Within minutes of the violent destruction of the pride of the British Royal Navy, an enraged Winston Churchill gave the memorable command to “sink the Bismarck”! This mobilised the British Home Fleet into the greatest sea chase of the war.
It was perhaps fortunate for Britain's naval leaders at the time that public anger could be directed at the immediate cause of the disaster - the Bismarck - instead of being allowed to dwell on deeper responsibilities, such as those which had sent into modern battle a ship whose design had already proved fatal in an earlier war. It was even more fortunate for them that, after a chase holding all the thrills of a classic game of hide and seek, Bismarck was tracked down and sunk.
On 24th August, 1940, on the quarterdeck of the newest battleship in the German Fleet, the crew assembled for the official commissioning of The Bismarck into the German Navy (Kriegsmarine). Captain Ernst Lindemann addressed his crew and quoted Prince Otto von Bismarck, who had united Germany in the nineteenth century and turned it into a great European power: "Policy is not made with speeches, shooting festivals, or songs, it is made only by blood and iron". It was due to such words, followed by actions to match them that Bismarck became known as the ‘Iron Chancellor’. Now an iron ship bore his name. Eighteen months earlier on 14th February 1939, a huge crowd had watched as Frau Dorothea von Loewenfeld, granddaughter of the Iron Chancellor, had launched the ship.
By the time of the Bismarck's commissioning, no one in Britain was downplaying the German naval threat, least of all Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The war at sea was going from bad to worse for Britain. German submarines were creating havoc with Atlantic shipping. The British Admiralty remained preoccupied with the very real possibility of a Nazi invasion. Meanwhile all eyes were on the skies as the Battle of Britain raged, diverting attention from the devastating loss of merchant ships that was rapidly threatening Britain's ability to survive.
The Bismarck was fast (30 knots) and sleek, with an elegant silhouette and a jaunty flared bow. More than 820 feet long, 118 feet wide, and a displacement of 44 734 tons (48 626 when fully loaded). Her eight 15-inch (380-mm) guns in four twin turrets were the biggest ever mounted on a German warship and made her more than a match for the firepower of any single battleship or battle-cruiser in the entire British fleet.
Defence is at least as important as offense on a battleship. So, not surprisingly, among the most heavily armoured areas were the four big gun turrets, A, B, C, and D working from forward to aft and known as turrets Anton, Bruno, Caesar and Dora. Here the armour ranged in thickness from 5 to 14 inches. Elsewhere the thickness of the protection depended on the importance of the area being protected. The conning tower and communications tube leading between it and the armoured decks were almost as heavily protected as the big turrets. The vital innards, including the three sets of geared turbines, the twelve high-pressure boilers and the ammunition magazines were located within the heavily armoured citadel which occupied roughly 50 percent of the below decks space and was protected by an armoured deck.
In early March, 1941 the Bismarck went to the Gulf of Danzig for final sea trials and battle practice. During these final exercises the Bismarck was joined by the brand-new heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which was to provide escort on her first foray into the Atlantic. Once there, the two ships were to link up with the battle cruiser Gneisenau, still in the harbour of Brest, and prey on British shipping.
Captain Lindemann was impatient for the Bismarck's first mission, but he was also apprehensive about the officer under whom he would serve. Lindemann probably consoled himself with the knowledge that Admiral Lütjens had already proven himself in the war at sea. He had led the highly successful commerce raiding expedition earlier that year when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had broken out into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait. With the Bismarck's first mission only days away, Adolf Hitler visited the ship on 5th May. The Fűhrer was nervous about risking German ships in the Atlantic, fearful of the humiliation he would suffer if any were sunk by the British. Raeder had not informed his commander in chief that the Bismarck was scheduled to depart on 18th May.
After the troop inspection, Hitler toured the ship. He seemed attentive and interested but said almost nothing. Four hours after boarding the Bismarck, Hitler and his party left. Now Lütjens and Lindemann could get on with final preparations for their mission, code-named Rheinübung - Exercise Rhine. Their orders were to steam through the Danish Islands and enter the Norwegian Sea through the passage between Jutland and the southern coasts of Sweden and Norway. They were then to proceed northward along the Norwegian coast and into the North Sea, breaking out through the Iceland-Faroes passage without being detected by the enemy. Already oil tankers and resupply ships were steaming to prearranged positions in the Atlantic and the Arctic. Unlike previous raiders, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had permission to attack escorted convoys.
