with 203 mm artillery. The second newest battleship, the Tirpitz, has not yet reached combat readiness, and Kriegsmarine commander Grand Admiral Erich Raeder refused the proposal of the commander of the surface fleet, Admiral Gunther Lütjens, to postpone the start date of the operation.

On May 21, the British Admiralty began to suspect that “something was going on”: the British attaché in Stockholm transmitted a radiogram that a detachment of two German heavy ships had been spotted in the Kattegat Strait the day before by the Swedish cruiser Gotland, and in the evening of the same day about Norwegian resistance fighters informed the same detachment on the radio: the Germans had anchored in the port of Bergen.

On May 22, the German detachment was photographed by a British aerial reconnaissance, and London accurately determined the enemy’s forces: the British knew that the Tirpitz was not ready to go to sea and that the Admiral Hipper was under repair.

On the same day, the commander of the Home Fleet, Admiral Sir John Tovey, sent a detachment consisting of the battle cruiser Hood, the newest battleship Prince of Wales and escort destroyers to the Denmark Strait between the islands of Greenland and Iceland, under the overall command of Rear Admiral Lancelot Holland, who was on aboard the Hood. In the strait itself, a screen of two heavy cruisers, the Suffolk and the Norfolk, unfolded, which were supposed to detect the Germans when they appeared. Another likely route for the German detachment - a wide passage between the Faroe Islands and Iceland - was provided by a screen of three light cruisers. On the night of May 23, John Tovey left the Scapa Flow base in the Orkney Islands aboard the battleship King George V at the head of a detachment that also included the aircraft carrier Victorious and escort ships. The British commander intended to take a position west of Scotland, which would allow him to intercept the German detachment along any route. There he waited for reinforcements to arrive in the form of the battle cruiser Repulse.

The battle

On the evening of May 23, British cruisers in the Denmark Strait noticed the Germans - and soon the leading Bismarck opened fire on the Norfolk. Not having the task of “stopping with their breasts” a clearly superior enemy, the British retreated, continuing to maintain radar and visual contact. The Germans also had radars, but due to shocks during firing, the Bismarck's bow radar failed, and Admiral Günther Lütjens placed the Prinz Eugen in command. The British did not notice this change of formation in the thickening cloudy darkness, believing that Bismarck was still leading the detachment. Admiral Holland, having received the radar contact data, led two of his linear units to intercept, obviously being confident of success: 18 barrels with a caliber of 356-381 millimeters against eight German ones gave a solid advantage, even despite the not very high reliability of the newest four-gun turrets of the recently commissioned "Prince of Wales".

Battlecruiser Hood
Built by John Brown & Company, Clydebank.
Laid down: 09/01/1916
Launched: 08/22/1918
Transferred to the Navy: 05/15/1920

Displacement: 41,125 t standard; 47,430 tons total.
Length/width/draft, meters: 267.5/31.7/9
Reservations: belt 305 mm, upper belt 127-178 mm, barbettes 305 mm, deck 25+38 mm, conning tower 76.2-280 mm, anti-torpedo bulkhead 38 mm.

Energy: boiler-turbine power plant, 24 steam boilers, four shafts, total power 106 MW.
Full speed according to the project is 31 knots, in 1941 - 29 knots.

Weapons:
main caliber - 8x381 mm Mk I (4x2)
anti-aircraft artillery - 14 x 102 mm Mk XVI (7x2)
3x8 40mm pom-pom mounts
5x4 12.7 mm Vickers machine guns
5x20 installations of anti-aircraft unguided rockets UP.
Torpedo armament - 2x2 533 mm torpedo tubes.
Aviation group: reconnaissance seaplane, one steam catapult.

Crew on the day of death: 1421 people.

At 05:35 on May 24, lookouts on the Prince of Wales discovered a German detachment at a distance of 17 nautical miles (28 kilometers), by which time the Germans had already established radar contact. The unnoticed restructuring of the German ships played a cruel joke on the British: the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen had silhouettes that were confusingly similar, and the large distance did not allow one to notice the difference in the sizes of the battleship and the heavy cruiser.

