Battleship Bismarck (51 page)

Schütte spent the morning of 28 May in a fruitless search for survivors. Around 1300 he picked up some thin streaks of oil and followed them to the north. Before long the lead case of a German gas mask was seen on the water and, minutes later, numerous corpses in life jackets, empty life jackets, and wreckage came into view. The
Sachsenwald
cruised back and forth through the debris, but saw nobody. After darkness fell, around 2230, three red flares suddenly shot up into the sky nearby. The
Sachsenwald
turned towards them and, through his night glasses, Schütte made out a rubber raft with two men on board. When he was close enough, he yelled, “Are you German?” and got the resounding reply, “Ja, hurrah!” By 2245 the ship and the raft were alongside one another and two exhausted men were hauled up a Jacob’s ladder. They were Matrosengefreiter Otto Maus and Maschinengefreiter Walter Lorenzen.

The men told Schütte that there was another raft in the vicinity, so he searched the area throughout the twenty-ninth. He made wide swings to the east and west, every turn taking him five nautical miles to the south, following the wind and seas. An empty rubber dinghy that Maus recognized as belonging to the
Bismarck
was taken on board that evening.

Around 0100 on 30 May Schütte, still in the search area, saw the
Canarias
, the Spanish cruiser that Group West had asked to go to the
Bismarck’s
assistance, and the two ships exchanged recognition signals. Immediately thereafter Schütte, his provisions almost spent and his search being unproductive, headed for home. When, on 1 June, the
Sachsenwald
entered the Gironde, Maus and Lorenzen disembarked and were taken to Paris where they reported to Group West.

After her encounter with the
Sachsenwald
, the
Canarias
picked up two dead bodies which, through their tags and uniforms, were identified as Musikgefreiter
*
Walter Grasczak and Marinesignalgast
†
Heinrich Neuschwander. At 1000 the next day, covered with the German
flag and accorded full military honors, both bodies were buried at 43° 46’ north and 08° 34’ west.

The time in the
Dorsetshire
passed quickly and on our fourth day, 30 May, she arrived at Newcastle. The
Maori
had separated from her at sea and gone into the Clyde.

The last time I talked with Commander Byas, he warned me that the army, which would take us into custody at Newcastle, would not treat us as well as the
Dorsetshire
had. Naturally, he was right. From many peacetime associations, I was aware of the bond between our two navies. Although we were then at war, this feeling came to the surface under certain circumstances. The fight that the
Bismarck
put up to the bitter end earned the admiration of British seamen, which probably accounts for the good accommodations we were given and the way we were treated on board ship. The fact that Captain Martin was well treated as a prisoner of war in Germany in World War One may also have had something to do with this. When he made his rounds among our men he always told them, “As long as you are here with me, you’ll have it just as good.” And the attitude of his crew was the same. The British seamen were always pleasant and helpful. “You today, us tomorrow,” they said. Their tomorrow was not long in coming. On 4 April 1942 the
Dorsetshire
, under a new commanding officer, Captain A. W. S. Agar, was sunk by Japanese bombs southeast of Ceylon.

On the morning of 31 May, the petty officers and men were the first to disembark. We officers followed and were piped over the side as the ship’s watch presented arms, a ceremony usually reserved for peacetime.

Our journey to the prisoner-of-war camps had begun.

*
Nautical Assistant

*
In the first edition of his
Schlachtschiff Bismarck
, Brennecke writes on page 392: “In this connection [the
Dorsetshire’s
departure from the rescue scene], we have learned that it was one of the German survivors who, on the basis of his knowledge of the last radio signals, warned the British cruiser’s captain of German U-boats. Did he do this out of nervousness? Out of fear? Or was it his intention to leave the rescue of the rest of the survivors to German U-boats?”

In his fourth edition, instead of saying “one of the German survivors” warned the captain of the
Dorsetshire
, Brennecke says “one of the ranking survivors,” to which statement he attaches note 361a, “It was not the now-retired Kapitän zur See Junack.” I cannot imagine to what radio signals he refers. Furthermore, when we got aboard the
Dorsetshire
, none of us could have warned the captain, who was high up on the bridge, about anything. Upon coming on board, every survivor was immediately taken below. That applied to me also and, as I have recounted, I did not see Captain Martin until the morning of 28 May, twenty-four hours after the rescue operation. My repeated requests for documentation on the alleged warning have not been answered by Herr Brennecke. Needless to say, I flatly reject the insinuation that, since “it was not Kapitän Junack,” it could have been I, the senior-ranking survivor.

Captain Martin’s official report leaves no doubt as to who warned him: “When about 80 survivors had been picked up and I was on the port wing of the bridge directing operations in that vicinity, I received a report from LtCdr. Durant that a suspicious smoking discharge was seen to starboard, or leeward beam about two miles away. I went to the compass platform and saw this myself. It appeared to me that it could have been caused by a submarine, and in view of this and other indications that enemy aircraft and submarines were most likely operating at the scene of the action I was reluctantly compelled to leave some hundreds of the enemy personnel to their fate.”

