Company Rhine exercise
| date | May 18, 1941 to May 26, 1941 |
|---|---|
| place | Denmark Strait , Atlantic Ocean , North Sea |
| output | German failure |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 1 battleship 1 heavy cruiser 3 destroyers 15 submarines |
3 battleships 3 battle cruisers 2 aircraft carriers 4 heavy cruisers 7 light cruisers 21 destroyers |
| losses | |
|
1 battleship sunk |
1 battle cruiser sunk |
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The Rhine Exercise Company was an operation of the German Navy in the naval warfare of World War II . The operation was intended to increase pressure on supplies to the British Isles and support the submarine warfare . In the course of the company, the British battle cruiser HMS Hood and the German battleship Bismarck were sunk in two sea battles .
Preliminary planning
The operations management of the company Rheinübungen (Kampfgruppe Bismarck / Prinz Eugen ) was the responsibility of the fleet chief, Admiral Günther Lütjens . The originally planned battleship Gneisenau (Captain Otto Fein ) was canceled due to repair work as a result of a torpedo hit. The development of the operational instructions was the responsibility of the naval group commands West ( General Admiral Alfred Saalwächter ) and East (General Admiral Rolf Carls ). Both command staffs made an operationally serious planning error. The failure included refilling the Bismarck's fuel reserves on day 4 of the operation. In order to withdraw the two ships from the Allied aerial reconnaissance, it was planned to supply them in the Norwegian fjords . Although the gaffe had escaped both command posts , the same mistake was not noticed by Lütjens' fleet staff. Three staffs working together had failed. The fleet chief was skeptical of another Atlantic operation with big ships from the beginning, he considered the undertaking too risky. He communicated these fears to the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder , in a meeting on April 26, 1941. Following his explanations, the operation should be delayed until the Tirpitz (sea captain Karl Topp ), the Scharnhorst (sea captain Kurt Caesar Hoffmann ) and the Gneisenau were fully operational. This would make a powerful task force available. The planned deployment of only two ships, which are so different in performance, would jeopardize the chances of success of the cruiser war in the Atlantic. Raeder agreed with Lütjens' concerns, but saw himself unable to change anything about the current situation. In a dialogue, the fleet chief and his superior agreed on a defensive tactic. Both officers were primarily concerned with maintaining the military pressure on the English shipping connections and being able to use the few large surface vessels for as long as possible. In order to prevent the loss or damage of the Bismarck , Lütjens wanted to avoid fighting with heavy ship units as much as possible. He pointed out that the real danger for the ships did not come from surface units, but from torpedo planes that operated from enemy aircraft carriers . When Hitler visited Gotenhafen on May 5, 1941 to inspect the Bismarck and Tirpitz , Lütjens communicated these concerns to his Commander-in-Chief. Obviously the Admiral was able to convince Hitler. At the end of the conversation, the two men agreed that the provoked loss of the prestigious ships should be avoided at all costs. However, Hitler failed to issue appropriate instructions that would have led to the delay or termination of the enterprise. On May 12th, Lütjens' fleet staff set up temporarily on the Bismarck . First of all, the cooperation between the fleet staff and the new flagship should be deepened in an exercise in which different battle pictures were taken. After overcoming various technical problems, the staff was finally able to embark on board on May 18, 1941. The operation started the night of the following day.
course
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On May 18, 1941, the Bismarck left Gdynia (called Gotenhafen at that time) for the Atlantic . She was accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the three destroyers Z 10 Hans Lody , Z 16 Friedrich Eckoldt , Z 23 , as well as the barrier breakers 13 and 31 and the 5th minesweeping flotilla . Originally they wanted to send a more powerful combat group into the Atlantic, which could have had unforeseeable consequences for the Allied shipping, but the Scharnhorst was not available due to repair work, the Gneisenau had been badly damaged by an air torpedo in the port of Brest shortly before Sister ship of the Bismarck , the Tirpitz , was not yet fully operational at this time.