The British began to approach at full speed and at 05:52 began shooting at the lead ship, believing that it was the Bismarck. The Germans also did not immediately understand the tactical situation, mistaking the Hood for a light cruiser for some time, but soon identified both opponents. It is unknown how much this mistake of the Germans influenced subsequent events - it is possible that, having identified both opponents at once, Gunter Lütjens would have retreated, taking advantage of the advantage in speed, as the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had previously retreated even when meeting with a single old battleship.

Radiogram with a message about the death of "Hood"

British naval forces intercepted early this morning off the coast off Greenland German naval forces including battleship Bismarck. The enemy were attacked and during the ensuing action HMS Hood (Captain R. Kerr, CBE, RN) wearing the flag of Vice-Admiral L.E. Holland, CBE, receive an unlucky hit in magazine and blew up. The Bismarck has damage and the pursuite of the enemy continues.

It is feared there will be few survivors from HMS Hood.

A British formation near the coast of Greenland early in the morning intercepted a German one, which included the battleship Bismarck. The enemy was attacked, and in the ensuing affair His Majesty's ship Hood (Captain Kerr CBE, Royal Navy), under the flag of Vice-Admiral Holland CBE, was unsuccessfully hit in the magazines and exploded. The Bismarck is damaged and the pursuit of the enemy continues.

I fear that few will escape from His Majesty's ship Hood.

At 06:00, a German salvo from a distance of 8 to 9.5 miles (it is not possible to establish more precisely due to the death of the main participants in the events) covered the Hood, on which a large fire broke out, and a few moments later the battle cruiser exploded. Of the 1,421 people on board, the escorting destroyers were able to save only three. The Prince of Wales, sailing half a mile from Hood, was hit by a hail of debris, and a few minutes later the German detachment transferred fire to the surviving battleship. The Germans managed to damage one of the ship's four-gun turrets, the second failed due to mechanical failure, and the British were left with one main-caliber two-gun turret against the Germans' eight "big guns." Nevertheless, during this short time, the Prince of Wales scored three hits on the Bismarck, one of the shells damaging the enemy’s bow group of fuel tanks. An oil trail followed the German.

The enemy's advantage, however, remained undeniable: having received seven hits, including three 380-mm shells from the Bismarck and four 203-mm shells from the Prinz Eugen, the commander of the Prince of Wales, Captain John Leach, laid a smoke screen and left from the battle. The battleship and two cruisers continued to maintain contact with the German detachment, transmitting a message about what was happening to Admiral John Tovey. The Germans, in turn, not knowing about the condition of the opponent, also considered it best to interrupt the battle and continued their journey to the south. The Bismarck, which had been hit by fuel tanks, slowly began to bury its nose in the water. A patch was placed under the hole, but this did not prevent significant volumes from flooding in the bow of the ship.

The consequences are greater than expected

The death of the Hood could not simply be left alone: ​​all available combat units nearby rushed into the North Atlantic. On the evening of the same May 24, the Bismarck again came into fire contact with the Prince of Wales and the accompanying cruisers, covering the departure of the Prinz Eugen for an independent raid. Having assessed the damage to the battleship, Admiral Lutyens decides not to risk the best German ship, and, having released the cruiser on a solo voyage, go with the Bismarck to Brest, where three months earlier he had safely brought the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. He failed to realize this plan - after three days of a dramatic chase and two attacks by torpedo bombers, the second of which, carried out by Swordfish from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, deprived the Bismarck of steering control, the British caught up with the enemy. On May 27 at 10:39 the Bismarck was sunk. The British did not suffer any losses - the German battleship, almost devoid of speed, could not adequately maneuver and adjust artillery fire in the stormy sea; in addition, one of the first hits destroyed the main rangefinder post of the Bismarck. Nevertheless, the ship held out under fire from two British battleships for almost three hours and was finally sunk by torpedoes from cruisers that approached the minimum distance after the Bismarck’s guns stopped firing, having exhausted their ammunition. Along with the battleship, Admiral Lutyens, the commander of the ship Lindeman and another 2,104 people out of the 2,220 on board were killed.

The consequences of the battle, however, turned out to be much more significant than simply excluding two units of the main forces of the fleet from the enemy forces. First of all, the almost instantaneous sinking of the battlecruiser and the subsequent stubborn resistance of the Bismarck forced the British to reconsider their views on the combat capabilities of German ships and to constantly maintain in the Home Fleet a sufficient number of modern battleships and aircraft carriers to guarantee the neutralization of the Germans in the event of a new breakthrough into the Atlantic, so and failed.

