[SAMWolf]

Lütjens Options.


0601 hours. The Hood blows up as seen from the Prinz Eugen.

After the battle in the Denmark Strait, the German ships continued on a south-western course. At this time Lütjens had two main options. The first was to return to Norway and the second to carry on into the North Atlantic. Today most people agree that if possible, Lütjens should have destroyed or at least disabled the already damaged Prince of Wales, then turn around, and head for Trondheim, via the Denmark Strait. Lütjens could also have taken a shorter path to Bergen, via the Faeroes-Iceland passage, although the chances of being intercepted by Tovey's battle group (King George V, Repulse, and Victorious) coming from Scapa Flow were greater as well. Instead, the German Admiral opted not to pursue the Prince of Wales (apparently against Captain Lindemann's suggestions) and headed for the Atlantic. At 0801, Admiral Lütjens sent a series of messages to the Group North informing of his intention to take Bismarck to Saint-Nazaire for repairs. The Prinz Eugen, which was undamaged, would stay in the Atlantic to attack enemy convoys on her own.


British battleship Prince of Wales (left smoke column) turns to open the range, after she was hit by German gunfire. Smoke at right marks the spot where HMS Hood had exploded and sunk a few minutes earlier.
Photographed from the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.

The decision to head for Saint-Nazaire shows that after a survey of the damage received, Lütjens had correctly decided to cancel Operation Rheinübung at least temporarily until the Bismarck could be repaired in port. But, why did he choose Saint-Nazaire? The French port was farther than Norway and it required greater fuel expenditure. Lütjens probably thought France was the best place to resume the battle of the Atlantic as soon as possible following Raeder's wishes. In fact he had successfully entered Brest with Scharnhorst and Geneisenau a couple of months earlier.

At 0950, Captain Brinkmann was informed by semaphore of the damage received by Bismarck, and afterwards Lütjens ordered the Prinz Eugen to take up position aft of Bismarck temporarily in order to ascertain the severity of her oil loss. By 1100, the Prinz Eugen resumed her previous position in front of the battle group. The three British pursuing ships, now under command of Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker, were still shadowing the Germans; the Suffolk from the starboard quarter, and the Norfolk with Prince of Wales from the port quarter. At noon, the German command transferred the operative control of Operation Rheinübung from Group North to Group West, and at 1240 Bismarck and Prinz Eugen set a new course of 180º due south at 24 knots.


Between 0602-0609 hours. The Bismarck with her guns trained to port opens fire on the Prince of Wales.

The brief Battle of the Denmark Strait, which lasted only about seventeen minutes from opening shot to "cease fire", caused the Germans to terminate Bismarck's sortie. After parting ways with Prinz Eugen later in the day, she turned southeast, toward France. The British, who already had sufficient cause to want Bismarck eliminated, now had an additional motive: revenge for the tragic loss of Hood and nearly all of her crew.

Additional Sources:

www.history.navy.mil
www.milartgl.com
www.navalships.org
www.ruble.org
home.t-online.de/home/jgust
www.blohmvoss.com
battleshipbismarck.hypermart.net

[SAMWolf]

Although considered a fine commander, Admiral Lütjens has been unjustly criticised for some of the decisions made during Operation Rheinübung. Today with the advantage of knowing the final outcome of battle, it is easy to conduct a deep examination of the operations and say what Lütjens should or shouldn't have done. But one must put himself in place of the German Admiral and try to understand the difficulty of his decisions and the time in which they were made. Nevertheless, the truth is that both German and British committed a series of "reproachable mistakes" that made this story even more dramatic and interesting. If a single one of those mistakes had not been made, the course of the operations could have developed in a completely different way and the outcome of the battle could have been quite different. As Karel Stepanek playing Admiral Lütjens in the 1960 movie "Sink the Bismarck" says: "We have a most interesting chess game here".



From the operative point of view, Operation Rheinübung was a failure since its first stages, since as early as 20 May, the German battle group had been already detected in the Kattegat. The British demonstrated that they had heavily improved their vigilance, and successfully signalled the Bismarck from the first time in Norway. The Germans on the other hand, suffered from inadequate intelligence and a lack of effective cooperation with the U-boat arm. Despite all this, the Bismarck almost escaped, and she would certainly have done so if it were not for that fatal torpedo hit on the stern. If there is one thing that can not be reproached is the conduct of her crew which was in every way exemplary.




The Bismarck seen from the Prinz Eugen in the morning of 24 May during the last change of position

For the German Navy the sinking of the battleship Bismarck was probably the heaviest single blow of the war. Nevertheless, the Kriegsmarine still had considerable striking power and was far from being defeated as the year 1942 proved, but the loss of the Bismarck marked a turning point in the war on Allied merchant shipping. Not only because of the loss of the battleship itself, but because the consequences that it brought. Shortly after Operation Rheinübung the Germans abandoned the use of heavy surface warships for raiding purposes in the Atlantic. From then on only the auxiliary cruisers remained engaged against enemy merchant shipping, but even their use proved difficult by the end of 1941, and therefore the Germans concentrated in the U-boat war. U-boats would still bring important successes, but they too were eventually defeated in May 1943 with the loss of 41 units, in what we can consider the other turning point in the battle of the Atlantic.


Bismarck astern of Prinz Eugen in the morning of 24 May after the Iceland Battle.

The aircraft carrier had revealed itself as a decisive weapon and soon was to replace the battleship as the ultimate warship. This was confirmed six months later during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, and during the battle of the Coral Sea, the first true aero-naval battle in history between two carrier forces. Today already in the 21st century the battleship era is long gone now, but the story of the Bismarck and her brave crew still fascinates thousands of people and demonstrates that her legend is still alive.