The pilots aboard the carrier Ark Royal were skeptical. They had every reason to be. Bismarck was a brand new modern battleship. She’d just destroyed the Mighty Hood, chased off Britain’s newest battleship Prince of Wales, and even already fought off another air strike by the carrier Victorious. They had no reason for hope.
Ark Royal’s aircraft were Fairey Swordfishes, ancient biplanes of designs older than even the Hood. The World War I era designed planes could carry one small torpedo each. They were made of steel frames covered with fabric, and as slow as they were weak. Bismarck was cutting-edge, bristling with state of the art anti-aircraft weaponry.
And desperation had become the order of the day.
When the the Mighty Hood sank by Bismarck’s guns, it shocked the whole fleet. The whole nation. The whole world. All the fears the Royal Navy had had about Bismarck seemed to be justified…and fear was becoming the norm.
France had fallen. Britain herself lay in ruins thanks to the Luftwaffe. She fought alone. Her armies in Africa were being routed by Rommel, who threatened Egypt and the Suez – which would cut Britain off from her empire…and Middle East oil. Germany had finished her conquest of mainland Europe, having just invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. Only the Soviet Union remained as any threat to Hitler, and it was an ally of his, having helped to carve up Poland.
All that sustained her were the Atlantic convoys, besieged by U-Boats. But even that threat was nothing compared to fears of the Bismarck. U-Boats could not stay out at sea for months on end, with mountains of ammunition and impenetrable armor. Bismarck could.
Now with her flagship sunk, things had gone from worse to desperate. Britain had been queen of the seas for centuries, and even her battered and aging fleet could not appear to save her. Churchill knew that desperate times called for desperate measures, and knew what he must do.
Every British warship in the Atlantic was called to sink the Bismarck. Everything. Every destroyer. Convoy escort. Carrier. Cruiser. Everything. Eleven convoys would be unescorted. One with a huge amount of badly needed troops. It was all or nothing.
Ark Royal and Force H sailed north from Gibraltar, figuring they were too far away to do any good, even if they were actually equipped to.
But even in the darkest moments, silver linings can be found.
Unbeknownst to the British, in the battle with Hood and Prince of Wales, the latter battleship actually had landed a 14-inch shell on Bismark before being forced to retreat. It was a pinprick at most, but a pinprick in the fuel lines. The behemoth was losing fuel, and would have to return to port in occupied France sooner rather than later… and so she turned east – and towards Ark Royal.
Two gallant cruisers shadowed Bismarck, but lost her in bad weather, and when she was located again, she was but ten mere hours from the cover of the Luftwaffe in occupied France. There, she could join the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and reunite with the cruiser Prinz Eugan and sail out to their hearts content to destroy convoys.
The whole of the Home Fleet could chase Bismarck, but it was of no good if they were out of position and too far behind. Everything depended on Force H…and its mere 15 obsolete biplanes. They would only have time for two strikes.
The Swordfish took flight north, and in the bad weather found the large ship, mounting as strong an attack as they could make, but their torpedoes had faulty magnetic detonators and failed to damage their target. Even to add insult to injury they had mistaken the HMS Sheffield for Bismarck, and had squandered a vital chance to scratch the behemoth. The deck crews raced to rearm the biplanes, ditching the magnetic detonators, and readied them for their second and last chance.
Not long after, they got their chance. On a dark and rough sea, Bismarck loomed before the thirty men in the fifteen biplanes. The anti-aircraft fire was murderous, but the Swordfish carried onward. The first few launched their torpedoes, but Bismarck easily avoided all but one, one even exploding on contact with the water, having hit a strong wave and detonating. The lone hit was meaningless; the torpedo was nothing compared to Bismarck’s armor.
The rear seat pilot on one of the last remaining armed planes unsnapped his harness and physically climbed out onto the lower wing of the slow-moving obsolete plane. He held on for dear life, physically staring at the churning waves below to time the torpedo’s launch, knowing that they couldn’t risk a false detonation. “Now!” and the pilot pulled the lever. One last torpedo struck Bismarck, but the ship continued onward, seemingly unfazed. The Swordfish returned to Ark Royal, tasting final defeat, unaware of how they were even still alive.
And then…the unthinkable…
Bismarck had turned away from the safety of occupied France, and back towards the pursuing main British fleet. The Swordfish’s torpedo exploded harmlessly on the rear armor of Bismarck, but the force of the tiny explosion was just barely enough to jam her rudder, and send her steaming in circles. It was a one-in-a-thousand chance hit. Bismarck couldn’t maneuver, or reach safety.
Hours later, the British Battleships King George V and Rodney, both low on fuel finally caught up to the wounded Bismarck. The two ships and their various escorts bombarded the German ship for hours, taking dangerous fire themselves. Though unable to maneuver, Bismarck was still a wounded animal, and the two British ships alone expended over 700 shells and she still wouldn’t sink.
Eventually King George V and Rodney had to turn for home lest run out of fuel, and the cruiser Dorsetshire was tasked with sinking the battered and burning hulk with torpedoes. Explosions rocked the Bismarck one final time just after the torpedoes hit, as her crew detonated scuttling charges, seeking to deny the Royal Navy any prize.
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All the ferocity of the action from May 24-27’s Bismarck Chase, and everything hinged on two metaphorical slingshots: the lone consequential hit from Prince of Wales and the miraculous hit by one of Ark Royal’s outdated Swordfish.
Bismarck’s crew went from ecstatic in having evaded the whole of the British Home Fleet to crestfallen instantly when they received word the rudder was jammed. For the British, endlessly tragic news for the last two years, defeat after defeat after defeat, and those two slingshots proved to finally give them relief that the monstrous battleship wouldn’t threaten their lifeline.
There would be endless horror and death still to come, but the desperately-needed victory all hinged upon the smallest of circumstances, each unknown to the British at the time. Whether it was anger or fear that motivated them, they knew the stakes, and sought to fight with whatever tools they could, despite being devastatingly outgunned.
Their best wasn’t good enough to beat the Bismarck. Far from it. Their best was Bismarck’s first victim, blowing up like a Roman Candle. But in their desperation they fought nevertheless, with everything they had within reach.
And two miracles came out of nowhere and bridged the gap, turning defeat into victory.
Just one, and it could be attributed to sheer luck.
Never give up. Strive to hold true. Miracles happen.
It’s Not a Frame of Mind 