While passing the Kattegat on May 20, the squadron was spotted by the Swedish aircraft cruiser Gotland , which informed its own fleet with a short radio message . The British intercepted this radio message and then intensified their investigation. The pilot of a reconnaissance aircraft type Spitfire sighted the capital ships on the morning of 21 May, when the Prinz Eugen and the destroyers in Bergen took fuel on board and the painting of Bismarck has been changed.
On May 22nd, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen continued their voyage, the destroyers lagged behind. The fleet chief Admiral Günther Lütjens, who was on board the flagship Bismarck, intended to break out into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland . The British Home Fleet under Admiral John Tovey considered a breakthrough at this point to be unlikely, which is why only two heavy cruisers were positioned in the vicinity. The HMS Suffolk sighted the German formation on May 23 at 7:22 p.m. at 7 nautical miles. She was supported by the HMS Norfolk , which was briefly taken under fire by the German ships, but was able to escape in a fog bank. The British cruisers did not get involved in the unequal battle and were only supposed to keep in touch by radar in order to bring the two capital ships of their own, which were still 300 nautical miles away.
Battle in the Denmark Strait
Admiral Tovey had split the heavy units at his disposal into two squadrons. The unit under the command of Admiral Lancelot Holland , consisting of the battle cruiser Hood , the battleship Prince of Wales and six destroyers, was posted south of Iceland and was now ordered to the southern exit of the Denmark Strait to intercept the German unit. The destroyer escorts could not keep the speed of the large combat ships and fell behind. When the Suffolk announced around midnight that it had lost contact with the German ships, the British task force turned north and the destroyers received orders to fan out and thus take part in the search for the German ships. When this search was unsuccessful until around 2:00 a.m. on May 24th, the Hood and the Prince of Wales turned south-east in the hope of still being able to catch the Bismarck .
At 5:35 a.m., the two squadrons came within sight of each other. Although the guns of the British ships had a greater range, Admiral Holland tried to reduce the distance quickly, since the relatively weak armored decks of the Hood were at great distance endangered by steep fire . At a distance of 23 km, the British opened combat at 5:52 a.m. The target of the Hood was initially mistakenly the Prinz Eugen , who was running at the top of the German association at the time. The German ships had changed their positions the day before because the Bismarck's front radar had failed due to vibrations from the main artillery during the bombardment of the Norfolk . The silhouettes of the German ships were also similar and the view was not optimal. The mistake was quickly recognized on the Prince of Wales and the order to change target was given.
At 5:55 am, Lindemann granted the Bismarck a fire permit with the words "I will not let my ship be shot under my ass. Fire permit", thereby overriding his superior Lütjens. Lütjens accepted this insubordination without protest . The German ships were able to shoot themselves in quickly. The Bismarck's shells were covered with the third volley by the Hood . The Prinz Eugen scored the first hit on the Hood with its fourth volley. The grenade detonated in the ready-to-use ammunition of the 10.2 cm cannons; but the fire that broke out quickly went out again.
It took the British longer to shoot themselves in; only the seventh volley of the Prince of Wales was covering. The team was not yet well-rehearsed because it was on its first mission and the test drives had not yet been completed.
At 6:00 a.m. Admiral Holland gave the order to turn so that the aft towers of the Hood could also be used. Until then, the Hood had only fired with the front turrets, as the rear turrets had no clear field of fire to the front due to the superstructure. Still in the rotation, a 38-cm shell hit the fifth salvo of the Bismarck at 6:01 pm, the aft ammunition chamber of the Hood . The hood was torn in three parts by the massive explosion that followed and sank in less than three minutes. When the foredeck of the Hood sank vertically into the tide, bow up, one last salvo was fired in the forward tower. 1,418 men died in the explosion, including Admiral Holland. Only three survived.