On 17th May 1941, the Bismarck took on her final supplies and fuel at Gotenhafen. At one point a fuel hose ruptured and by the time the problem was corrected, the battleship was 200 tons short of fuel. With a storage capacity of 8 000 tons, this shortfall seemed at the time a tiny detail of no consequence. On board were two thousand two hundred and six men.
The British Admiralty was not ignorant of the threat posed by the Bismarck, but Churchill continued to believe that she would not put to sea until the Tirpitz was also ready. Nonetheless, British intelligence had been following the battleship's progress from shipyard to sea trials with intense interest. They knew she was ready for action. But the ocean was huge and although they had noted increased German reconnaissance flights over Iceland's Denmark Strait, suggesting the Bismarck might take that route into the Atlantic, they still had no real idea where she intended to go, or when.
At 02 00 hours on the morning of 19th May, 1941, Exercise Rhine had begun. Captain Lindemann announced over the ship's loud-speakers that the purpose of their expedition was to reach the Atlantic and sink as much British shipping as possible over a period of several months. Lindemann's men had no knowledge of the elaborate planning that had led to this moment. They only knew that action was at hand.
The Bismarck sliced invisibly through the darkness toward a late-morning rendezvous with Prinz Eugen in the western Baltic. Prinz Eugen, under the command of Captain Helmuth Brinkmann, had departed Gotenhafen the previous evening. The day dawned cloudy and remained overcast, making aerial reconnaissance unlikely - a good omen. The two ships met and were joined by an escort of two destroyers and a flotilla of minesweepers. The next morning, 20th May, they entered the Kattegat. Around 13 00 hours off Marstrand, Sweden, the Swedish aircraft-carrying cruiser Gotland loomed into view. She steamed along parallel to the German force while she remained in Swedish waters, and then dispatched a radio message. This was exactly what Lütjens had wanted to avoid. Neutral Sweden was a nest of spies and informers.
In the radio room aboard the Bismarck, the intelligence staff listened intently for a transmission from the Swedish ship. Sure enough, when Gotland's routine report was decoded, it informed the Swedish admiralty of the German presence. Shortly thereafter, Lütjens notified Group North that the secrecy of his whereabouts had been compromised. Indeed, it was only a matter of hours before the British naval attaché in Stockholm, heard the news, which he promptly relayed to London. Near sunset when the ships passed Kristiansand, a second report of the Bismarck's position was making its way to London. A member of the Norwegian underground spotted the force through his binoculars, and soon a hidden radio transmitter was sending news to London of two German battleships with escorts heading west toward the North Sea.
Around noon the next day, 21st May, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen entered the protected fjords near Bergen so that Prinz Eugen could refuel. This stop was not part of Lütjens' operational orders; the plan was for both ships to refuel from the tanker Weissenburg already waiting for them in the northern part of the Norwegian Sea. But Prinz Eugen had a much more limited range than the Bismarck. Refuelling her now gave Lütjens additional flexibility should he decide to break out right away. Nonetheless, his decision seems ill-considered. The two ships sat all day under clear blue skies in the Norwegian port closest to British airfields, as if waiting to be spotted by British aerial reconnaissance - which is exactly what happened. Around 13 15 hours, a Spitfire flying over Bergen photographed the ships. Soon the British Admiralty knew exactly where the Bismarck was, but what she was doing was another question.
During the warm and sunny afternoon, Prinz Eugen's tanks were topped up while the Bismarck's camouflage was painted over with a dull grey paint that would help her disappear into the Atlantic. Why didn't Lütjens take advantage of this time to refuel Bismarck as well? This criticism has been echoed by many historians. In the Royal Navy it was standard procedure to refuel ships at every opportunity - a policy that makes good sense given the unpredictability of war. Bismarck had left Gotenhafen 200 tons short because of the ruptured fuel line. What if Lütjens didn't have time to refuel from the tanker waiting for him in the Norwegian Sea? Once in the Atlantic, every ton became precious. The excuse that such a refuelling was not in the day's operational orders shows an incredible inflexibility on the part of a seasoned commander. The Bismarck left Bergen with her fuel tanks down by about 1 100 tons.
