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Publications
of Interest
Webmaster Review
of ‘Killing the Bismarck’
by Iain Ballantyne
This
is the story of the last eight
days of the German pocket
battleship Bismarck told from the
perspective of those British
forces that made contact with her
during that time. Bismarck
sailed from what is now the
Polish port of Gdynia on Monday
19 May 1941 making for the
Denmark Strait and the easy
targets of the North Atlantic
convoy ships but now lies at a
depth of 15700 feet about 400
miles west of Brest. The
Notes and Sources sections of the
book provide references for the
veracity of the personal accounts
and testimonies of some of those
who played a part in the tragic
sinking of two capital ships and
the death of more than 3000
sailors. It is interesting
to read Prime Minister Churchill’s
recorded views about the relative
capabilities and operational
performances of Bismarck and the
Royal Navy’s battleships and
also CinC Home Fleet’s
account of these eight
days. The aggregation of
factual and anecdotal testimonies
makes the whole story light
enough to retain the interest and
imagination of the reader without
losing its weight of historical
argument.
Iain
Ballantyne introduces the leading
players in the story, Bismarck,
Prince Eugen, HMSs HOOD, PRINCE
OF WALES, RODNEY, KING GEORGE V
and their supporting units and at
the end chronicles their fortunes
and misfortunes until the end of
the war. These
introductions, epilogue and the
story of the hunt make the
narrative complete, a whole that
is greater than the sum of its
parts, as an account of natural
law of retribution of an eye for
an eye at a time when the British
nation was standing alone against
Hitler’s powerful and
threatening war machine. It
is a human story with very
personal accounts of the loss of
friends and colleagues, tempered
by the sorrow and regret that all
sailors feel about the sinking of
any ship and the loss of life
from its complement. It
genuinely reflects the feelings
described by shipmates from HMS
KING GEORGE V in ‘Memories’
published by their Association.
On
first reading, two issues emerge
that require subsequent
re-reading and more
research. The attitude of
the Prime Minister to the command
decisions of the Battle Cruiser
Squadron and the First Cruiser
Squadron during 24 May 1941 and
First Sea Lord’s reaction to
this Government pressure suggest
a strained relationship at a time
when the battle for the Atlantic
was at its height. The
involvement of the United States
in this battle appears to
increase after the sinking of the
Bismarck. The second issue
of whether Bismarck was
attempting to surrender and moral
case for sinking the ship with
the high loss of life emerge in
the Appendices. The clear
and present danger of a floating
Bismarck, still flying her
colours 400 miles off the French
coast with the threat of U-boats,
required the irrecoverable
destruction of the ship.
The
book is a compelling read, avidly
page-turned during a day before
the annual reunion of the HMS
KING GEORGE V Association in
Portsmouth. In the recorded
words of two shipmates, Henry
Bridewell, ex Royal Marines,
‘I think about it at times,
but somehow it invariably returns
to the one simple question –
why?’ and Doug Turtle, ex
Navy, ‘I remember seeing her
badly damaged and sinking - a
tragic loss of lives.’
This hardback book of more than
200 pages will not have time to
gather dust on the bookshelf
because every time a warship
deploys into conflict these
issues re-emerge, and lessons
learned need to be refreshed.
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