The Prince of Wales , now on her own, turned and withdrew into self-generated smoke curtains after receiving four hits from the Bismarck and three from the Prinz Eugen . Without this maneuver, the Prince of Wales would probably have run into the covering sixth volley of Bismarck , which was already in the air when the fifth volley hit. A Bismarck shell had previously struck the command bridge and killed everyone there except for the commanding officer and the chief signal officer, and several heavy artillery had failed due to faults in the unfinished power supply. The cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk , which had been chasing the German ships since the previous day, were out of range during the battle. Nevertheless, the Suffolk fired six volleys between 6:19 a.m. and 6:25 a.m.
The Prinz Eugen suffered no damage. The Bismarck was hit three times by the Prince of Wales , with a fuel bunker in the forecastle being destroyed. As a result, 1,000 tons of fuel leaked and remaining bunker oil was contaminated by seawater. In addition, one of the Bismarck's boiler rooms and a generator room were flooded with turbo generators . The top speed of 30 knots could no longer be reached. Furthermore, the still intact fuel bunkers in the forecastle could no longer be reached.
Persecution and fall of the Bismarck
Since the Bismarck had been damaged and also lost fuel, a continuation of the planned enterprise was out of the question. Now that Lütjens had found it unnecessary to have the Bismarck stowed fuel in the Grimstadfjord while it was berthed, revenge . The maximum speed of the Bismarck was permanently reduced to 28 knots due to the penetration in the forecastle and the ship trailed an oil trail that was easily recognizable for enemy aerial reconnaissance. Admiral Lütjens then wanted to head for a German-controlled port on the French coast and have the damage repaired.
The Prinz Eugen was at 18:34 command, independent trade war to lead, and was discharged. The British then diverted the nearby transatlantic convoys HX 126 , SC 31, HX 127, OB 323 and OB 324. The Bismarck was supposed to run directly to Saint-Nazaire , where there was a sufficiently large dry dock for repair work. In the evening one could carry out the separation through a clever deception maneuver. Both ships escaped the radar observation of the British cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk . The Prinz Eugen replenished the fuel at the tanker Spichern to begin the trade war on May 26, as ordered. A short time later, however, she had to refrain from further operations because the propulsion system was damaged. The ship then headed for the port of Brest, which it reached on June 1, unnoticed by the British.
Pursuit of Bismarck
After the sinking of the Hood, the British mobilized almost the entire Home Fleet to destroy the Bismarck (Churchill quote: "I don't care how you do it; you have to sink the Bismarck!"). The German commander of the submarines , Karl Dönitz , in turn offered the Bismarck all submarines available in the Atlantic for support. Lütjens asked for an ambush to be set up in grid square AJ-68, just south of Greenland . He wanted to lure his pursuers into this grid square on May 25th. There the submarines were supposed to attack the pursuers and thus enable the Bismarck to escape. Five submarines were used for this. Four more submarines were made available for a second ambush in the Bay of Biscay . Two of them, U 556 and U 98 , however, had already fired all torpedoes and were therefore intended to serve as reconnaissance aircraft, U 74 was already badly damaged by depth charges. In total, all 15 submarines available for this purpose were used to support the Bismarck .
Since the British ships were slower than the Bismarck , one could only hope for interception by the ships of the Force H operating off Gibraltar , which were set on march north. However, the British combat group closest to Bismarck was Tovey's own squadron, consisting of the battleship King George V , the battle cruiser Repulse , the aircraft carrier Victorious, and several cruisers and destroyers. Tovey decided to dismiss the aircraft carrier from its association in order to carry out an attack with torpedo bombers on the German battleship and at least to slow down its speed. On the evening of May 24th, nine Fairey Swordfish took off from the Victorious from a distance of about 100 miles. The torpedo bombers could only get one hit, which killed a crew member but otherwise had no effect. Shortly afterwards, contact with the Bismarck was lost. However, their evasive maneuvers against the torpedo bombers had ruined the previous makeshift repairs. The ship lost more oil, slowed down and took a new course directly towards Brest , which was closer than Saint-Nazaire.
