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

and waves pounded over the decks of the cruiser Sheffield and the battle cruiser Renown .
    Even the flight deck of the Ark Royal , sixty-three feet above the water line, was being washed by the heavy seas. Her bow and stern were rising and falling a distance of fifty-five feet as the ship pitched and rolled. If such seas kept on, the carrier would be unable to launch any planes at all from the lurching deck when the decisive time arrived.
    ***
    The stormy seas were troubling the Germans too.
    Early on the afternoon of May 25, Naval GroupWest had radioed Admiral Luetjens that it was assembling seven U-boats to protect him on his run into Brest. At 7:32 P.M. it advised the German Fleet Commander that strong air forces also were being mobilized to give him protection and to bomb his pursuers. Three destroyers, it added, were putting out from Brest to join him.
    But the seas were too high for them. Early on the morning of May 26 Naval Group West informed Admiral Luetjens by radio that the weather made it impossible for the destroyers to leave port. He would have to depend on “close air cover for the time being.”
    The truth was, as the German admiral realized, that he was still too far from land for the German bombers to be of any help to him. Even the longer-range German reconnaissance planes could not find the British pursuers in the low visibility of the storm. The Bismarck herself had had to reduce speed in the rough seas for fear of worsening the damage to her side and to her oil tanks.
    Still, she was plowing along at twenty knots and her big guns were in tip-top shape. She had finally given the slip to the shadowing British ships.Admiral Luetjens realized this now. That enemy craft were still looking for him and might not be far off, he of course knew. But give him another few hours—until darkness of that day of May 26. Then during the ensuing night he would arrive well within the protective cover of the famed Luftwaffe bombers and the U-boats. The German Fleet Commander, though by nature rather pessimistic, could not help but believe that he had a fairly good chance of escaping British detection during the rest of the daylight hours. The low clouds, the thick mist, the heavy seas would help cover him until night fell. Then the danger would be all but over. By daylight of May 27 he would be in safe waters.
    His hopes were very shortly to be dashed.
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    At 7:00 A.M. on May 26 the Ark Royal sent out her dawn patrol. The scouting planes were to look for the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau coming out of Brest and for any U-boats that might be near by. An hour and a half later ten Swordfish planes, minus their torpedoes, were brought up on the flight deck. At 8:35, afterthe carrier had turned into the wind, they began to take off in search of the Bismarck .
    The Ark Royal was still tossing in the rough seas. It was touch-and-go whether the pilots would be able to get their little biplanes off the deck without cracking up or plunging into the waves. Vice-Admiral Somerville on the bridge of the Renown watched anxiously through his binoculars as the Swordfish careened off the pitching deck. To his relief, all got off safely. The aircraft had fuel for a three-and-a-half-hour search.
    There now began for the men on the British ships a long and nerve-wracking wait. Somerville had radioed all the vessels in the area that the vital aerial search, on which they believed all now depended, had begun.
    The King George V was some 300 miles to the northwest of Somerville’s squadron, zigzagging southeast at 24 knots. On her port bow, but still out of sight, was the Rodney with three destroyers. Neither ship knew exactly where the other was because they had been observing radio silence. They calculated, however, that they were not far apart and sailing on pretty much the same course.Both battleships took in Somerville’s signal that he had launched ten planes from the Ark Royal to search for the Bismarck in an area