The Big Chase

THE BISMARCK EPISODE (219 pp.)--Captain Russell Grenfell -- Macmillan ($3).

It was the Bismarck, all right. There, in Grimstad Fiord on the Norwegian coast, lay the new Nazi 50,000-ton battle-wagon--bigger and tougher than any British battleship afloat. The British Admiralty had been worrying about the German giant for months; now that she had slipped away from her Baltic anchorage, the Home Fleet would have a crack at her at last. When Flying Officer Suckling photographed the Bismarck from his Spitfire on a May afternoon in 1941, he touched off the greatest sea hunt in naval history.

The Bismarck Episode is a retired British naval officer's remarkably lucid account of the pursuit, cornering and sinking of the pride of Hitler's navy. An author of less background might have pulled out all the stops and wallowed happily but confusingly in the story's drama. Author Grenfell,* veteran of 30 years' service, including the Jutland and Dardanelles actions in World War I, sticks sternly to facts and understatement.

The Bismarck, which fought like fury when she was finally cornered, did not want to fight at all. Her escort was the powerful heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, but they had no destroyer screen and could expect no help from the rest of the German fleet. Their task was to hit Allied shipping and run. In foul weather, the Bismarck and her cruiser escort slipped out of Grimstad Fiord before British bombers could be put to work on them. Admiral Sir John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet, ordered every available ship deployed to bring them to battle. Then, on the evening of May 23, as the cruiser Suffolk hugged the mist between Iceland and Greenland, Able Seaman Newell let out a hail from, starboard. There, 14,000 yards away, were the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen. The Suffolk ducked back into the fog in a hurry (the Bismarck's guns had a range of 40,000 yards), then gingerly shadowed the big ship by radar through the night until the British battle cruiser Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales could go into action. What happened next shocked British witnesses and was soon to shock the world. One minute the swift battle cruiser Hood, biggest ship of the English fleet, was methodically firing from her 15-inch guns as she closed with the enemy. Two or three minutes later, she had sunk from sight. At around 25,000 yards, the Bismarck had sent the Hood down with only five or six salvoes. With another dozen or so, she drove the Prince of Wales out of action and got clean away.

In desperate haste, a new hunt was organized. It was not easy, because figuring out where the Bismarck would head for was just educated guesswork. Later it became known that there had been a hot argument aboard her. Captain Lindemann wanted to return to Germany; iron-willed Fleet Admiral Guenther Luetjens, senior officer on board, ordered a westward dash. Systematically the Admiralty planted every available cruiser and destroyer across likely lines of escape. At 10:30 a.m. on May 26, the Bismarck was spotted by a Catalina patrol plane southwest of Ireland. This time Sir John Tovey's own flagship, King George V, backed up by the battleship Rodney, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, cruisers and destroyers, was ready to shoot it out with her. The Bismarck was alone; Prinz Eugen had escaped, was later spotted by aircraft at Brest. Before Sir John got within range, the Bismarck had been crippled by a carrier-plane torpedo attack. It was 8:47 on the morning of the 27th before the Rodney and King George V opened up. Lamed and surrounded, the Bismarck was hit again & again. Destroyers and cruisers banged away; torpedoes hit her; her guns went silent. By 10 o'clock she was aflame and crewmen could be seen going over the side, but her flag still flew; she would not sink and would not surrender. Then, at 10:36, from only 2,500 yards, the cruiser Dorsetshire hit her with a last torpedo. Her colors still flying, the mighty Bismarck rolled over and went down, a few hours less than six days from the time she had first been spotted.

One thing Author Grenfell makes painfully plain: the Bismarck was a huskier fighting ship than anything Britain had built. To bring her down had taken eight battleships and battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, four heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, 21 destroyers, six submarines and numerous shore-based aircraft. Captain Grenfell's account of The Bismarck Episode seemingly leaves the British Admiralty with some explaining to do about the quality of its ship construction and tactics. And while it is highly unlikely that war vessels of the traditional battleship type will ever again be built--at least by any of the Western Powers--it is perhaps just as well that when the husky Bismarck's blueprints turned up among captured war documents, the British Admiralty got them.

*First cousin of the late Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Labrador medical missionary.

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