PROLOGUE
In August 1940, came into operation the most
big and powerful in the history of the German navy warship.
This giant ship with a displacement of 53 thousand tons had
in service: 8 guns of caliber 381 mm, 12
150-mm artillery shells, 16 - to 105 mm, 16 - to 37
mm, 12 anti-aircraft automatic 20 mm cannon
and 4 seaplane.
The thickness of the main armor belt: 320 mm.
Reservations: towers of the main fire - from
200 to 380 mm; conning tower - 355 mm deck - 146 mm.
The power plant with total capacity of 163
Thousands of HP afforded the opportunity to develop
speed to 31 knots (57 km / h). Range
navigation of the ship, intended
for raiding is 10 thousand kilometers.
The crew of the raider had about 1600 people. The ship was
named in honor of the great German Chancellor Otto Bismarck,
and was proud of Admiral Raeder, who was able to
its time to persuade Hitler to whether construction to wage war
on the communications of enemy surface ships, rather than
submarines. Imposing a new battleship so captured the
imagination possessed Hitler that he ordered the
design has a larger battleship displacement of about 140
thousand tons.
But the tide of war canceling plans for the Admiral
Roeder, and simultaneously ended and ambitious dreams of the
Fuhrer.
PART 1
Morning of 21 May 1941 Commander of the British fleet, Admiral
Tovey received an encrypted message that the two major Nazi
ship go through the Kattegat Strait, heading for the north.
Afternoon message was confirmed. One of the aircraft
- The scouts managed to photograph
these ships are waiting to be dark in Grimstad-fiord.
Explanation of photos left no doubt: in the vicinity of Bergen
ready to pounce on English communication in the Atlantic
battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen ". And when
Two days later, the German ships reached
northern entrance to the Denmark Strait - wide
maritime space separating Scotland and Greenland, they found in
the twilight gloom the outlines of a heavy British cruiser
"Suffolk". An hour later came another cruiser "Norfolk."
Both the British vessel went in parallel with the German fleet,
while remaining outside the reach of its guns.
Receive a message about the enemy
squadron, Admiral Holland, the commander of the British
squadron, consisting of a battleship-cruiser Hood, the
battleship Prince of Wales and six destroyers rushed to
intercept, but no matter how trying the English - German
squadron to catch up they had on parallel courses.
At dawn on May 24 first talked 381millimetrovye guns
"Bismarck", jointly with the "Prinz Eugen opened fire on
battleship-cruiser Hood and battleship Prince
Wales. "Moreover, if the sighting shots of the British gave the
flight, the German immediately covered with a purpose. Barely a
minute into the fight 203-mm projectiles, "Prince Eugene
"landed on the deck" Hood ", and After another five minutes,
two shells with "Bismarck", I ask all three of the armored deck
"Hud," caught in the powder magazines.
There was a terrible explosion, splitting the ship in half,
soars into the air content, powder magazine, a dazzling flame
covers the ship, and after four minutes in its place remains a
pillar of black smoke. So a few minutes longer exists one of
the largest warships in the world. Puffing heavily, turning
away from German ships "The Prince of Wales' death shocked"
Hood "and struck by several missiles. Almost unharmed, "Prince
Eugene" and "Bismarck", for which extends the trace of oil
flowing from the damaged tanks in the battle, stubbornly
go south. Evening, May 24, Bismarck turns south-east towards
Brest to eliminate the damage and "Prinz Eugen" goes cruising
for action in the region of the Azores.
By this time in a war zone
approached the main forces of the British fleet -
squadron under the command of Admiral Tove in
of the battleship King George V ", battlecruiser" Ripals
"aircraft carrier" Victoria " and four light cruisers. At
midnight Bismarck was discovered and attacked by torpedo
bombers from the aircraft carrier "Victoria", but received
damage from trapped it torpedoes, about 3 am, "Bismarck" was
able to break away from the pursuit and hide in the dark.
PART 2
Bismarck escaped. Leaving behind a
trace of oil, and slowly settling on his nose, he
stubbornly went to the shores of France, while
the British unsuccessfully searched for him on his way to
Norway. The gap between the fascist raider and pursuing his
squadron Tove increased steadily. Barely any day Bismarck was
to enter the zone, where it could safely cover the German
U-boats and the sea shore aviation.
