The rejoicing aboard the BISMARCK was intense, but no more so than the jubilation in the chancellory of Berlin, where news of this resounding triumph had been flashed as soon as the BISMARCK had broken off the action.
Within an hour the news would be in the hands of every newspaper and radio station in the country. By the afternoon every person in Germany — and by the evening every country in Europe — would know of the crushing defeat suffered by the Royal Navy. An overjoyed Hitler sent his own and the nation's congratulations and admiration to the officers and men of the BISMARCK, and personally announced, amongst numerous other decorations, the immediate award of the Knight's Insignia of the Iron Cross to the BISMARCK'S first gunnery officer.
Only one man held aloof, only one man remained untouched by the exultation, the exhilaration of the victory — the man, one would have thought, who had the greatest cause of all to rejoice, Captain Lindemann, commanding officer of the BISMARCK. Lindemann was unhappy and more than a little afraid — and no man had ever called Lindemann's courage into question. A gallant and very experienced sailor, reckoned about the best and the most skilful in the German Navy — and he had to be, to have command of the finest ship in the German Navy — he was filled with foreboding, a dark certainty of ultimate defeat.
Although his ship had suffered no damage either to her guns or engines and was still the complete fighting machine, a shell, crashing through the heavy armour, and exploding in her fuel tanks had perceptibly reduced her speed and he feared he might not have sufficient fuel left for sustained high-speed steaming and manoeuvring — and Lindemann realized only too clearly that he would require all the speed and every pound of thrust the BISMARCK'S big turbines were capable of developing. He knew the British, he knew the tremendous regard and affection in which they had held the HOOD, and he knew too that, far from being intimidated by the appalling manner of her death, they would have been goaded into a savage fury for revenge and would not rest until they had hunted them down and destroyed them.
These fears he tried to communicate to his senior officer, Admiral Lutjens, and suggested that they return immediately to Bergen, for repairs. Admiral Lutjens, for reasons which we will never know — possibly the elation of their great success had temporarily blurred his judgment and dreams of glory are notoriously treacherous counsellors — overruled his captain. They would go on as originally planned. So the BISMARCK turned southwest and pushed on deep down into the Atlantic.
The Navy followed her. All afternoon and evening the NORFOLK, SUFFOLK and PRINCE OF WALES shadowed both German ships, sending out constant radio transmissions to Admiral Tovey, who swung his squadron on to a new interception course.
The BISMARCK knew she was being followed, but seemed to be undisturbed by this. Only once, briefly, did she show her teeth. About 6.30 in the evening, she turned on her tracks in a fog bank and opened fire on the SUFFOLK, but broke off the engagement almost at once, when the PRINCE OF WALES joined in. (It was not realized at the time that this was merely a diversion to let the PRINZ EUGEN break away to a German oiler, where she refuelled and made her way safely to Brest.)
The BISMARCK now turned to the west and the British shadowers followed, Admiral Tovey's squadron still pursuing.
But Tovey's KING GEORGE V, REPULSE and VICTORIOUS were now only three out of many ships converging on the German capital ship.
The battleship REVENGE was ordered out from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Vice-Admiral Somerville's Force H — the battle cruiser RENOWN, the now legendary ARK ROYAL and the cruiser SHEFFIELD — were ordered up from Gibraltar. The battleship RAMILLIES, then with a mid-Atlantic convoy, the cruiser EDINBURGH, down near the Azores and the cruiser LONDON, with a convoy off the Spanish coast, were all ordered to intercept. Last, but most important of all, the battleship RODNEY was pulled off a States-bound convoy. The RODNEY herself was going to Boston for an urgent and long overdue refit, as her engines and boiler-rooms were in a sorely dilapidated state: but the RODNEY'S great 16-inch guns, and the magnificently Nelsonian capacity of her commander, Captain Dalrymple-Hamilton, to turn a blind eye to what he considered well-meant but erring signals from the Admiralty were to prove more than counter-balance for the parlous state of her engines. The greatest hunt in naval history was on.
Late that evening — just before midnight — Swordfish torpedo bombers from the VICTORIOUS, nine in all and led by Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde — who was later to lose his life but win a posthumous Victoria Cross for his attack on the GNEISENAU and SCHARNHORST — launched an attack against the BISMARCK in an attempt to slow her. But only one torpedo struck home, exploding harmlessly against the BISMARCK'S massive armour plating.
Or so the official Admiralty communique claimed. For once, however, the claim was an underestimate. Baron von Mullenheim Rechberg (today the German consul in Kingston, Jamaica) but then the lieutenant-commander in charge of the BISMARCK'S after turret — and the ship's senior surviving officer — said recently, when questioned on this point, that the BISMARCK had been torpedoed three times by aircraft from the VICTORIOUS. Two of the torpedoes had little effect, but the third, exploding under the bows, caused severe damage and slowed up the BISMARCK still more.
And then, at three o'clock on the morning of the 25th, that which both the Admiralty and Sir John Tovey had feared above all else happened — the shadowing ships, zigzagging through submarine infested waters, made their first and only mistake, broke contact and completely failed to regain it. The BISMARCK was lost, and no one knew where she was or, worse still, where she was heading.
Later on that same morning, Admiral Lutjens addressed the crew of the BISMARCK. The optimistic confidence with which, only twenty-four hours previously, he had scoffed at Captain Lindemann's suggestion that they return to Bergen, had vanished completely. He was now a tired and anxious man, a man who realized all too clearly the enormity of his blunder. Incredibly, it seems that he was unaware that they had shaken off their pursuers — it was thought that they were still being shadowed by radar — and when Lutjens spoke the first overtones of desperation were all too clear in his voice.
The British, he said, knew where they were and it was only a matter of time before their big ships closed in, and in overwhelming force. They knew what the outcome must be. They must fight to the death for the Fuehrer, every last man of them, and, if needs be, the BISMARCK herself would be scuttled. It is not difficult to imagine what effect this brief speech must have had on the morale of the BISMARCK'S crew.
Why had Lutjens been so sure that capital ships of the Royal Navy were bearing down on them? In the first place, wrongly believing that he was still being trailed by the NORFOLK and SUFFOLK, he naturally assumed that they were guiding the British battleships to the scene. Secondly, the BISMARCK had just been in wireless contact with the German Admiralty — who, says von Mullenheim, were unaware of the true position — and had just received from them, doubtless on the basis of reports from Doenitz's U-boats, information about the whereabouts of her hunters which was not only misleading in itself but made doubly so by errors in transmission. British battleships were reported to be in the close vicinity and, acting on this false information, Lutjens ordered alterations in course which lost the BISMARCK those few irreplaceable hours that were to make all the difference between life and death.
The BISMARCK'S radio transmissions were picked up by listening posts in Britain, and the bearings taken. The Admiralty's incredulity that the BISMARCK should thus suicidally break radio silence and betray its position — they didn't know, of course, that the BISMARCK still thought she was being shadowed — was equalled only by their immense relief and the alacrity with which they sent these bearings to their Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Tovey.