Bismarck was in the ocean for months, blowing up and disabling British ships and taking out British planes when an old, WWI British torpedo plane scored a lucky hit locking the rudder in place. If the British were not so bloody riled up about her, she would have been repaired easily and stayed out to raid enemy shipping. :P
The Battleship Bismarck was launched on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 1939. On May 18, 1940 the Bismarck is sent out to attack the enemy (along with support ships.) May 23rd 1941 the Bismarck group attempts to engage the cowardly British naval forces who realize their situation and run like hell for home, artfully evading the German kriegsmarine. May 24th 1941 the HMS Hood & Prince of Wales engage the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen. HMS Hood and another British battleship sunk, 2 British Heavy Cruisers damaged and assumed unfit for combat (they fall back and “observe”) while Bismarck changes heading to return to port and replace a generator that became damaged in the battle. #4 generator, to be exact. Suffolk, Prince of Wales and King George harry the Bismarck, achieving nothing while taking minor damage themselves (still May 24, 1941.) May 25 the HMS Victorious (Aircraft Carrier) launches night air raids against the Bismarck causing 1 casualty aboard the ship and “insignificant damage” an unknown amount of planes is reported shot down by anti-aircraft fire (8 torpedo planes are reported to have survived the mission from Victorious.) May 25th, Bismarck changes course and evades British tracking, after numerous inconclusive exchanges of fire with Prince of Wales, King George and Suffolk (but this point, the Prinz Eugen had already been sent home for repairs.) Essentially, we have a mostly useless British carrier (most planes destroyed, what they have left is aging) and 3 pansies commanding warships staying at max distance tracking the valiant and mighty battleship Bismarck! In the late morning of May 25th, the Bismarck suckers the British into getting close enough for a real engagement and destroys / cripples all remaining British warships tracking her (Carrier is not one of the attacking warships, of course. Carriers don’t attack, they defend, they send aircraft to attack.) Bismarck’s greatest damage from the engagement is the loss of one of their radar arrays. May 26, 1941 the Bismarck is sighted by British patrol aircraft. England knowing that it cannot take the Bismarck in a fair fight, does what it can, it send every available plane it has left at the Bismarck: 810th, 818th, and 820th Squadrons from carrier Ark Royal resulting in multiple hits on the Bismarck by torpedoes, of all the torpedo hits from THREE FULL SQUADRONS OF ATTACKING AIRCRAFT against a SINGLE WARSHIP THAT HAS EFFECTIVELY DESTROYED THE BRITISH NAVY AT THIS POINT, ONE gets a lucky hit and locks the rudder in place. This is damage that can only be repaired in dock, but there’s no way the British are going to let the Germans retreat honorably (as the Germans allowed the British on numerous occasions thus far) and get tugged back to dock for repairs. Admiral’s report back to HQ West: “Ship is weaponry-wise and mechanically fully intact; however, it cannot be steered with the engines." Essentially, the boat STILL isn’t sunk after taking 2 carrier’s worth of aircraft, multiple battleships and heavy cruisers and anything else the British could throw at her. May 27th 1941, a U-boot is sent to retrieve the ship’s log for safe keeping. Assumed at this time British cowardly and will keep attacking even though the defenders can do nothing but steam for home. HMS Rodney and HMS King George catch up to the Bismarck on May 27, 1941 and score the first naval hits against the great battleship, disabling two forecastle turrets. Full cowardice of Britain exhibited: Battleship Bismarck virtually defenseless, all major gun ports damaged, rudders still locked, two engines down, is signaling surrender meanwhile HMS King George and HMS Rodney drive up to point blank range to maintain fire: “0936-1016: Receives an indeterminable number of hits from point blank range between 2,500 and 4,000 meters, but is still afloat.” Remarkably, the Bismarck is STILL FLOATING! 20 minutes later, German saboteurs scuttle the Bismarck to prevent it falling into British hands. At 10:39 in the morning, the Battleship Bismarck is officially sunk.
So, essentially, that’s the record of the Bismarck. I left out all the details about them testing this, or testing that, or fixing a crane that broke in dry dock cause no one cares. The ship was afloat for 2 years and 2 months in total. It took on the RAF and the Royal Navy destroying just about everything that was put in its way until the tide turned with a lucky torpedo hit, one that managed to hit the only part of the ship to do any significant damage. The ship is ruthlessly and mercilessly hunted down like a rabid dog and even when they signaled surrender, the British KEPT pounding it, yet were unable to destroy it, and it was finally scuttled and sent to the bottom of the ocean.
However, note that the ship was able to survive 6 squadrons of enemy aircraft. It had to have had one helluva AA Gun screen!
Now, yes, I am sure that being an Anglo-Saxon country that the US is, for the most part, and that England wrote the history books about the battle that was probably used in the local schools here in America, you may have a different flavor of history. There is probably no mention of British cowardice and British brutality in your books. Since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not IN that battle, nor have or had any racial ties to England that would make us more sympathetic to their version of the story, our books describe the battle as listed above. Pieced together by ships logs & radio logs from the Wales, King George, Bismarck and Prinz.
To be honest, the only ones who can know what the Germans or British were thinking are probably below the surface of the ground and the waves now.
