The Sinking of the Bismarck by William L. Shirer Read Free Book Online

he took stock of his situation.
    He had hoped to give battle to the Bismarck at nine o’clock that morning. But during the hours of night just preceding she had been lost. Soon afterward he had had a stroke of luck when Admiral Luetjens broke radio silence. But because of a mistake in arithmetic on Tovey’s own flagship, this good fortune had led him off on a wild-goose chase instead of bringing him into quick contact with the enemy.
    As darkness fell over the stormy seas, he was alone. The once mighty Home Fleet had been reduced to one battleship, his flagship King George V . The Hood was lost. All the other war vesselshad had to return to base to refuel. His own ship was dangerously low on oil. He had already had to reduce speed to conserve it. At reduced speed how could he catch and engage the Bismarck ? He calculated that she was already at least 100 miles ahead of him and faster than his own ship.
    The Rodney was somewhere in front of him, but just where Tovey did not know. Her captain, unlike the German admiral, had been observing radio silence all day.
    And finally there was Force H, which had been coming up full steam from Gibraltar. Within twenty-four hours or so he ought to meet her. The more the Commander in Chief thought about it on that grim, stormy evening the more he saw that Vice-Admiral Somerville’s squadron was probably his last and only hope. It stood between the Bismarck and safe refuge at Brest or St. Nazaire.
    The battle cruiser Renown could scarcely be expected to stand up to the more powerful German battleship. But planes from the carrier Ark Royal might slow her up with torpedoes.
    Of course the planes from the carrier Victorious had not been very successful in a similar attemptthe night before. Still, this was about his only hope. The torpedo-carrying Swordfish from the Ark Royal would at least have to reduce the speed of the Bismarck if Admiral Tovey were to catch her.
    But first the enemy battleship had to be found. Sir John had a general idea of her whereabouts from the radio direction finders. But she had not been sighted by eye or radar since the night before. She must now be found or the chase was up.
    For this, too, the scouting planes of the Ark Royal seemed to be his last hope. But unknown to the troubled British admiral there was still another source of hope.

Chapter Seven
    The Bismarck Is Found Again
    All day long on May 25 and far into the night three Catalinas from the Northern Ireland base had been out over the distant sea searching for the Bismarck .
    Shortly after midnight one of them had sighted what looked in the murky night like a battleship and four destroyers. The big ship did not respond to the plane’s signals. It was probably the Rodney with her destroyers, but the pilot couldn’t be sure.
    An hour later a second plane flew over the wake of a big vessel farther west. This ship also failed to reply to the plane’s signals. She could have been the Bismarck . And then again she might have been the King George V . In the black stormy night the pilot could not tell.
    The three long-range flying boats did not get back to base until nearly noon on May 26 after almost twenty-four hours in the air. Long before that, two other flying boats of Coastal Command from the same base in Northern Ireland had set out to join in the search. They had taken off from Lough Erne at 3:00 A.M. while the night was still black.
    The area they were to search had at last been strictly defined. This was a “square” some 700 miles due west of Brest. It was based partly on the positions of the Bismarck as plotted by the British radio direction-finding stations, taking into consideration her probable course and speed. It was also based, in part, on one man’s hunch.
    This man was Air Marshal Sir Frederick Bowhill, commander in chief of the R.A.F. Coastal Command. Bowhill had been an officer in both the merchant marine and the navy before becoming a flier in the Royal Air Force. He thus knew the sea