The HMS Hood and Prince of Wales plow toward the Bismarck, and destiny.
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When we left off, the British had finally located
the battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen
as they steamed south through the Denmark Strait.
With Admiral Tovey and the rest of the Home Fleet still hundreds of miles away,
it was clear that the Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, and Prince of Wales
were the only ones that could possibly stop the behemoth.
But to understand what’s about to happen, we need to understand
the state of the Royal Navy in 1941,
and how interwar limitations held back their naval development.
Let me turn things over to Wargaming’s historical consultant Richard Cutland:
Following World War I, a series of maritime treaties
constrained naval development in hopes of defusing an international arms race.
At first these treaties limited the number of new ships
and set limits on the size and armament of new vessels. Later agreements
eliminated the possibility of building new battleships completely.
As a result, in the interwar period Britain was forced
to modernize old ships instead of building new ones.
For example, the HMS Hood looked strong enough to any outside observer,
but the British Admiralty was well aware of its main drawback,
a weak horizontal defence, especially at Deck 25, which was only 76mm thick.
Plans to strengthen the horizontal armour had been developed in 1927,
but these works were postponed due to financial problems.
In the end, they never happened at all. This made the ship vulnerable
to long-range "plunging fire" that fell directly down on its deck.
These treaties also constrained new battleships, like Prince of Wales,
to quite conservative designs.
Their armament consisted of two four-gun turrets, and one two-gun turret,
all in a 14-inch calibre that complied with treaty limitations.
Meanwhile, Germany was quietly violating these treaties
with ships like Bismarck that had 15-inch guns,
so even though Prince of Wales was brand new, it was underpowered at launch.
In addition, the brand new Prince of Wales had teething problems.
Sea trials revealed that her revolutionary quadruple-gun turrets
were prone to break down under strain,
and this problem hadn’t yet been fixed when she deployed with Hood.
However, Prince of Wales was more technologically advanced than the Hood,
particularly since she had modern rangefinders,
and crucially, both Hood and Prince of Wales were fast,
and speed was what the Royal Navy needed in an interception force.
Back to you Dan.
Thank you, Mr Cutland! So that’s the situation.
The capable, but vulnerable Hood and untested Prince of Wales
are about to take on the largest and most modern warships on Earth.
24th of May. 05:37 hours. The Denmark Strait.
Our British sailors have gotten little sleep,
knowing that they would intercept the Bismarck at dawn.
On the Prince of Wales, civilian contractors
have worked through the night repairing its turret guns,
whose hydraulic systems are acting up.
Most of the Prince of Wales crew are fresh recruits, and they’re nervous,
but the presence of the Hood stills their jitters.
Just then, a lookout on Hood
sees smoke on the horizon: the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen.
Admiral Holland sends a cyphered message to the rest of the fleet:
FROM HOOD ENEMY IN SIGHT AM ENGAGING.
But Holland’s running almost parallel to the enemy,
the four ships converging slowly as they head southwest.
That’s no good. Not only does he need to get between Bismarck and the Atlantic,
but the Hood’s thin deck armour will be vulnerable to plunging fire
unless he gets within 9 miles.
By cutting a path directly toward the Germans,
he’ll close the distance as fast as possible and be harder to hit,
but it will also halve his firepower since his rear turrets can’t join the fight.
But there’s nothing for it. The Bismarck could still evade.
Holland turns to an interception course and orders "full speed ahead".
At 05:52 hours Holland orders Prince of Wales to target the lead ship.
But the gunnery officer on the Prince of Wales,
working with more modern optics, makes a startling realization:
the Hood has targeted the wrong ship.
Bismarck and Prinz Eugen have similar silhouettes,
and the Germans have defied convention
by sending the lighter-armoured heavy cruiser first.
He tries to communicate this to the Hood, but it’s too late.
The Hood opens fire, wreathing the vessel in dirty brown smoke.
Seeing this, the desperate gunnery officer defies Hood’s order,
targets the Bismarck, and fires.
On both ships the gunnery officers look at their watches, waiting.
Fifty seconds later, pillars of water leap up in front of the German ships,
the salvos fall short.
Worse still, one of the guns in Prince of Wales’ B-Turret malfunctions,
taking it out of the action. Both ships are re-adjusting their aim
when flashes of light run up and down the German ships.
A long-range artillery duel has begun.
Two minutes later, a shell from Prinz Eugen
crashes into the Hood’s upper deck, detonating an ammunition locker.
It burns with pink flames,
anti-aircraft shells cooking off in bunches like firecrackers.
On the Hood’s bridge, the crew can hear the screams of their burning shipmates
coming through the voice pipes.
Admiral Holland keeps calm, but then,
huge columns of water leap into the air ahead of the bow,
and he finally realizes that he’s been shooting at the wrong ship.
He hastily sends the order to re-target the Bismarck and orders a turn to port
in order to bring his aft turrets to bear.