This had a serious impact on the Royal Navy's capabilities in other theaters. Firstly, in the Mediterranean Sea, especially after German submarines sank the battleship Barham and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal in the fall of 1941, and Italian underwater saboteurs seriously damaged the battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth in the harbor of Alexandria. Secondly, in the Far East, where the Prince of Wales, a survivor of the battle with Bismarck, together with the battle cruiser Repulse, was sent to intercept Japanese convoys with troops without adequate escort and without air cover. "Repulse" and "Prince of Wales" died on December 10, 1941 in the South China Sea under the attack of torpedo bombers and coastal bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy, as heroically as it was senseless, without causing any damage to the enemy, except for the four downed aircraft.

For the Soviet Union, this episode of the war at sea was important primarily due to the increased caution demonstrated by the British fleet when escorting polar convoys, the extreme expression of which was the defeat of convoy PQ-17 in July 1942, which was actually abandoned on orders from London in the face of a hypothetical threat from the Germans. large ships, which by that time had moved to Norway.

The distant echo of the battle between the Bismarck and the Hood, however, echoed over the Atlantic for another decade and a half after the war, when one of the main threats to the Western Allied Navy was considered the breakthrough into the ocean of Soviet heavy artillery ships - cruisers of Project 68, 68-bis and supposed battleships and battlecruisers, reports of the construction of which in the USSR have long excited the minds of Western naval analysts. To neutralize this hypothetical threat, the United States and Great Britain continued to maintain in service and in reserve the battleships remaining after the war - since aircraft carriers and aircraft of that period did not guarantee success in the difficult climatic conditions of the North Atlantic, and developed projects for new ships with powerful artillery weapons, united under the common name " Sverdlov-killers" - in honor of the lead cruiser of Project 68-bis "Sverdlov".

Finally, the ghost of a heavy artillery ship suddenly appearing from behind a horizon hidden by clouds among gloomy waves and creeping fog dissipated only towards the end of the 1950s - by that time it became clear that the Soviet Union in the naval war had relied on the development of naval missile-carrying aviation and nuclear power. submarine fleet, and large guns as weapons of naval warfare remained the property of history.

Operation Rhineland Exercises included the entry of the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen into the Atlantic Ocean through the Denmark Strait. The main goal of the operation was to reach the sea communications of the British merchant fleet. It was assumed that the Bismarck would engage the escort of convoys in battle, while the Prinz Eugen would sink merchant ships. Admiral Gunter Lütjens was appointed commander of the operation, who asked the command to postpone the start of the campaign so that the Tirpitz, which was undergoing testing, or the “pocket battleship” Scharnhorst, which was being repaired in the port of Brest, could join him. However, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Erich Raeder, did not support Lütjens, and on May 18, 1941, Prinz Eugen and Bismarck went to sea.

On May 20, German ships were spotted from the neutral Swedish cruiser Gotland, and on the same day representatives of the Norwegian resistance reported a squadron of two large warships. On May 21, Great Britain received a message from its military attache at the Swedish Embassy about the discovery of two large German ships in the Kattegat Strait. From May 21 to 22, the ships were moored in the fjords near Bergen, Norway, where they were repainted and the Prinz Eugen was refueled. "Bismarck" for unknown reasons did not refuel. While the ships were parked, an English Air Force reconnaissance plane managed to photograph them. Now the British admirals have accurately identified Bismarck.

The commander of the English Home Fleet, Admiral John Tovey, almost immediately sent the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Hood, accompanied by destroyers, to the southwest coast of Iceland. The cruiser "Suffolk" was supposed to link up with the cruiser "Norfolk" located in the Denmark Strait. The light cruisers Birmingham, Manchester and Arethusa were supposed to patrol in the strait between the Faroe Islands and Iceland. On the night of May 22, Admiral Tovey himself, at the head of a flotilla of the battleship King George V and the aircraft carrier Victorious with an escort, left the Scapa Flow fleet base. This flotilla was supposed to wait for German ships to the northwest of Scotland, where it was supposed to meet with the battle cruiser Repulse.

Battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen

On the evening of May 23, in the Denmark Strait, in thick fog, the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk came into visual contact with German ships. The Bismarck was forced to open fire on the Norfolk, after which the British ships retreated into the fog and conveyed the location of the enemy to their command, continuing to follow the Bismarck on radar at a distance of 10-14 miles.

Battle in the Denmark Strait

The flagship of the English fleet, Hood, and the battleship Prince of Wales established visual contact with the German ships in the early morning of May 24 and began the battle at 5:52 a.m., being more than 20 km away. Vice Admiral Holland, who commanded the formation, ordered to open fire on the first ship, mistaking it for the Bismarck. The Prince of Wales quickly figured out the mistake and transferred the fire to the second ship. Holland himself soon realized this, but apparently his order never reached the fire control center, since the Hood continued to fire at the Prinz Eugen until the very end.

At 5:56, the sixth salvo from the Prince of Wales hit the Bismarck, the shells damaged the fuel tanks and caused fuel to leak and fill with water, the ship began to leave the oil shelf. A minute later, the Hood received hits from the third salvo of the Bismarck and the second salvo of the Prinz Eugen, fires started on the ship. At this time, Bismarck received two more hits from Prince of Wales below the waterline. By 6:00 o'clock the ships had approached to 16 km, at which time the Hood was hit by the fifth salvo from the German battleship, there was a terrible explosion and the pride of the English fleet, breaking in half, sank to the bottom in a matter of minutes. Of the total crew of 1,417 people, only three were saved.

The battleship "Prince of Wales" was forced to continue the battle alone and it developed extremely unsuccessfully for him. The ship was forced to approach German ships up to a distance of 14 km, avoiding a collision with the remnants of the Hood. After receiving seven hits, which disabled one of the main caliber turrets, the battleship left the battle, hiding behind a smoke screen.

The captain of the Bismarck, Lindemann, offered to continue the pursuit and sink the stricken battleship, but Admiral Lütjens ordered the campaign to continue. On the Bismarck, as a result of the battle, one generator failed, sea water began to flow into boiler room No. 2 with two boilers, two fuel tanks were pierced, the ship sailed with a trim on the bow and a list to starboard. Admiral Lutyens decided to break through to the French port of Saint-Nazaire for repairs, after which the battleship could easily reach the Atlantic communications.

"Bismarck" fires on the battleship "Prince of Wales"

The pursuit

The cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk, as well as the damaged battleship Prince of Wales, continued to pursue the Germans, relaying their location. The death of the flagship of the fleet, the battle cruiser Hood, made a very painful impression on the British admirals; later, a special commission was even created to investigate the circumstances of the death of the Hood. Now most of the warships in the North Atlantic joined the hunt for the Bismarck. The escort ships of many military convoys were brought in to pursue the battleship. So, for this operation, the battleship Rodney and three of the four destroyers that accompanied the former passenger liner Britannic, converted into a military transport, were involved. Additionally, 2 more battleships and 2 cruisers were involved in the operation. Fleet Force H, stationed at Gibraltar, was put on alert in case the Bismarck headed in their direction.

At about 6 p.m. on May 24, the Bismarck suddenly turned around in the fog and headed towards its pursuers. After a short battle, the ships did not hit each other, but the British ships were forced to hide, at which time the Prinz Eugen successfully broke contact with them and reached the French port of Brest 10 days later. At half past ten, Leutens reported to the command that the Bismarck, experiencing a lack of fuel, was stopping attempts to shake off its pursuers and was moving directly to Saint-Nazare.

In the evening of the same day, Admiral Tovey orders the aircraft carrier Victories to approach the battleship, and already at 22:10 9 Swordfish torpedo bombers took off from it, which, under heavy anti-aircraft artillery fire, attacked the battleship and achieved one hit from the starboard side. However, the ship did not receive serious damage, since the torpedo hit the main armor belt. In this incident, the ship's crew lost one sailor (the first loss since the beginning of the voyage). At night, the Bismarck managed to break away from its pursuers, taking advantage of the fact that they, fearing attacks from submarines, began to perform anti-submarine maneuvers.

