Scale Plastic Model Kits
At 06.00 hours on Saturday 24th May 1941, the Royal Navy was dealt one of
its most shattering blows. The 42,000 ton battle-cruiser Hood
was destroyed after an action lasting barely eight minutes with the Bismarck,
the largest and most modern battleship in service with the German Navy. Three
days later, after the most celebrated sea chase of the Second World War, which
involved no fewer than three British battleships, two battlecruisers, two aircraft
carriers and nine cruisers, plus numerous destroyers, Bismarck was brought to
bay, reduced to a blazing hulk, and finally sunk. The career of the most feared
German warship was terminated a mere nine months after she was commissioned. Bismarck was commissioned on 24th August 1940, and after a period of trials, crew training and general working-up in the Baltic, was joined in April 1941 by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The two ships trained together for several weeks and in the middle of May moved north to the Norwegian fjords. On 22nd May, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, under the command of Admiral Gunther Lutjens, left friendly waters and steered north-west on Operation Rheinubung, a break out, via the Denmark Strait, into the Atlantic Ocean with the intention of attacking the vital British convoys. The British, realizing the immense threat posed by the two raiders, made strenuous efforts to locate the German vessels, and by the evening of 23rd May the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk had sighted them and proceeded to track their movements by radar, eventually delivering them to the guns of Hood and the brand new battleship Prince of Wales. Although Hood was destroyed, Bismarck had received three hits from Prince of Wales, one of which had penetrated a fuel tank, causing a leak which left a slick in the vessel's wake and contaminating much of the oil that remained. In view of the seriousness of the damage, Admiral Lutjens decided to cancel Operation Rheinubung and, after detaching Prinz Eugen, made for the Terman-held French coast. The journey was never completed.
The pursuit, interception and final annihilation of Bismarck was fraught with
incident. First, Swordfish torpedo bombers from the
carrier Victorious launched three attacks, but without
significant success. Then the British lost contact. It was regained through Bismarck's
transmission of a radio message, but the signals were misinterpreted and the German
battleship was not positively located again until early on 26th May, when she
was spotted by an RAF Catalina flying boat. Strikes
by Swordfish aircraft, this time from Ark Royal,
were delivered, first in error against the British cruiser Sheffield, then against
Bismarck, and one torpedo struck the stern of the battleship, jamming her steering
gear and sealing her fate. On the morning of 27th May, the British battleships
King George V and Rodney
appeared on the horizon and, closing the range, proceeded to pound Bismarck to
a wreck. An hour and three quarters later, the cruiser Dorsetshire
put three torpedoes into her, and at 10.40 hours she capsized and sank, taking
with her some 1,800 sailors. Instructions:
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This page was last updated Feb 20th 2007.
