The Hunting of the Bismarck

Ordinary Signalman Ted Briggs:

Rich Napolitano:

The account you just heard is from Ordinary Signalman Albert Edward Pryke Briggs, more commonly known as Ted Briggs. He was one of only three survivors of a crew of more than 1400 serving aboard HMS Hood, which was sunk by the German Battleship Bismarck on May 24th, 1941.

The Hunt for the Bismarck, today, on Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs.

Hello and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, tales of mishaps, misfortune and misadventure. I’m your host, Rich Napolitano.

In May of 1941, the world was in the midst of war. The Battle of Britain and the prolonged blitz from the Luftwaffe, the German air force, had taken a heavy toll on Great Britain, but thanks to the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, the United Kingdom was still in the fight. While the threat of a Nazi invasion still loomed, Hitler had in fact indefinitely postponed his plan to invade Great Britain, known as Operation Sea Lion. With the Luftwaffe licking its wounds, and the dominant Royal Navy presence in the English Channel, there would be no invasion.

However, much of Europe and Northern Africa were occupied and controlled by Nazi Germany and its allies. The Molotov-Ribentropp Pact maintained an uneasy peace between Germany and the Soviet Union, although in a month, that peace would be shattered with the launching of Operation Barberossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In Asia, the Empire of Japan was brutally steamrolling neighboring lands.

The United States was providing war materials to the Allies via the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, but would not join the war for another seven months, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. France had fallen. Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and Sweden were neutral. The rest of Europe was under the iron claw of the Axis Powers.

The Allied invasion of mainland Europe would not come until 1943, with the invasion of Sicily and mainland Italy. But in May of 1941, the Royal Navy was fighting for the survival of a nation.

The Battle of the Atlantic was fought between September of 1939 and May 1945, which was the entire duration of the war in Europe. Being an island nation, it was critical for the United Kingdom to protect its shipping lanes. Convoys from the United States, Canada, South America, and territories of the UK from all over the world brought food, oil, aircraft, tanks, weapons, ammunition, and raw materials. 

The Royal Navy was the most powerful on the planet at the time, and with the largest merchant navy as well, the United Kingdom was the dominant force in the North Atlantic. However, Adolph Hitler had instituted “Plan Z” in 1939 - an effort to expand the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy, incrementally and replace the Royal Navy as the world’s most powerful navy by 1948. Meanwhile, German U-boats sank over 800 merchant ships between June 1940 and May 1941. This is what the Germans called, “The Happy Time.” 

Through a complex series of naval agreements, The United Kingdom and Germany had agreed to limit new battleships to 35,000 tons, effective as of 1937, and that was later increased to 45,000 tons in 1938. But Hitler had secretly ordered the construction of two enormous and powerful battleships in 1936: the Bismarck and the Tirpitz. These would be 50,000 ton behemoths, designed to be fast, high powered, and heavily armored. 

Bismarck was completed in August 1940, and instantly became one of the largest and most heavily armed battleships afloat in Europe. She was an impressive 251 meters in length, and her beam of 36 meters made her incredibly stable when firing her guns. A dense, 320 millimeter thick armor belt protected her hull, and her gun turrets and conning tower were also heavily armored. Twenty-two watertight compartments, and further smaller subdivisions helped prevent flooding in case of a hull breach.

Most importantly, Bismarck carried enormous firepower, with eight 15 inch guns in twin turrets, two forward, and two aft, twelve six inch guns, and forty-four anti-aircraft guns. Despite her heavy armor and formidable armament, Bismarck’s top speed was an impressive 29 knots, which she could maintain even if poor weather.

Prior to the Bismarck, the Kriegsmarine’s two most powerful warships were the 32,000 ton Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Although the Germans classified them as battleships, the Royal Navy labeled them as battle-cruisers. Nevertheless, they were highly effective and dangerous commerce raiders. In January 1941, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder launched Operation Berlin. Under command of Admiral Günther Lütjens, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau broke out into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland, escorted by smaller support ships. For two months, the German ships created a swath of destruction, totaling 22 Allied merchant ships sunk or captured before making for the port of Brest on the French coast, which was under German control. Lütjens avoided taking on convoys with armed escorts, and instead, picked off helpless unescorted merchant shipping, with much success. Grand Admiral Raeder was pleased by Operation Berline, and was ready to use the far more powerful Bismarck in the same manner.