Around 19 30 hours, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen resumed their northward journey. It was now clear that the British knew something was up. That morning German intelligence had deciphered a British radio transmission ordering RAF planes to be on the lookout for two German battleships heading north. The British were on his trail. Fortunately for him, however, they were still in the dark as to Bismarck's intentions. Nor would they discover for some time that the task force had left Bergen.
Early the next morning, Thursday 22nd May, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen bade farewell to their escort of destroyers and minesweepers. Now they were on their own. All day the weather played into Lütjens' hands: haze and an overcast sky gave way to fog and then rain. With ample cloud cover and low visibility, it would be almost impossible for British planes to spot them.
While the Bismarck steamed northward, Admiral Erich Raeder went to the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat near Berchtesgaden in south-eastern Bavaria, for a naval conference with the Fűhrer. Present at the meeting were Hitler’s senior general staff officers. Raeder gave Hitler a wide-ranging briefing on the state of the war at sea; almost casually mentioning that the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen had left Bergen the day before on a commerce-raiding mission into the Atlantic. This was the first the Fűhrer had heard of Exercise Rhine.
Hitler was visibly upset. What about the danger to his new battleship. He and Admiral Lütjens had discussed this very possibility only two weeks before during his visit to the ship. Raeder knew his leader feared the blow to his prestige should the Bismarck be sunk. Now he carefully explained why it would be a mistake to recall the ships. Such a move would have a terrible effect on naval morale. Months of complex planning had gone into the operation. Besides, given Lütjens' previous successes, there was every reason to expect that this mission would bring even greater glory to the Fatherland. Raeder wisely did not mention that the British had already spotted the ships off Norway and were already looking for the Bismarck. After a heated discussion, Hitler reluctantly agreed to let the mission proceed.
It was not until Thursday evening that Tovey finally discovered that the birds had flown the Bergen coop late that afternoon. A daring low-level reconnaissance flight through fog and low-lying cloud had found the two German ships gone from the fjords where they had last been seen. At 22 45 hours, Tovey led his fleet out of Scapa Flow. Accompanying his flagship, King George V, were the aircraft carrier Victorious, 4 cruisers, and 7 destroyers. He ordered the Repulse to sail from the Clyde to join this force, which would take up a position from where it could support the forces covering Bismarck's two possible escape routes. Hood and Prince of Wales were already lying in wait off Iceland. Suffolk was on her way to join Norfolk in the Denmark Strait, and Arethusa was sailing to strengthen the forces patrolling the Iceland-Faroes gap. Assuming the Bismarck was spotted and followed, at least two capital ships, plus various cruisers and destroyers, could quickly move to challenge her.
Before midnight on 22nd May 1941, Admiral Lütjens received three encouraging radio messages from Group North. The first referred to a communication he had received earlier that day: "Assumption that breakout has not yet been detected by the enemy confirmed”. The second reported that Luftwaffe aerial surveillance of Scapa Flow had revealed "4 battleships, 1 possible aircraft carrier, 6 light cruisers, and several destroyers. Thus no change from 21st May, and passage through the Norwegian Narrows not noticed”! This was horribly inaccurate. The Luftwaffe had been fooled by one of the oldest tricks in the book. Two of the 4 battleships were dummies made of wood and canvas. Had Lütjens known that Hood and Prince of Wales had already been deployed, he would certainly have thought twice about proceeding with an immediate breakout. If Lütjens retained any doubt about the course of action he had decided on, this must now have been dispelled. At 11 32 hours, not knowing that the entire British Home Fleet was now moving to intercept him, he ordered a course change to the southwest, direct for the Denmark Strait.
Eleven British convoys, including a troop convoy of more than twenty thousand men, were about to cross the Atlantic. It would be up to the Home Fleet to intercept the Germans before they could get out into the Atlantic shipping lanes. If not the consequences would be very serious.
By noon the next day, 23rd May, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were sailing due north of Iceland and were about to enter the Denmark Strait. The bad weather still concealed them; perhaps Lütjens' gamble would pay off. But the admiral and Lindemann knew this was the most perilous phase of the breakout. A British minefield stretched from the Horn of Iceland toward the Greenland coast, effectively narrowing the aperture at its narrowest point to no more than 30 to 40 miles.