It will expose him side-on with the enemy, but, with luck,
the Hood’s turn will pass just inside the 9-mile mark
and shield him from plunging fire.
The turn comes just in time, Bismarck’s next salvo thunders down
right where the Hood had been headed.
With all fire concentrated on Hood,
Prince of Wales has been free to get range on the Bismarck,
and scores at least one hit.
But her intricate four-gun turrets aren’t holding up to the strain,
and every few salvos another gun goes out of action.
It follows Hood into the turn, facing the German ships side-on.
A salvo from Bismarck brackets the Hood,
shells landing on either side of the vessel.
The Prince of Wales’ commander, Captain Leach,
knows that once a ship is bracketed, the enemy has you.
He sees the Bismarck’s guns flash in double-time,
and trains his binoculars on the Hood to see the result.
A shell plunges down on Hood’s deck, just aft of the mainmast, and disappears.
Two seconds later, the middle of the Hood erupts like a Roman candle,
spraying flames hundreds of feet in the air.
As Leach looks on, horrified, a colossal explosion tears the ship in two,
the stern rising up out of the water
as the bow sails forward under its own momentum.
Yellow smoke blankets the carnage.
In all the smoke, the Hood’s bridge crew
don’t know where they’ve been hit or how badly.
Bodies begin raining down on the bridge,
thumping off the roof and landing on the wings.
From below, the helmsman reports through a voice pipe
that the steering isn’t answering. The ship begins to list, first to port,
then capsizing 45 degrees to starboard.
There’s no need for an evacuation order.
The crew lines up single-file at the port-side hatch,
waiting their turn to scramble out.
The squadron’s navigating officer stands aside,
letting junior seamen go first. One crewman glances back.
He sees Admiral Holland still sitting in his command chair,
going down with his ship. Seconds later, the sailor steps off the Hood
and into the freezing water of the Denmark Strait.
Above him, he sees the majestic lines of the Hood, sinking in a V formation.
A-Turret fires a last defiant salvo before it slips into the water.
And then, the suction pulls him under.
On the Prince of Wales, Captain Leach orders an evasive manoeuvre
to avoid colliding with Hood’s rapidly-sinking stern.
It disappears underwater as they pass.
Nothing remains of the Royal Navy’s largest and most famous ship
except a burning debris field.
It is now one malfunctioning ship against two,
and Leach has sailed right into the Hood’s former position,
the Germans barely have to adjust their rangefinders.
But just then, a salvo from Prince of Wales straddles Bismarck.
Leach nods approval. Now that Prince of Wales has the correct range she can…
BANG. One compartment below the bridge,
the navigation officer hears a crash above him.
He shouts into the voice pipe, asking if everything’s alright.
At first there’s no answer,
and then a stream of blood dribbles out, staining his charts.
Leach gets unsteadily to his feet. One of the Bismarck’s shells has hit the bridge
and passed through without exploding.
His entire bridge crew lies dead, except for two wounded officers.
For three hellish minutes, shells pound the Prince of Wales.
The armour belt takes multiple hits. The boat deck catches fire.
In one of the turret magazines, a shell punches through the deck and lands,
still live, next to a sailor’s foot.
The magazine crew is told to hang onto it until ordinance disposal arrives,
but they’re not waiting.
They lift the shell up out of the turret and gingerly carry it across the deck
amid a full-scale battle. With a sigh of relief, they pitch it over the side.
Captain Leach knows he’s been outfought.
He turns to withdraw, making smoke to cover his retreat.
The Bismarck, curiously, does not follow.
Keeping well out of range, Leach brings the mauled Prince of Wales around
to join the cruisers shadowing Bismarck.
He signals the Admiralty: HOOD HAS BLOWN UP.
One hour after the Hood’s sinking, a destroyer arrives to look for survivors.
On deck, they have rafts, lifebelts and blankets lined up and ready.
The medical crew is prepared to treat hundreds.
Instead, they pull three oil-slicked survivors out of the water.
Three. Out of a crew of 1,418.
10:22 hours. The Admiralty.
Faces are grim in the Admiralty’s war room,
200 feet below the streets of London.
The shock of losing the Hood
is compounded by the knowledge that German battleships were now in position
to prey on vital convoys.
But as the news settles in, bleak horror gives way to determined rage.
The phone rings. It’s Prime Minister Churchill
with a personal order for every able ship in the Atlantic. It's direct and to the point.
Admiralty cypher officers broadcast the order wide:
The aircraft carrier Ark Royal receives the signal at Gibraltar,
and begins to unpack its torpedo bombers.
Tovey’s Home Fleet receives the message,
as they race to join the stricken Prince of Wales.
The battleship Rodney, headed for a refit in Boston,
gets the signal and slowly turns its 16-inch guns back toward Europe.
The airwaves are thick with this one message:
SINK THE BISMARCK. SINK THE BISMARCK. SINK THE BISMARCK.