From its commissioning in August of 1940 the Bismarck had operated entirely in German controlled waters of the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Finally on the 19th of May, Operation Rheinübung was launched and the Bismarck departed Gotenhafen with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The Operation was commanded from the Bismarck, under Admiral Günther Lütjens, who had just recently oversaw the fruitful campaign of Operation Berlin. The Bismarck itself was led by Captain Ernst Lindemann, and Prinz Eugen by Captain Helmuth Brinkmann.

Breaking out of the North Sea into the Atlantic unnoticed was no easy task. The English Channel was out of the question. Sailing between the Orkneys and Shetlands was also problematic with the British fleet stationed at Scapa Flow. Lütjens would take the same path he used during Operation Berlin: Denmark Strait.

But shortly after the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen slipped out of Gotenhafen, modern day Gdynia, the neutral Swedish cruiser Gotland spotted the German ships in the Kattegat. While the names of the ships were not observed, the Royal Navy received a message: “Two large ships. Three destroyers.”

British reconnaissance aircraft were already in position over the Norwegian coast, and pilot Michael Suckling took a photo of the German ships in a fjord near Bergen. The size of the battleship in the photo meant it could only be the Bismarck. Its existence was not a surprise to the British Admiralty. Intelligence reports had been gathered for years about the construction and movements of the Bismarck. But with the confirmation of its departure from the Baltic Sea, the danger of the massive battleship getting loose into the Atlantic became very real.

The Royal Navy immediately responded to the threat of the Bismarck. Heavy cruisers were spread out to cover the Shetland-Faroe Islands Gap, the Iceland-Faroe Islands Gap, and the Denmark Strait. Whichever course the Bismarck took, the Royal Navy would be able to find them.

The World War 1 era battle cruiser HMS Hood, the brand new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, and six destroyers were detached from the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow on the 21st of May, and sent to wait in the waters south of Iceland, ready to respond, wherever the German ships appeared.

HMS Hood was the largest warship in the world at the time she was built, and the most famous in the world at the start of World War Two. She was the Pride of the Royal Navy. At least, in appearances. Between the world wars, Hood traveled the world, flying the British ensign as part of the ‘Special Services Squadron.’ She hosted diplomats on prestige missions to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and many other ports. She was indeed a beautiful ship and the Royal Navy loved to show her off. In time she became known as The Mighty Hood.

On paper her top speed was 32 knots, and her size and armament were similar to that of the Bismarck. She was slightly longer than Bismarck at 262 meters, but not as wide, with a beam of 31 meters. Her main battery consisted of eight fifteen inch guns, in addition to a secondary battery of ten anti-aircraft guns, four quadruple machine gun mounts, 5 “U-Ps” or Unrotated Projectile mounts, and four 21-inch torpedo tubes.

But in 1941, Hood was 21 years old, and while properly maintained, she had not received the upgrades and refitting that other ships of the Royal Navy had received. In reality her top speed was about 28 knots, and even slower in poor weather. Her most glaring weakness was her relatively thin deck armor compared to other battleships of the time - a trade-off of reduced protection for greater speed. This made Hood particularly susceptible to long-range plunging fire.

HMS Prince of Wales was a brand new, King George V class, modern battleship. Formidable in her own right in every manner. However, because she was so new, she had not had time to perform a shakedown cruise, and still had many kinks to work out. She was not fully functional when she was put into action and still had workmen on board to continue with repairs. Her crew were somewhat inexperienced, and serving a new ship, they were all still getting a feel for her.

Understanding the importance of preventing the Bismarck from breaking loose in the Atlantic, Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Fleet Admiral John Tovey himself departed Scapa Flow on his flagship HMS King George V on May 22nd, accompanied by the aircraft carrier Victorious, the cruisers Galatea, Aurora, Kenya, and Hermione, and seven destroyers. The battle cruiser Repulse and three additional destroyers joined the squadron en route.

On May 23rd, the heavy cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk were patrolling the Denmark Strait, in foul weather. At 7:22 PM, Suffolk emerged from a rainstorm and immediately detected two approaching German warships on its radar, with Bismarck out in front. At a distance of just seven nautical miles, the outgunned British cruiser was a sitting duck. 

Bismarck immediately fired 5 salvos at Norfolk with its main guns, but none found their mark. However, the Bismarck’s own radar systems were damaged by the salvos, leaving only its aft radar operational.

Suffolk, along with Norfolk which had also arrived, backed off and reentered the rainstorm to get out of range of Bismarck’s guns. The sighting of the Germans ships, and their location in the Denmark Strait was reported, and the chase was on. 