At first the Bismarck could not be found because the British suspected that she had broken out to the west. However, Admiral Lütjens had outsmarted the contact holder with a circular movement, had circled them and was now unmolested on the way to the east, towards the French coast. Lütjens, however, did not see his chance and continued to believe that the British radar surveillance system had located himself: The Bismarck's radio observers could clearly receive the signals from the British radars , but they did not know that the echo was too weak for the British radars. Compared to the known data from their own on-board radar device , Seetakt , with a typical range between 110 and 220 hectometers , they thought they were under constant observation, but in fact the position of the Bismarck was unknown. Due to this miscalculation, Lütjens saw no need for radio silence and on the morning of May 25th sent two long radio messages to the naval warfare command. These were targeted by the British , but initially incorrectly evaluated. As a result, they believed in a return of the Bismarck to Norway and sent their ships north instead of south-east, where the Bismarck actually stood. It wasn't until the afternoon that the British realized their mistake. At that time, however , the Bismarck had already gained so much lead over the pursuers that she was beyond the reach of the Home Fleet ships .
The only British ships of concern that were still between the Bismarck and their destination, the Force H , consisting of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal , the battle cruiser HMS Renown and the light cruiser HMS Sheffield . Under the impression of the rapid sinking of the Hood , however, the British shied away from sending these rather inferior units into direct battle with the Bismarck and placed all hopes on the aircraft carrier. The planes of the Ark Royal were supposed to damage the Bismarck with their torpedoes to such an extent that the pursuers could catch up with them and sink them with numerical superiority.
First of all, the Bismarck had to be found , from which no one had seen or heard anything since the scheduled radio messages. The British therefore increased aerial reconnaissance over the sea area in which they suspected the Bismarck . It was helpful that the Bismarck had to choose the direct course to Brest because of her scarce fuel, instead of hiding in the wide Atlantic with swinging movements. Even so, their speed would have been sufficient to escape the British pursuers into French waters.
Hit in the steering gear
On the morning of May 26, 1941, a Catalina flying boat launched from Ireland sighted the German ship. Now that could torpedo planes of type Fairey Swordfish of the Ark Royal to the Bismarck are introduced. An incident occurred when the aircraft initially mistook the nearby Sheffield for the Bismarck and attacked. But they did not hit the cruiser, also because the modern torpedoes with magneto failed. The planes therefore returned to the Ark Royal and reloaded torpedoes with the tried and tested impact detonators. Without this incident, the Swordfish would have had much poorer functioning weapons when attacking the Bismarck , which might have completely changed the outcome of the hunt.
The Germans deciphered parts of the British radio messages and recognized the likely course of the Bismarck . A total of seven submarines waiting in the Bay of Biscay were diverted there. On the evening of May 26th, they were only a few kilometers away from the Bismarck and the British Force H with the Ark Royal calling from Gibraltar . At 19:48, U 556 sighted the formation at position 48 ° N , 16 ° W coming out of the haze and was almost run over by it. The aircraft carrier's torpedo planes were apparently about to take off to attack the Bismarck . Due to the ideal firing position between the two ships, which did not run zigzag courses and had no destroyer escort, both the Ark Royal and the battle cruiser HMS Renown accompanying it could have been sunk at the same time. However, U 556 ran out of torpedoes and therefore had to be content with contact reports.
Correctly instructed on the second approach, the aircraft attacked the Bismarck under heavy defensive fire from German anti-aircraft weapons, aiming their torpedoes preferably at the stern with the sensitive rudder and drive systems . The Swordfish were for modern air defense - fire control of Bismarck too slow and therefore the removal of the aircraft was not correctly determined the ship. Finally, a torpedo dropped by one of the aircraft scored a fatal hit on the steering gear. At around 9:30 p.m., the Bismarck reported by radio message at position 47 ° N , 15 ° W as being hit by aircraft torpedoes and incapable of steering.
