soared. That this could have only one end the few damage control men still clinging to their posts knew all too wellâand they could never forget the Hood blown out of existence when her magazines went up. They had no option but to do what they had to doâflood the magazines and drown their comrades in the swiftly rising waters.
And just as nightmarish as the scenes aboard was the appalling spectacle of the Bismarck herself. Weighed down by the thousands of tons ofwater rushing in through the great gaps torn in her sides, she rolled heavily, sluggishly, in the troughs between the waves, a battered, devastated wreck.
Her mast was gone, her director tower was gone, the funnel had just disappeared. All her boats had been destroyed, the smashed and broken turrets lay over at crazy angles, the barrels pointing down into the sea or up towards an empty sky, and the broken, twisted steel girders and plates of what had once been her superstructure glowed first red, then whitely incandescent as the great fires deep within blazed higher and higher. But still the Bismarck did not die.
Beyond all question, she was the toughest and most nearly indestructible ship ever built. She had been hit by the Prince of Wales, she had been hit by hundreds of heavy, armour piercing shells from the King George V, Rodney, Norfolk and Dorsetshire. She had been torpedoed by aircraft from the Ark Royal and from the Victorious, and now, in this, her last battle, torpedoed also by the Rodney and the Norfolk. But still, incredibly, she lived. No ship in naval history had ever taken half the punishment the Bismarck had, and survived. It was almost uncanny.
In the end, she was not to die under the guns of the two British battleships that had reduced her to this empty blazing hulk. Perhaps, in their wonder at her incredible toughness, they had come tobelieve that she could never be sunk by shell-fire. Perhaps it was their dangerous shortage of fuel, or the certainty that U-boats would soon be on the scene, in force: or perhaps they were just sickened by the slaughter. In any event, the King George V and the Rodney, their mission accomplished, turned for home.
The Bismarck never surrendered. Her colours still flew high, were still flying when the Dorsetshire closed in on the silent, lifeless ship and torpedoed three times from close range. Almost at once she heeled far over to port, her colours dipping into the water, then turned bottom up and slid beneath the waves, silent except for the furious hissing and bubbling as the waters closed over the red hot steel of the superstructure.
The long chase was over: the Hood was avenged.
The Meknes
The English Channel, during the years 1939-1945, was the setting for countless extraordinary and sometimes, during the invasion summer of 1944, frankly incredible spectacles; but it can safely be said that at no time in the war did it present a sight more astonishing, incongruous and utterly improbable than that to be seen on a night in late July in the year 1940, some 60 miles off the Isle of Wight.
This sight was a ship, just an ordinary 6,000-ton cargo and passenger liner, but it was behaving in a most extraordinary fashion. One could have looked at it, then looked again, and still have been excused for flatly disbelieving the plain evidence before oneâs eyes. During the hours of darkness in the wartime Channel secrecy, stealth, and above all an absolutely enforced blackout, were the essentials without which there was no hope of survival. One careless chink of escaping light, one thoughtlessly struck match or cigarette end glowing in thedarkness, and the chances were high that a U-boatâs periscope or torpedo boatâs bows lined up and locked on the betrayed bearing.
Yet there was light to be seen aboard this ship. Not just one light, but hundreds of them. It was as if a section of the Blackpool illuminations had been transferred en bloc to the middle of the Channel. Every blackout scuttle had
And just as nightmarish as the scenes aboard was the appalling spectacle of the Bismarck herself. Weighed down by the thousands of tons ofwater rushing in through the great gaps torn in her sides, she rolled heavily, sluggishly, in the troughs between the waves, a battered, devastated wreck.
Her mast was gone, her director tower was gone, the funnel had just disappeared. All her boats had been destroyed, the smashed and broken turrets lay over at crazy angles, the barrels pointing down into the sea or up towards an empty sky, and the broken, twisted steel girders and plates of what had once been her superstructure glowed first red, then whitely incandescent as the great fires deep within blazed higher and higher. But still the Bismarck did not die.
Beyond all question, she was the toughest and most nearly indestructible ship ever built. She had been hit by the Prince of Wales, she had been hit by hundreds of heavy, armour piercing shells from the King George V, Rodney, Norfolk and Dorsetshire. She had been torpedoed by aircraft from the Ark Royal and from the Victorious, and now, in this, her last battle, torpedoed also by the Rodney and the Norfolk. But still, incredibly, she lived. No ship in naval history had ever taken half the punishment the Bismarck had, and survived. It was almost uncanny.
In the end, she was not to die under the guns of the two British battleships that had reduced her to this empty blazing hulk. Perhaps, in their wonder at her incredible toughness, they had come tobelieve that she could never be sunk by shell-fire. Perhaps it was their dangerous shortage of fuel, or the certainty that U-boats would soon be on the scene, in force: or perhaps they were just sickened by the slaughter. In any event, the King George V and the Rodney, their mission accomplished, turned for home.
The Bismarck never surrendered. Her colours still flew high, were still flying when the Dorsetshire closed in on the silent, lifeless ship and torpedoed three times from close range. Almost at once she heeled far over to port, her colours dipping into the water, then turned bottom up and slid beneath the waves, silent except for the furious hissing and bubbling as the waters closed over the red hot steel of the superstructure.
The long chase was over: the Hood was avenged.
The Meknes
The English Channel, during the years 1939-1945, was the setting for countless extraordinary and sometimes, during the invasion summer of 1944, frankly incredible spectacles; but it can safely be said that at no time in the war did it present a sight more astonishing, incongruous and utterly improbable than that to be seen on a night in late July in the year 1940, some 60 miles off the Isle of Wight.
This sight was a ship, just an ordinary 6,000-ton cargo and passenger liner, but it was behaving in a most extraordinary fashion. One could have looked at it, then looked again, and still have been excused for flatly disbelieving the plain evidence before oneâs eyes. During the hours of darkness in the wartime Channel secrecy, stealth, and above all an absolutely enforced blackout, were the essentials without which there was no hope of survival. One careless chink of escaping light, one thoughtlessly struck match or cigarette end glowing in thedarkness, and the chances were high that a U-boatâs periscope or torpedo boatâs bows lined up and locked on the betrayed bearing.
Yet there was light to be seen aboard this ship. Not just one light, but hundreds of them. It was as if a section of the Blackpool illuminations had been transferred en bloc to the middle of the Channel. Every blackout scuttle had
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