In the early evening the weather conditions in the narrowest part of the Denmark Strait favoured the patrolling British heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk under the command of Rear Admiral Frederick Wake-Walker aboard Norfolk. To the north, along the icebound coast of Greenland, the water was clear and the visibility good. But to the south along the Iceland coast lay fog. The British took full advantage of these conditions as they sailed back and forth along the route the Germans would have to take. Captain Robert Ellis on the Suffolk sailed ahead of Norfolk, since his ship's new radar could sweep a thirteen-mile radius.
At 19 22 hours, the Bismarck's alarm bells sounded. Her hydrophones and radar had picked up a ship off the port bow. This was Suffolk, also racing on a southwest course but traveling along the edge of the fog bank. Briefly the three-stacked silhouette of the British cruiser came into sight before it plunged into the mist. There was no time to get a bearing and fire. Aboard Suffolk, the starboard after lookout was scanning his sector with his binoculars for what must have seemed like the thousandth time since he had come on watch. The lookout didn't want to sound a false alarm, but he didn't want to make a mistake, either. Suddenly a great black shape loomed out of the mist no more than seven miles away. "Ship bearing green one-four-o he shouted”. Then a second ship appeared, and he shouted the alarm once again.
Captain Ellis brought Suffolk hard over and she heeled heavily to starboard as he headed into the fog, while alarm bells rang and sailors rushed to action stations. Arriving safely in the fog bank, Suffolk slowed down and waited for the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen to pass her before taking up a position to the rear, just within radar range. At 13 miles, this meant the Bismarck's guns could reach her at any time. The cruiser was roaring along at 30 knots, virtually top speed, and the vibration was tremendous. It was all she could do to keep up with the German ships, which had increased speed.
Meanwhile, Norfolk had been alerted and was racing back through the fog to join Suffolk. But her captain misjudged his relative position and emerged six miles in front of the Bismarck, with the great grey leviathan closing fast. Before Norfolk could escape back into the mist, five salvoes straddled her. One shell bounced on the water and ricocheted off the captain's bridge. But only shell splinters came on board and no one was hurt. The jolts from the firing of Bismarck's big guns had put her own forward radar out of action. This meant she was now blind to what lay ahead. Admiral Lütjens ordered Prinz Eugen to take the lead, as the two ships raced to escape the British. The admiral must have felt discouraged. His breakout had been detected, and in the radio room his intelligence officers had intercepted and decoded a stream of wireless messages from the British ships, advertising his position. But surely the big British ships that could really threaten him were far away. Late yesterday they had still been at Scapa Flow. If only he could shake these two pursuers, he could continue his mission, take on oil from a tanker south of Greenland and then lie low until things died down.
But as the four ships raced toward the open Atlantic, Lütjens gradually realized that his pursuers were relying on more than visual contact to keep track of him. Hard as he tried, he could not shake them off. Whenever he altered course, the British ships did, too. When he tried a high-speed turn to come back and surprise them, he emerged from a rain squall to find the sea empty. He didn't know it, but the problem was Suffolk's radar, which was far superior to anything the Germans had.
On board both the British and German ships, everyone was awake, poised and waiting for something to happen. Three hundred miles to the south, Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland aboard the Hood had received Norfolk's wireless report that the Bismarck had been flushed. Already the Hood was racing on a converging course that would bring him within range early the next morning. The Bismarck's first battle was about to begin.
The encounter with the Hood and the Prince of Wales has been well documented in the previous chapter.
Now Bismarck’s battle damage had to be assessed. In the din of battle only a few on board the German battleship realised she had been damaged. A shell from the Prince of Wales hit beneath the armoured belt, penetrating to the torpedo bulkhead where it exploded. This caused flooding in the forward generator room on the port side and some slow seepage of water into the forward port boiler room. (The port boiler room was subsequently shut down as a precautionary measure, reducing the ship's maximum speed to about 28 knots.) Soon damage reports reached the bridge, and with each report Admiral Lütjens grew gloomier and gloomier.
Most serious was the hit forward, where a shell had passed clean through the ship. The holes in the hull were just above the waterline but not above the wave thrown up by the bow, and water was pouring in. The shell had damaged the main transverse bulkheads separating these adjacent compartments, and both began to flood rapidly. By the time Bismarck ceased firing, 1 000 tons of seawater had flowed into the ship, putting considerable pressure on a bulkhead separating compartment, which had to be shored up. The holes in the bow were patched with collision mats, which inhibited but did not stop the flow of water. Because of the flooding, the Bismarck was down at the bow and listing to port, at times lifting the starboard propeller partly out of the water. To correct the trim, two ballast tanks were flooded aft. But there was nothing the damage control teams could do about the main problem: the flooding and other damage had cut off access to the forward fuel tanks containing 1 000 tons of fuel. Suddenly Lütjens' decision not to refuel at Bergen loomed ominously large. On neither German ship had there been a single casualty.