The rudder stuck at a position of 12 degrees to port and the crew was unable to repair the damage despite many attempts. The test voyages in the Baltic Sea had already shown that the ship could not be kept on course under such conditions by counter-steering with the screws. The prevailing wind forced the Bismarck to the northwest towards the pursuing British ships. In order not to drift without drive, a speed of a few knots was maintained with the still completely intact drive system and the likewise intact drive screws. So the ship ultimately headed at low speed towards its pursuers and could no longer escape to France.
Thereupon all submarines of the Biscay ambush were ordered to meet at the Bismarck and to defend it. The Bismarck's war diary was also supposed to be taken over by a submarine. After an attempt to fly out the book had failed (damage to the aircraft catapult), Lütjens requested a submarine in his last radio message from 07:10 to pick up the book. His radio message was: “Send a submarine to keep track of the war diary.” At last, Lindemann was seen standing on the bridge , in a life jacket , resigned and absent. This attempt also failed. At this time, U 556 was under Lieutenant Herbert Wohlfahrt to the north and in the immediate range of the Bismarck , but without torpedoes on board. To the west was U 108 . U 74 under Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat was the closest to the south of the Bismarck , but could not intervene due to damage. In the middle southerly distance, sorted by distance to the battleship, were U 552 (Kapitänleutnant Herbert Schneider ), U 98 without torpedoes (Kapitänleutnant Robert Gysae ) as well as U 97 (Kapitänleutnant Udo Heilmann ) and U 48 (Kapitänleutnant Herbert Schultze ).
The ship was a little too far away for the operating range of aircraft of the German Air Force .
The following night there was a skirmish between the damaged battleship and a British destroyer flotilla under Captain Philip Vian . The five destroyers Cossack , Maori , Sikh , Zulu and the Polish Piorun attacked the Bismarck with torpedoes, but could not achieve any hits because of the darkness, adverse weather conditions and the heavy defensive fire. The badly damaged U 73 also reached the ships at this time, but could not attack the heavily maneuvering destroyers and could not find its main target, the cruiser Sheffield . It later lost contact. U 556 also arrived, but could not intervene without torpedoes and with low fuel reserves.
Downfall of the Bismarck
On the morning of May 27, 1941, the Bismarck was provided by an association of British warships. They were the battleships King George V and Rodney , as well as the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire . Before the next U 74 submarine, which had sufficient fuel but was badly damaged , could reach the Bismarck to record the Bismarck's war diary as requested , the British battleships opened fire.
After about 90 minutes of fighting, the Bismarck was shot down by British units. The heavy artillery stopped firing after about an hour due to a lack of ammunition. The same thing happened with the middle artillery, which stopped firing about 10-20 minutes later. Over 700 shells of the main artillery were fired at the Bismarck by the Allied battleships , with the combat range sometimes being less than 3,000 m. Apparently only four shells penetrated the Bismarck's belt armor without causing critical damage. The Bismarck's artillery control posts had already failed early in this battle due to enemy hits, so that they could only achieve a few serious hits. Only one hit by a 15 cm shell disrupted communication between the artillery command post and the front turrets of King George V , so that they had to stop firing for a time.
The British battleships had to withdraw from the still floating Bismarck because of their running out of fuel supplies . The Bismarck was at this time only a wreck, with zerschossenem upper deck, whose guns were either destroyed or had no more ammunition. She was supposed to be brought to sink from the Dorsetshire by torpedoes to a close range of only 2,000 m. The cruiser first fired two torpedoes into the starboard side without any discernible effect. He then switched to the port side and shot a 53 cm torpedo into it at 10:36.
After the last torpedo hit the Dorsetshire began Bismarck to port slowly heeling , which is why this third torpedo hit is sometimes viewed as a trigger of Sinkvorgangs. At around the same time, however, the alleged self- sinking measures , such as detonated explosive charges and opening the bottom valves, also had an effect. The sinking itself, according to the reports of the few survivors in the water, then went surprisingly fast: the Bismarck , now hanging heavily on the port side, began to turn quickly, only to sink quickly down the keel . After this rotation by 180 °, the four 38 cm towers, which were only held by their own weight of approx. 1,000 t, fell from their barbeds and sank separately from the ship's hull to the sea floor.