Detection

The ship was discovered again only at 10:10 on May 26, when the American-British crew of the Katolina flying boat, flying from the Lough Erne base in Northern Ireland, was able to discover the battleship. By this time, Lutyens still had 690 miles to Brest, and soon he could call in Luftwaffe bomber aircraft to protect the ship.

At this moment, the only British formation that could slow down the Bismarck was Force H, commanded by Admiral Sommerville, which came out to intercept from Gibraltar, including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. At 14:50, Swordfish torpedo bombers flew from its deck to the place where the battleship was found; by this time, the Sheffield cruiser, which had separated from the main forces, was in the area and was trying to establish contact with the Bismarck. The pilots, who did not know anything about this, mistook him for a German and carried out a torpedo attack; fortunately for them, not one of the 11 torpedoes fired was able to hit the target.

At 17:40, Sheffield discovered the Bismarck and began pursuing it; a repeated raid by 15 torpedo bombers at 20:47 bore fruit, the British pilots achieved two or three hits on the battleship, with one of them becoming decisive, the torpedo hit the stern part of the vessel and damaged the steering mechanisms. "Bismarck" lost the ability to maneuver and began to describe circulation; the team's attempts to restore the ship's controllability were unsuccessful.

The last battle of the battleship

Sinking

May 27 at 8:47 am from a distance of 22 km. The Bismarck was attacked by ships from Admiral Tovey's formation; the battleships King George V and Rodney, and then the cruisers Dorsetshire and Norfolk, began shelling the ship. The battleship snapped back. However, the British quickly scored hits on the Bismarck; within half an hour, the main caliber gun turrets were damaged, many superstructures, including fire control posts, were destroyed and on fire, and the ship suffered a strong list. At 9:31, the last fourth gun turret of the cruiser fell silent, after which, according to the stories of the surviving crew members, the captain of the ship, Ernst Lindemann, gave the order to scuttle the ship. "Bismarck" did not lower the battle flag to the end, which allowed "Rodney" to approach a distance of 2-4 km. and shoot a defenseless ship point-blank. However, the fuel on the British ships was running out, realizing that the Bismarck would no longer reach Brest, Admiral Tovey decides to return to base. The cruiser Dorsetshire fires 3 torpedoes at the German battleship from 10:20 to 10:36, each of which hits the target. At 10:39, the Bismarck fell on board and sank; only a little more than 110 crew members managed to escape; more than 2,100 people shared the fate of the lost ship.

Commanders Losses Media files on Wikimedia Commons

Battle of Denmark Strait- a naval battle of the Second World War between ships of the Royal Navy of Great Britain and the Kriegsmarine (naval forces of the Third Reich). The British battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Hood tried to prevent the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen from breaking through the Denmark Strait into the North Atlantic.

Background

Operation Rhineland Exercises included the entry of the battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen into the Atlantic Ocean through the Denmark Strait. The main goal of the operation was to reach the sea communications of the British merchant fleet. It was assumed that the Bismarck would engage the escort of convoys in battle, while the Prinz Eugen would sink merchant ships. Vice Admiral Günther Lütjens was appointed commander of the operation, who asked the command to postpone the start of the campaign so that the battleship Tirpitz, which was undergoing testing, the battleship Gneisenau, which was being repaired, or the battleship Scharnhorst, which was stationed in Brest, could join him. However, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine, Admiral Erich Raeder, did not support Lütjens, and on May 18, 1941, Prinz Eugen and Bismarck went to sea.

On May 20, German ships were spotted from the Swedish cruiser Gotland, and on the same day representatives of the Norwegian resistance reported a squadron of two large warships. On May 21, Great Britain received a message from its military attache at the Swedish Embassy about the discovery of two large German ships in the Kattegat Strait. From May 21 to 22, the German ships were moored in a fjord near Bergen, Norway, where they were repainted and the Prinz Eugen was refueled. "Bismarck" for unknown reasons did not refuel. While the ships were parked, an English Air Force reconnaissance plane managed to photograph them. Now the British admirals have accurately identified the Bismarck.