When the damage control teams had completed their work, the German battleship was handicapped but still formidable. She was still taking in water, and her available fuel was seriously reduced, but enough remained to get her to ports more than 1 000 miles away. The damage to her electric plant cut her reserve capacity in half, but she was still able to operate with full electrical power. Seawater in the electrical plant threatened to seep into the other two forward boiler rooms, further reducing her top speed. She was also trailing oil in her wake, which would make her easier for aerial reconnaissance to spot and also reveal to enemy eyes that she had been damaged. But all her artillery was intact. Her gunnery had proved extremely accurate, and the crew had performed with the greatest of skill.
Now that the full extent of the Bismarck's wounds was clear, Admiral Lütjens was faced with a tough decision. Immediately following the battle he'd elected to steer a course toward St. Nazaire, France. For now, commerce-raiding was out of the question. The damage was too serious to be repaired at sea, but if he could get to France, future operations would be much easier. Should he turn back toward the Denmark Strait, or make a run eastward through the Iceland-Faroes gap? Either way he would likely be met by more British ships, which he could now safely assume were already gathering like pack wolves for the kill. The open sea offered more room to manoeuvre and more chances of escape than the shorter, narrower route back to Norway. As he moved south, the nights would become longer, providing more chance for evasive manoeuvres. If he could shake his shadow, perhaps he could still link up with one of his tankers, then lie low until the British were forced to leave the field to refuel. He decided to continue for France. Had he known where the British ships actually were, he would undoubtedly have changed his mind.
Admiral Raeder phoned Hitler and told him what had happened. The news was a tonic for the ever anxious Fűhrer. He was elated and praised the navy to the skies. This was a great victory for the Reich, which Dr. Goebbels and his propaganda machine could exploit to maximum effect. Raeder shrewdly didn't report to Hitler the damage to the Bismarck and his concern about Lütjens' decision to steer for France, which he judged risky. Raeder even considered issuing a recall order that would have forced Lütjens to head immediately for Norway. But finally he decided to let the man on the scene make the decision.
The general euphoria aboard the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen at their spectacular victory soon gave way to a more sober mood. The flagship was damaged and they were still being shadowed by the Suffolk and Norfolk, now joined by the damaged Prince of Wales. Meanwhile, Admiral Lütjens was left to consider his options. If he retained any faith in German intelligence, it must have been dashed by the unexpected apparition of his attackers that morning. Perhaps other ships were just over the horizon, ready to pounce. If only he could elude that infernal British radar.
Four hundred miles away, Admiral Tovey also contemplated his options. The Admiralty had already begun detaching battleships and cruisers from patrol or convoy duty and sending them to join the chase. But the nearest of these were still much farther away than his own fleet. His force was more than a match for the two German ships, but first they had to be caught. This presented Tovey with a problem; he still didn't know which way the Germans would go. Perhaps they would head back to Germany as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Most likely they would make for France. But he could assume none of these possibilities, and had to allow for all of them. He could only hope that the Bismarck would not lose her shadowers before he could bring his own force to meet her.
Still Lütjens could not shake the three ships that dogged his tracks. Despite this situation, morale aboard Bismarck and Prinz Eugen remained high. They had sunk the mighty Hood, escaping with little apparent damage and without the loss of a single man. The Bismarck was still making good speed - 27 to 28 knots, but labouring with a heavy bow trim and a slight list to port. However, there seemed to be problems with the ship's radio - Lütjens had received no answers from Group North to his repeated messages. He had reported the victory over the Hood and had indicated his intention to part company with the Prinz Eugen and then head for France and the dry-dock of St. Nazaire that could handle his repairs. More serious was the fuel situation. Shortly after 12 30 hours, Lütjens ordered a reduction in speed to 24 knots and a course change to the south.