The Bismarck sank at about 10:40 a.m. The Dorsetshire and destroyer Maori saved 110 men. Of the Bismarck's crew - 2,221 men including the fleet staff and prize squad - 400 to 500 survivors remained in the water because of a submarine alarm reported by a ship. In the evening the German submarine U 74 found three men and took them on board. As a result, six submarines searched for survivors for four days, but found only debris and a few bodies. On May 29, a weather observation ship , the trawler Sachsenwald , was able to rescue two other survivors. Thus only 115 men survived the sinking of the Bismarck . In addition, the destroyer should Cossack the board Cat of Bismarck have saved that allegedly survived later two other shipwrecks, but these are likely to be a legend.
The survivors said years later that they had been ordered to leave the ship because of the impending sinking. The evidence directly on the wreck also suggests that the ship was sunk by its crew. Images taken during a deep-sea dive to the wreck could not localize any damage to the torpedo bulkhead and show that only three or four projectiles could penetrate the side armor of the hull above the waterline , as the British ships shot direct fire at the side armor from a short distance.
A total of eight battleships and battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers, four heavy and seven light cruisers, 21 destroyers and six submarines and several land-based aircraft were involved in the hunt. The battleships Rodney and King George V and the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire took part in the final battle on the part of the Royal Navy .
In his later final report on the sinking of the Bismarck , the British Admiral Tovey wrote :
"The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colors flying."
"The Bismarck fought an extremely brave fight against a huge superior force, worthy of the past days of the Imperial German Navy, and went down with the flag waving."
Ammunition used up
The following ammunition was fired against the Bismarck on May 27th at combat distances down to 2500 meters and correspondingly high hit rates :
| Ship: | Shot: | Caliber of the grenades: |
|---|---|---|
| Rodney: | 380 | 16 inches |
| " | 716 | 15.2 cm |
| King George V: | 339 | 35.6 cm |
| " | 660 | 13.3 cm |
| Norfolk: | 527 | 20.3 cm |
| Dorsetshire: | 254 | 20.3 cm |
| Total: | 2876 |
| Ship: | Shot: | of which hits: |
|---|---|---|
| Norfolk: | 8th | 1 (claimed as possible) |
| Dorsetshire: | 3 | 2 (and possibly a third) |
| Rodney: | 12 | 1 (claimed) |
Only the data immediately after the sinking are counted. Source and ammunition data: Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg
Ships involved
Overall, the following ships were involved in the hunt for the battleship
- HMS King George V
- HMS Rodney
- HMS Repulse
- HMS Hood
- HMS Prince of Wales
- HMS Victorious
- HMS Norfolk
- HMS Suffolk
- HMS Galatea
- HMS Aurora
- HMS Kenya
- HMS Neptune
- HMS Arethusa
- HMS Edinburgh
- HMS Manchester
- HMS Birmingham
- HMS Inglefield
- HMS Active
- HMS Antelope
- HMS Achates
- HMS Anthony
- HMS Electra
- HMS echo
- HMS Somali
- HMS tartare
- HMS Mashona
- HMS Eskimo
- HMS Punjabi
- HMS Intrepid
- HMS Icarus
- HMS Nestor
- HMS Jupiter
Western Approaches Command
Plymouth Command
Nore Command
Force H
- HMS Renown
- HMS Ark Royal
- HMS Sheffield
- HMS Faulknor
- HMS Foresight
- HMS Forester
- HMS Foxhound
- HMS Fury
- HMS Hesperus
America and West Indies Command
South Atlantic Command
Source: Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg
literature
- Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-8289-5340-9 .
- Gerhard Koop / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: The battleships of the Bismarck class . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-5890-9 .
- Brain B. Schofield: The Downfall of Bismarck - Risk, Triumph and Tragedy . Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, ISBN 3-87943-418-2 .