†
The presence of a U-boat in range to attack the
Dorsetshire
at around noon on 27 May has never been proved. I did not know it at the time, but the
U-556
(Wohlfarth) and the
U-74
(Kentrat) may have been
relatively
near the
Bismarck
. However, Wohlfarth, who did not see even the
Bismarck
on 26 or 27 May, wrote me in February 1978, “I don’t believe that a German U-boat was in the vicinity of the
Dorsetshire
, for, as all the boats [those in the ocean area around the
Bismarck]
were on the way home, it would have been reported somehow and be known today.” Kentrat, having received the radio order, “Search for survivors, the sinking of the
Bismarck
is to be expected,” spent the whole day in a fruitless search.

*
Winston Churchill,
The Second World War
, Vol. III, p. 283.

†
Winston Churchill,
The Second World War
, Vol. III, p. 286.

‡
Russell Grenfell,
The Bismarck Episode
, mentions in a footnote on page 180 that a survivor is alleged to have told Captain Martin that it was a shell from the
Dorsetshire
that disabled the
Bismarck’s
fire-control station. He supposes that the survivor did this because he wanted to ingratiate himself with his captor. Grenfell is referring to me, but how this theory could have arisen is a mystery to me. I did not even know that the
Dorsetshire
was present. A shell that came in shortly after 0910 left my station blind. Therefore, I could not have said anything to Captain Martin about it.

*
The “S” stood for Sonderführer, which signified an officer assigned to specialist duties.

*
Seaman Apprentice (Bandsman)

†
Signalman

36    Exercise Rhine in Retrospect

The battleship
Bismarck
owes her place in naval history primarily to the gunnery actions in which she engaged on 24 and 27 May 1941.

On 24 May she demonstrated her exceptional striking power. At an average range of 16,000 meters, it took her only six minutes and the expenditure of only ninety-three heavy shells to sink the largest and most famous British battle cruiser of the day. This lightning success exceeded the most sanguine expectations and showed the
Bismarck
to represent a high point in German naval gunnery.

On 27 May the
Bismarck
displayed an almost unbelievable staying power. She was also a high point in German shipbuilding. It required the collective efforts of a British fleet of five battleships, three battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, four heavy and seven light cruisers, and twenty-one destroyers to find and destroy her. In addition, more than fifty aircraft of the RAF’s Coastal Command participated in her destruction.

At ranges that diminished to 2,500 meters and brought a proportionately high rate of hits, the following ordnance was fired at the
Bismarck
after the action off Iceland:

Shells

380 40.6-centimeter (16-inch),
Rodney, 27
May

716 15.2-centimeter (6-inch),
Rodney
27 May

339 35.6-centimeter (14-inch),
King George V
, 27 May

660 13.3-centimeter (5.25-inch),
King George V, 27
May

527 20.3-centimeter (8-inch),
Norfolk
, 27 May 254

20.3-centimeter (8-inch),
Dorsetshire
, 27 May

A total, therefore, of 2,876 shells in the course of an action that lasted ninety minutes.

Torpedoes

8, aircraft from the
Victorious
, 1 hit, 24–25 May

13, aircraft from the
Ark Royal, 2
hits and possibly a third, 26 May

3,
Cossack
, no hits, 0140, 27 May

1,
Cossack
, no hit, 0335, 27 May

2,
Maori
, no hits, 0137, 27 May

2,
Maori
, no hits, 0656, 27 May

4,
Zulu
, no hits, 0121, 27 May

4,
Sikh
, no hits, 0128, 27 May

12,
Rodney
, 1 hit claimed, 27 May

8,
Norfolk
, 1 possible hit, 27 May

3,
Dorsetshire, 2
hits and possibly a third, 27 May

On 27 May there were a few penetrations of the 320-millimeter main belt, particularly near the port forward 15-centimeter turret. The latter, according to Josef Statz, started a fire in its magazine. Because of the range of the action many of the shells struck the
Bismarck
in her superstructure. As the
King George V
and
Rodney
left the scene of the action, Tovey signaled Somerville, “Cannot get her to sink with guns.”

There has been a great deal of discussion as to whether the
Bismarck
sank as a result of the three torpedoes fired by the
Dorsetshire
in the concluding phase of the action or whether she was scuttled. Although I was still on board when the
Dorsetshire
fired her first two torpedoes, around 1020, I was not aware of the explosions they produced. That fact, however, has no bearing on the question of what damage, if any, they did. I certainly was aware as I left the after fire-control station at about 1020, that the
Bismarck
was very, very slowly sinking. Heavily down by her stern, she was behaving as though one compartment after the other was flooding, gradually but irresistibly. She showed all the effects to be expected after the scuttling charges had been fired and the seacocks opened somewhere about 1000. The settling, the sinking by the stern, and the heel to port increased more rapidly after 1030, so it may be that, with the battleship already extremely unstable, the
Dorsetshire’s
third torpedo
hastened her end, but it was not responsible for it. I am morally certain that the
Bismarck
would have sunk without this torpedo hit, only perhaps somewhat more slowly.
*