Five hundred miles to the southeast, the Nelson class battleship Rodney, with four destroyers, was escorting the troop ship Britannic to Halifax. The Rodney received news of the Hood's sinking over the ship's wireless. Just before noon, a signal was received from the Admiralty giving the enemy’s position, course and speed. The Britannic was to proceed with one destroyer to Halifax. At 14 00 hours, the battleship and three destroyers headed north at full speed. The battleships now included the Revenge, and the Ramillies. Also called were the cruisers Edinburgh, patrolling near the Azores, and London, escorting another convoy. Finally, and most important, was the inclusion of Force H, which had already left Gibraltar and moved into the Bay of Biscay to cover a troop convoy. Force H, consisting of the carrier Ark Royal, the battle cruiser Renown and the cruiser Sheffield, along with six destroyers.
Aboard King George V, the commander in chief of the Home Fleet knew his job was to bring the Bismarck to account any way he could. Although Admiral Tovey had received reports that the Bismarck was trailing oil, he had to assume the damage was not serious. He interpreted her change of course to the south and reduction in speed to 24 knots as evidence Lütjens was unaware that a powerful British force was moving to intercept. But he worried that at any time the Germans might put on a burst of speed, shake their shadow and disappear into the void of the mid-Atlantic. However risky, he felt he had to try to slow her down. The only weapon at hand that was capable of accomplishing this goal was the aircraft carrier Victorious. But Tovey, must have held grave doubts about using this newly commissioned ship and her untested crew in such a dangerous fashion. She had only fifteen operational aircraft on board - nine 3seater Swordfish torpedo bombers and six 2 seater Fulmar fighters. Most of the aircrews had never flown at sea, were still learning the ropes. Now, on their first high-seas mission, they were being asked to take off in unpredictable weather, fly to the extreme limit of their range and attack an enemy ship that had just sunk the most famous warship in the Royal Navy. And they were being asked do this in slow-moving Swordfish - known as ‘stringbags’ because of their carrying capacity and apparent fragility. Fixed-wheel biplanes with open cockpits that looked like relics of World War One and whose top speed when armed was barely 100 knots.
Just after 15 00 hours, Tovey issued the order for Victorious and four cruisers, to leave his battle fleet and steer a course that would get the carrier within 100 miles of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen before dusk. As Tovey watched the untried aircraft carrier fade into the distance, he must have wondered whether he was sending the young flyers on a suicide mission.
Aboard Prinz Eugen, Captain Brinkmann took a pull on his ever-present cigar and wondered just what Admiral Lütjens was thinking. Early that afternoon the admiral had signalled his intention to stage a breakaway. It seemed logical to Brinkmann for the task force to stay together. Shortly after 18 00 hours, as the two ships entered a fog bank, Brinkmann was surprised to see the Bismarck's signal light frantically winking at him to execute the parting of company. Immediately the battleship turned to starboard and faded into the mist. A few minutes later he heard the sound of Bismarck's heavy guns. Sometime later he and the others on Prinz Eugen's bridge caught one last glimpse of their ‘big brother’ far off to the northwest, flashing fire and smoke from her guns. Then she disappeared into a rain squall. Lütjens' sudden manoeuvre temporarily caught the British ships off guard (the Suffolk had briefly turned off her radar to rest it), but by the time the German battleship loomed out of the mist at a range of ten miles, the Suffolk was ready. In the ensuing long-range battle, many salvoes were fired by the British, fewer by the Germans, but no hits were registered.
During the action two of Prince of Wales' 14-inch guns jammed further proof that the ship was not ready for action. The Bismarck resumed her course to the south and the chase went on, but with a crucial difference. Admiral Wake Walker decided to keep his forces together in case of another attack. (At this point he didn't realize Prinz Eugen had broken away, and his radar crew would continue for many hours to report two ships on their screens.) He ordered all three of his ships to take up a position in a line on the Bismarck's port quarter (astern and to port). Suffolk and her priceless radar set took the lead, Prince of Wales the middle, and Norfolk, the rear. This concentration of force may have been sound battle tactics, but it was flawed for the primary purpose at hand - maintaining contact with the Bismarck. The best way to do that was to keep his ships spread out to cover both quarters astern of the Bismarck, so that a turn in either direction would quickly be spotted.
Matters deteriorated further when warnings of U-boats in the area forced the shadowers to adopt a zigzag course. Since the Bismarck continued on a straight line south, this meant that on each port (southeast) leg of the zigzag, the Suffolk passed out of radar range, only regaining the Bismarck on the way back to starboard. For the time bei