And suddenly, 25 May 1941, when the British
puzzled over the fact, what happened to Bismarck, Berlin radio
trumpeted to fly world about what happened on the eve of battle.
German speakers broadcast excitedly about how
from the shells, "Bismarck" flew into the air
the biggest ship of the British Navy, and
both turned away and walked out of the battle damaged
modern battleship built "The Prince of Wales." Among the
participants of these programs was a senior officer of the
Luftwaffe German units stationed in Greece.
Worried about the fate of his son, who served on the
"Bismarck", he went to Berlin encryption
to request the location of the battleship. In
response he was told:
- Reider goes to Brest ...
Decode radio messages, the British figured out worried their
secrets, and to the point of the proposed location of
"Bismarck" rushed British ships.
Morning of May 26 raider was discovered British flying boat
(seaplane) in 700 miles west of Brest. This meant
that the British ships no longer able to
to overtake him. Admiral Tovey decided to stop the chase at
midnight from 26 to 27 May, as fuel for ships, almost remained.
But then something happened that changed the whole situation at
once.
Admiral Somerville, on its way from Gibraltar with a small
force of ships, consisting of the battlecruiser "Rinaun"
aircraft carrier "Ark Royal" and overtook them heavy cruiser
"Sheffield" to intercept "Bismarck" raised to attack the old
low-speed torpedo aircraft "Suordorit. The first wave of planes
due to haste and confusion in order to attack its own cruiser
"Sheffield". Fortunately, the first "attack" was a flop, and
the cruiser dodged torpedoes coming at him. But the second wave
has completed the task: one torpedo hit the stern of the
"Bismarck". The blast had damaged his screws and jammed
rudders. Speed raider dropped to 14 nodes to the same ship
almost lost steering control. Admiral Tovey decided fight, not
refuel. About 8 am on May 27 Bismarck was caught battleship
King George V "and" Rodney "and heavy cruiser" Norfolk "and"
Dorsetshire ". In the ensuing firefight on the "Bismarck"
was released about a thousand rounds of the main and
medium-sized and large number of torpedoes. Around 10 o'clock
in the morning, "Bismarck" makes the last shot, and silenced,
losing to many hits can be answered with fire. And in another
half an hour, getting the holes of two torpedoes
fired from the cruiser "Dorsetshire", "Bismarck" turns and goes
down with all crew, Commander and Admiral Lyutensom. Thus,
careful Dad inappropriate requests by radio helped his son's
death and the strongest ship of the fleet.
EPILOGUE
British meticulously calculated, what
they cost the sinking of a German battleship.
It turned out that in the battle they had to concentrate eight
battleships and linear cruisers, 2 aircraft carriers, 14
cruisers, 22 destroyers, 6 submarines and more than 100
aircraft operating from airfields in Britain, Iceland and
Canada. Despite this, they lost the battleship-cruiser
"Hood" and the operation's success depended on the times
Will the case. Therefore, they are mortally afraid of this raid
and was closely followed for the battleship Tirpitz, built on
the year later, "Bismarck" in the same project. C
On the other hand, Hitler expressed his deep sorrow over the
loss of "Bismarck" and for no I did not want to risk the newest
battleship, and the largely idle in a well-protected bays,
occasionally making short raids.
In general, this operation has caused serious
blow to the doctrine of Admiral Raeder, with its
rate on large ocean raiders and demonstrated that leadership in
the sea goes from huge, armed "to the teeth" battleships to
small and almost defenseless aircraft carriers. Incidentally,
the Japanese had already surprised the world by constructing
two battleships type "Yamato" (displacement - 72 thousand tons,
the thickness of armor - 406 ... 650 mm, speed -
27.5 knots, has nine 460-mm guns)
who "used" and then similarly
"Tirpitz", and then surprised again on Dec. 7, 1941, when the
bombing of a Pearl Harbor the U.S. battle fleet,
Having conducted the operation with six aircraft carriers.
With regard to the fate of "Prince Eugene" - he
managed to break through to Brest. Fought the whole
war, he after the surrender of the German navy and the division
fell to the Americans, who used it for experiments on effects
of atomic explosions on ships in the atoll Bikini, after which
it sank.