The commander of the English Home Fleet, Admiral John Tovey, almost immediately sent the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood, accompanied by the destroyers Electra, Achates, Entelop, Anthony, Echo and Icarus to the south. west coast of Iceland. The cruiser "Suffolk" was supposed to link up with the cruiser "Norfolk" located in the Denmark Strait. The light cruisers Birmingham, Manchester and Arethusa were supposed to patrol in the strait between the Faroe Islands and Iceland. On the night of May 22, Admiral Tovey himself led a squadron from the battleship " King George V" and the aircraft carrier Victories with her escort left the Scapa Flow fleet base. This squadron was supposed to wait for German ships northwest of Scotland, where it was supposed to meet with the battlecruiser Repulse.

On the evening of May 23, the British cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk discovered the Bismarck group sailing at a speed of 27 knots in the Denmark Strait. The weather was deteriorating and Vice Admiral Holland, the squadron commander, told the destroyers: “If you cannot maintain this speed, I will have to go without you. You must follow at your best speed.” Using newly installed radar, Suffolk tracked Bismarck's movements throughout the night and transmitted its coordinates to the main force. The British plan was to approach the Bismarck from the dark (southern) side, with the German ships silhouetted against the light background of the northern sky. However, at 00:28, Suffolk lost contact with Bismarck and the plan did not work: fearing the loss of Bismarck, Holland ordered a halt to the optimal rendezvous point and a turn to the south-southwest, sending the destroyers north. At this time, the German ships, trying to bypass the pack ice, changed course at 00:41, as a result of which a group of destroyers passed by at a distance of only 10 miles, without noticing the enemy. At 2:15 a.m. on May 24, the destroyers were ordered to split up at 15-mile intervals to make their way north. Shortly before 03:00, Suffolk again detected Bismarck on radar and transmitted her coordinates. "Hood" and "Prince of Wales" were at that moment at a distance of 35 miles (65 km), slightly ahead of the Germans. Holland ordered to turn towards the enemy and increase speed to 28 knots. The British ships were at a disadvantage: meeting at an obtuse angle meant fighting at a long distance, in which the Hood's thin deck armor came under overhead fire. The situation worsened even more at 03:20, when Bismarck made another turn to the west: now the squadrons were on an almost parallel course.

Progress of the battle

At 05:35 on May 24, lookouts from the Prince of Wales spotted a German squadron 17 miles (28 km) away. The Germans knew about the enemy's presence from hydrophone readings and soon also noticed the masts of British ships on the horizon. Holland had a choice: either continue to escort the Bismarck while awaiting the arrival of the battleships of Admiral Tovey's squadron, or attack on his own. Holland decided to attack and at 05:37 gave the order to approach the enemy. at 05:52, the Hood opened fire from a range of approximately 13 miles (24 km). "Hood" continued to approach the enemy at full speed, trying to reduce the time spent under overhead fire. Meanwhile, the German ships took aim at the battle cruiser: the first 203-mm shell from the Prinz Eugen hit the middle part of the Hood next to the aft 102-mm installation and caused a strong fire of ammunition and missiles. At 05:55, Holland ordered a 20-degree turn to port so that the rear turrets could also fire on the Bismarck.

At approximately 06:00, before completing the turn, the cruiser was hit by a Bismarck salvo from a distance of 8 to 9.5 miles (15 - 18 km). Almost immediately, a gigantic fountain of fire appeared in the area of ​​the mainmast and a powerful explosion occurred, tearing the cruiser in half. The stern of the Huda quickly sank. The bow section rose and swung in the air for some time, after which it sank. At the last moment, the doomed crew of the bow turret fired another salvo. The Prince of Wales, half a mile away, was buried under the wreckage of the Hood.

The battlecruiser sank in three minutes, taking with her 1,415 men, including Vice Admiral Holland. Only three sailors were saved, who were picked up by the destroyer HMS Electra, which arrived two hours later. After the death of the Hood, the Prince of Wales found itself under fire from two ships at once, and retreated after receiving several hits and the failure of its still unfinished main gun turrets. At the same time, he managed to hit the Bismarck, which determined the further course of the battle - one of the shells opened one of the oil storage tanks on the Bismarck, and a clearly visible oil trail did not allow the Bismarck to break away from the British ships pursuing it.

Links

• (English)
• The Battleship Bismarck
• Antonio Bonomi's reconstruction of the battle (English)