History Lesson: The Epic Battle that Sank the Bismarck

This post doesn't have anything to do with Thailand, but I'm going to type about it anyway for two reasons - 1) I'm a nerd and like learning about history, and 2) Events like this are often known but little-understood, and we can't afford to let history like this be lost in the fog of time. So... today marks the 58th anniversary of the sinking of the Bismarck, one of the biggest, baddest and most heavily-armed battleships in history. She'd only been at sea for 9 days when she was sunk after an attack that would have left Michael Bay crying for his Mommy if he tried to film it. Most have heard of the Bismarck but few know exactly what went down. This is the badass story.

The Schlachtschiff Bismarck was the biggest and the best of the German warship fleet; 50,000 tons of armor, guns and weaponry built with one purpose - to destroy. On her maiden voyage, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen were off to sink Allied boats in the Atlantic, but the British got wind of the plan. They sent two of their own ships to intercept - the Hood and the Prince of Wales - which promptly spotted the two German ships and said "Let's get 'em!"

Definitely in the list of top five things I never want to see coming toward me.Too bad the Germans had other plans. Within 15 minutes, the Prince of Wales had taken a pounding so severe the only option was retreat (using a smokescreen, of all things... neat). The Hood (pride of the British Navy, by the way) didn't fare so well - a 15-inch shell from the Bismarck tore through her armor and detonated in an ammunition magazine, cutting the ship in half with one gigantic explosion. It sank to the bottom in seconds, along with 1,415 of its crew. Only three survived.

"Woo hoo!" the Germans said. "But shit... now they're angry." The Bismarck's captain decided to head back to France to get repairs to the  not-minor scrapes and scratches it got in the battle, and this is when hunted became the... er... more hunted.

The Hood, before the Bismarck decided it was a bit too buoyant for its liking.After a few feints and dekes by both the Germans and the few British ships trailing it at a safe distance, the Prinz Eugen took off on its own mission and left the Bismarck to continue to France. This is when word from Winston Churchill came in: "The Bismarck must be sunk at all costs." He was pissed. But after a while, the British lost the track and it was thought that the game was over. However, a chance spotting from the air 24 hours later was radioed in, and the decision was made to hit the Bismarck with fighter planes, as the aircraft carrier Ark Royal was the only ship nearby and the Bismarck was getting closer to the safety of Nazi-occupied France.

The tactic worked - barely. None of the piddly little torpedoes from the planes did much damage - except one. It hit the Bismarck's rudders, jamming them 12 degrees to port (left, for those who don't talk like pirates all the time). The ship was crippled; the only thing it could do was turn in a wide circle and wait for her doom. And man, did it ever come - the British wasted no time in sending everything in the area on an intercept course.

At 8:47am on May 27, the Rodney took the first shot from 12 miles away, and was soon followed by the King George V, the Norfolk, and the Dorsetshire, all of which took turns pounding the Bismarck with everything they had in what must have been an orgy of smoke, cannon fire and the screams of war. This went on for 74 minutes, stopping only when all four ships were about out of ammo. Finally, as the burning, smoldering wreck of the Bismarck foundered in the water - still floating, by the way - the Dorsetshire fired three 21-inch torpedoes at close range, all of which found their target. Soon after, the Bismarck finally slipped beneath the waves, taking 2,084 crew with it. Only 116 survived.

Germans in red, British in yellow, Bismarck's grave circled in blue.And the crazy thing is - to this day, no one is sure if the Bismarck sank because of the pounding it took, or because it was scuttled by its crew. Some say one, some say the other, but both agree that it took one hell of a beating to sink the Bismarck. It was a mighty boost to British morale, and had quite the opposite effect on the morale of the Germans.

The wreck of the Bismarck was only discovered in 1989, sitting in 15,700 feet of water, about 650 kilometers off the coast of France.