Norfolk and Suffolk shadowed the German ships throughout the night, staying mostly out of range of the enemy’s guns. Bismarck occasionally fired at them, but the British ships posed no serious threat, and the German ships continued southwest through the Denmark Strait as planned. 

Shortly before midnight and under cover of darkness, the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen changed positions. This allowed the Prinz Eugen to use its still operational forward radar, while the Bismarck could use its aft radar. This maneuver went unnoticed by the British cruisers due to interference from a snowstorm. Around 12:30 AM, the Suffolk lost contact with the German ships.

Hood, Prince of Wales, and its Destroyer escorts raced northwest to intercept Bismarck, under command of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland on HMS Hood. But with Suffolk and Norfolk unable to provide updates on the location of the Bismarck, Holland dispatched his destroyers north, while Hood and Prince of Wales continued on to the west. Admiral Lütjens on the Bismarck adjusted course slightly to the west at 1:41 AM, to follow the icepack off the Greenland coast, narrowly missing being spotted by the British destroyers due to low visibility. At 3 AM, Suffolk regained contact with the German ships, and Vice Admiral Holland immediately set a course for Hood and Prince of Wales to intercept.

The Prinz Eugen’s hydrophone picked up the sound of two propellers to the east at 5:30 AM, and minutes later, picked them up on its radar, about 19 miles to the east. While it was believed these ships to be cruisers, Lütjens acknowledged the threat and ordered the German crews to battle stations.

Holland chose to quickly close the distance between his ships and the enemy, as he understood Hood’s vulnerability to high arcing, long distance artillery. With Hood and Prince of Wales approaching at a perpendicular angle, the Bismarck and Prince Eugen were “crossing the British T.” This meant the Germans could bring their full broadside to bear on the British ships, while Hood and Prince of Wales could only use their forward turrets on the Germans.

Admiral Lütjens would have preferred avoiding battle altogether and slip out into the Atlantic to sink merchant shipping, but with the British ships approaching at 28 knots, he had no choice other than to accept battle.

At 5:53 AM, at a distance of 13 nautical miles, Holland ordered his ships to engage the lead ship, which he believed to be the Bismarck. But in fact, it was the Prinz Eugen. A critical mistake. Hood’s 15 inch guns opened fire on the Prinz Eugen for several minutes. The Prince of Wales gunners realized Bismarck was the trailing ship and opened fire, striking the Bismarck’s bow. The shell did not explode, but cut through Bismarck’s bow, damaging its fuel lines. The German guns, for now, were silent.

Finally at 5:55 AM, both the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen opened fire on Hood. Flashes of light and black smoke billowed from the four warships as shells splashed nearby. Holland then understood his mistake and ordered Hood’s guns to target the trailing ship, the Bismarck. But the German ships used those critical minutes to find their range, and Bismarck scored its first hit on Hood, striking a munitions compartment. Somehow, there was not a massive explosion from the munitions - only fires which were quickly contained by Hood’s crew. The Prinz Eugen also scored a hit on Hood, and the Mighty Hood was smoking, and in trouble. 

Finally at six A-M, Holland turned his ships 20 degrees to port, to bring their broadsides to bear on the Germans, at a distance of about 15 kilometers, or 9 miles. The ships exchanged their lethal fire at this relatively close range. The deafening roar of the massive guns filled the air, and shells exploded into the water all around as German gunners zeroed in on their targets.  

Bismarck’s fifth salvo from its 15 inch guns scored a direct hit on Hood. A massive explosion erupted from Hood, throwing black smoke high into the air. It is uncertain exactly where Hood was struck, but the explosion of a weapons magazine had ripped the famed battlecruiser apart.  

Bismarck's Fourth Artillery Officer, Burkard von Müllenheim-Rechberg, described, "At first the Hood was nowhere to be seen, in her place was a colossal pillar of flame and  black smoke reaching into the sky. Gradually at the foot of the pillar, I made out the bow of the battlecruiser projecting upwards at an angle, a sure sign that she had broken in two."

One of only three survivors from HMS Hood, Signalman Ted Briggs, later recalled, “The ship shuddered and we were all thrown off our feet. All I saw was a gigantic sheet of flame that shot round the front of the compass platform. After the hit you heard the screams and the noise of the carnage of what was going on. There was no order given to abandon ship. It wasn’t necessary.”