- Will Berthold: The Bismarck's Fateful Journey - Victory and Downfall . Neuer Kaiser Verlag, ISBN 3-7043-1315-7 .
- Cecil Scott Forester : The last ride of the Bismarck (Original title: Hunting the Bismarck ). Neuer Kaiser Verlag, ISBN 3-7043-2146-X .
- Ludovic Kennedy: Sink the Bismarck! Molden Verlag, ISBN 3-453-87101-4 .
- Clay Blair : Submarine War. Vol. 1. The Hunters: 1939–1942. Bechtermünz Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-453-12345-X .
- Jochen Brennecke: Battleship Bismarck . 6th, revised edition, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7822-0877-3 .
- Karl Dönitz: Ten Years and Twenty Days, Memoirs 1935–1945 . 10th edition, Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1991, ISBN 3-7637-5186-6 .
- Robert D. Ballard: The Discovery of Bismarck (German) Hardcover - January 1, 1997, ISBN 3-550-06443-8 .
Web links
- Company Rhine exercise at schlachtschiff.com
- Detailed report from the company Rheinübungen on kbismarck.com (English)
- Detailed report the loss of the Hood on navweaps.com (Engl.)
- Another detailed report on hmshood.com (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Boog , Werner Rahn, Reinhard Stumpf, Bernd Wegner: The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 6, The global war: The expansion to the world war and the change of the initiative 1941-1943 , Military History Research Office 1990, p. 374.
- ^ A b Horst Boog, Werner Rahn, Reinhard Stumpf, Bernd Wegner: The German Reich and the Second World War, Volume 6, The global war: The expansion to the world war and the change of initiative 1941–1943 , Military History Research Office 1990, p. 375 .
- ↑ Jochen Brennecke: Battleship Bismarck. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 6th edition 2003, ISBN 3-7822-0877-3 , pp. 105-107.
- ↑ Malte Gaack, Ward Carr: Battleship Bismarck Part 3: The True Face of a Ship , Books on Demand 2012, p. 399.
- ^ Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg: Battleship Bismarck , Flechsig Verlag 2005, p. 120.
- ↑ Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945, May 1941 , accessed on January 7, 2013
- ↑ Hans Joachim Oels: The use of the battleship Bismarck from the perspective of operations and ship command in The naval officer as a leader in battle - Lectures at the historical-tactical conference of the fleet 1983 , published by the German Marine Institute with the support of MGFA, Mittler Verlag 1984 , P. 125.
- ^ The sinking of HMS Hood sparked Churchill's lust for revenge as empire hunted the Bismarck. In: The Daily Telegraph, Today in History. Retrieved on March 23, 2017 (English): "" I do not care how you do it, you must sink the Bismarck. ""
- ↑ Cajus Bekker: Eyes through night and fog. The radar story . Heyne Verlag, 1988, ISBN 3-453-00583-X .
- ↑ a b c German Marine Institute with the support of the Military History Research Office: The naval officer as a leader in combat - lectures at the historical-tactical conference of the fleet 1983 , Mittler Verlag 1984, p. 130.
- ^ Cajus Bekker: Battle and Fall of the Navy; a documentary report in words and pictures , Spontholz Verlag 1953, p. 217.
- ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 3, German U-Boat Successes from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler & Sohn 2001, p. 236.
- ↑ a b German Marine Institute with the support of the Military History Research Office: The naval officer as a leader in battle - lectures at the historical-tactical conference of the fleet 1983 , Mittler Verlag 1984, p. 128.
- ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 3, German U-Boat Successes from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler & Sohn 2001, p. 67.
- ^ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 3, German U-Boat Successes from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler & Sohn 2001, p. 226.
- ↑ a b Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939–1945, Volume 3, German U-Boat Successes from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler & Sohn 2001, p. 84.
- ↑ Rainer Busch, Hans-Joachim Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945, Volume 3, German U-Boat Successes from September 1939 to May 1945. Mittler & Sohn 2001, p. 49.
- ↑ Report from the Sachsenwald commandant (PDF; 170 kB)