"Sink the Bismarck !" On May 19, 1941, the Bismarck weighed anchor and left the Polish port of Gotenhafen. Her goal: to reach the Atlantic and sink as many ships as possible. On May 21, she arrives - escorted by the cruiser Prinz Eugen - in the Bergen fjord in Norway. There, he was photographed by a British aircraft.
The pursuit
North Atlantic - May 25, 1941, the Hood - the pride of the British navy at the time - spotted the Bismarck and opened fire. The Bismarck returned fire with its 380mm turrets. The fourth salvo proved fatal for the Hood. Hit by a shell in the ammunition hold, she exploded... Out of a crew of 1,400, only 3 survived...
The English fleet then set off in pursuit of the vessel, which tried to escape. Fifteen Swordfish (biplanes), each armed with a torpedo, took off from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. At around 9:00 pm, one of them accidentally hits the ship near the stern, below the rudder servo-motor room, where a breach is opened, flooding the compartments and blocking the steering mechanism. This triggers the battleship's death sentence, as the rudder becomes uncontrollable.
Churchill's orders were to sink the Bismarck and avenge the Hood once and for all. 2,876 shells were fired by the British squadron, 719 of them by heavy artillery. But only around 400 hit their target. In fact, due to the proximity of the battleship, their trajectory was practically flat - many ricocheted off the water before reaching the ship - and could not reach her below the waterline. The Bismarck was a burning wreck, but still not sinking. Towards the end of the battle, the ship sank by the stern, lying on her side; the bow pointed upwards. The four turrets and other debris began to sink. As the ship capsizes, the weakened stern breaks away. Fully flooded, she sinks. Its hydromechanical shape and low center of gravity cause the hull to overturn. She then picks up speed as she sinks...
Five to ten minutes after disappearing from the surface, the hull hit the side of an underwater mountain and the ship's 50,000 tons triggered a huge avalanche. The turrets, which had hit the bottom before the ship, were swept along by the landslide. The Bismarck and its heavier fragments were swept away by the avalanche, stopping only two-thirds of the way down the landslide.
For several hours, smaller elements continued to rain down, making up the debris field. Thus ended the fate of this ship, 263 meters long, 38 meters wide and lying at a depth of 4,800 meters. Of the crew of 2,208, only 110 were saved...
When you read the story of the Bismarck, you're struck by the many similarities with the Titanic. A new ship, celebrated as the cutting edge of modern technology, disappears on its maiden voyage, taking with it thousands of victims, most of whom believed their ship to be invincible - or even unsinkable. Bad luck and errors of judgement undoubtedly played a part in the Titanic's tragedy, but the number of blunders and blows of fate that punctuated the Bismarck's saga is absolutely staggering, even allowing for the randomness of battles and the difficulty of wartime communications at sea.
On June 14, 1989, Robert D. BALLARD and his team discovered the wreck in the North Atlantic, using the same equipment as for the Titanic in 1985.
In half a century's time, the wreck's appearance is unlikely to have changed much. There are a few traces of oxidation on the hull and along the waterline, as well as rust stalactites comparable to those found on the Titanic, but the battleship was built on more solid foundations than those of the famous liner. The Bismarck also benefited from much more modern technology: the hull was 90% welded rather than riveted. This wreck would remain on the ocean bed for centuries, long after the ghostly swastikas on the bow and stern had been erased by erosion...
The TAMIYA model is in 1/350th scale and has been entirely reworked to match the photos of the wreck at the bottom...