Hood was obliterated. Ripped in half. Its stern section sank immediately, while its bow rose up at an angle. Just before plummeting under the water, one final salvo roared from its front turret. In just three minutes, the Mighty Hood, Pride of the Royal Navy, disappeared forever. 

Briggs, described the experience…

Ted Briggs:

I got to my feet and the ship had started listing to Starburn and she'd gone about 10°, I suppose, when she righted herself and started going over to port and she carried on going over.

At the same time I heard the quarter mast report at the voice back steering gear.
Ganser and the captain ordered change over to emergency conning, and by that time she was going over and we realized that she just wasn't coming back.

Bill Dundas, he made his way out, he kicked out one of the armour plated windows of the of the foreign part of the how on earth he managed to do it, God alone knows and he sprained his ankle in doing so and he went out that way.

Bob Tilburn had the most miraculous escape of the lot. He was on the boat deck and he went over on the port side where she was going over and one of the roof aerials which had which had broken tangled around his legs underwater and he had to take his knife out and cut himself free underwater and he'd got a small wound in his knee.

The only thing that was wrong with me is that I swallowed some oil.

Rich Napolitano:

Of 1,418 on board HMS Hood, only Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn and Midshipman William Dundas survived.

Here's Bob Tilburn to describe his escape from HMS Hood.

Bob Tilburn:

There was a terrific explosion on the whole ship.
Suddenly dead silence.
I've never heard nothing at all before like this.
I don't know whether maybe I've been deafened, but apparently the blast must have come round.

Missed me.

It killed the Petty Officer and the AB line next to him had his side cut open.
Looked as if a butcher had got in when all his innards were coming out.
And I thought, oh, I'm going to be sick.
And I got up and went to the ship's side.
I noticed that the water was much closer than it was, and the bows were coming out of the water.
I went to the forward end of the boat deck, dropped onto the foxhole.
I realized that she was sinking.
Obviously she was rolling over and the bows coming out and stripped off my tin hat Dandy flash gear overcoats.

By then the sea reached me and I was in the water.

Rich Napolitano:

Each man had found their way into a raft, and gathering together, they sang songs for four hours. They were rescued by HMS Electra, nearly dead from hypothermia. According to Briggs, a despondent Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland was last seen in his Admiral Chair, and made no attempt to escape from his sinking ship.

The crew on Prince of Wales saw the smoke and flame from the catastrophic explosion on HMS Hood, and watched in horror as she went down. As the Prince of Wales navigated around the wreck of the Hood, German guns were concentrated on the new battleship. Seven shells smashed into the Prince of Wales, including a direct hit on the bridge by a 15 inch shell, killing all but two men inside.

Smoking, damaged, and with sailors killed and wounded, Captain John Catterall Leach ordered Prince of Wales to back off under the cover of a smoke screen. 

A Nazi propaganda film crew aboard Prinz Eugen captured stunning film footage and photographs of the battle. Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels proudly announced to the people of Germany that Hood had been destroyed. It was a glorious victory for Germany, and widely celebrated. At the same time, it was a shocking, horrifying, and embarrassing loss for the Royal Navy. Even worse, Bismarck was now free to terrorize merchant ships in the Atlantic. Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered every available ship in the Royal Navy to hunt down and destroy the Bismarck.

The Prinz Eugen was not damaged during the Battle of Denmark Strait, but Bismarck sustained three hits from the Prince of Wales. The hits on its bow left a gaping hole in the hull, and a trail of leaking fuel. She was also down 3 degrees by the bow, and had a 9 degree list to port, resulting in a reduction of speed, and rapidly depleting fuel supply. 

With the Bismarck in need of repairs, Lütjens had several options. Captain Ernst Lindemann wished to make repairs on the fly, and continue on with its mission to destroy merchant shipping. But Admiral Lütjens instead decided to make for the French port of Brest, where he could link up with the Scharnhorst and Gniesenau. 

The undamaged Prinz Eugen, however, was to continue on into the Atlantic to carry out Operation Rheinübung. However, HMS Suffolk continued to shadow the German ships, and could easily track Bismarck’s leaking trail of fuel. To allow Prinz Eugen to shake the cruiser and escape to the south, Lütjens turned Bismarck around at 6:12 PM and opened fire, exchanging long-range fire with the Prince of Wales, while Prinz Eugen escaped to the south.

It was imperative for the British to hunt down the Bismarck, but there were no ships in range that could take on the Bismarck. At 3:09 PM, Admiral Tovey had detached the carrier Victorious, under Captain Henry Cecil Bovell, and the four light cruisers Galatea, Aurora, Kenya and Hermione, to close in on Bismarck launch a torpedo attack. There were no capital ships in range that were capable of taking on Bismarck, and so the torpedo attack was meant to delay the Bismarck until British warships could arrive. 

The Swordfish torpedo bombers from Victorious were outdated bi-planes, but still proved surprisingly effective. With daylight fading, the Swordfish bombers slowly approached the Bismarck, flying low through anti-aircraft flak, and delivered their torpedoes. Only one of the torpedoes hit the German battleship, and it happened to strike the thickest, most protected section of its armor belt amidships, and Bismarck suffered virtually no damage

But Lütjens knew he was still being shadowed, and as long as the British knew his location, he was in trouble. Suffolk, Norfolk, and Prince of Wales continued to follow him on his starboard side, and Bismarck had slowed to 20 knots to save fuel. 

At 3 A-M of May 25th, Lütjens performed a brilliant and daring maneuver.  The British ships had been zigzagging, after Suffolk had erroneously detected the presence of u-boats. Lütjens timed his actions just right, and as the British ships zig-zagged to the east, he ordered Bismarck full ahead, 28 knots, to the west. He then looped around to the north and behind his enemy, and continued on to the east toward France. Bismarck was out of radar range by the time the British ships realized they had lost her. Once again, the massive German battleship was loose in the Atlantic, and the Royal Navy had no idea where it was, or where it was going.

The search for Bismarck was now desperate. Suffolk, Prince of Wales, and Norfolk all broke away to search for her, but each of them went in entirely the wrong direction. But the British were handed an incredible gift. Seemingly unaware that he had lost his pursuers, Admiral Lütjens radioed two messages to German Naval Command. Those messages were never received by the Germans, but they were intercepted by British intelligence, allowing Bismarck's location to be calculated.

Admiral Tovey received the coordinates on King George V, but those coordinates were inexplicably charted incorrectly. Tovey raced to the wrong location to intercept, and found nothing but open water. Churchill lamented, “these past 3 days have been the worst yet.”

But yet again, British intelligence proved its worth. News was received from the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, that the Luftwaffe had been ordered to patrol the French coastline at Brest, in preparation for the arrival of Bismarck. 

What was a search for a needle in a stack of needles, the knowledge of Bismarck’s destination allowed for a focused search to be launched. At 10am on May 26th, an American Ensign Leonard B. Smith, flying a PBY Catalina Flying Boat from Northern Ireland, spotted an oil slick in the water. Following the trail, he then spotted the Bismarck, just 800 miles from Brest.

Tovey’s Atlantic squadron would not be able to catch up to Bismarck. With no time to waste, and no other options, British Force H from Gibraltar, under Vice Admiral James Somerville, was dispatched to intercept. Somerville’s flagship, HMS Renown, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the light cruiser Sheffield left Gibraltar and raced northwest to meet their dangerous foe.

At a range of 70 miles, 14 Swordfish torpedo bombers launched from Ark Royal. The weather was extremely poor, and the seas swelled with high crests and deep troughs. The first sortie of bombers mistakenly bombed HMS Sheffield. All of the torpedoes either missed or did not detonate, and Sheffield was undamaged. However, hours of time were lost, fuel was wasted, and daylight was waning.

At 7:10 PM, a second sortie of Swordfish launched from Ark Royal, in increasingly foul weather. The Swordfish squadron descended through the clouds and approached the Bismarck slowly, and at a very low altitude. With black smoke from anti-aircraft flak bursting around them, the bombers released their new magnetic torpedoes, one by one. This time, two torpedoes found their mark. One struck the thick portion of Bismarck’s armor belt, but the second struck aft, jamming Bismarck’s rudder at 15 degrees to port. It is believed the torpedo was dropped by pilot Ken Pattisson.

(play clip)

Unable to steer, and with its rudder jammed, Bismarck helplessly turned in a circle. Admiral Lütjens then radioed his naval command, “Ship unmanoeuvrable. Will fight to the last shell. Long live the Fuhrer.” The crew of the Bismarck were well aware of their grim situation. They could not steer their ship, they were leaking fuel, the crew were exhausted, and their location was pinpointed. 

Admiral Lütjens treated his crew to a feast of all the available food on board, along with the stores of rum. He thanked them for their brave service and urged them to fight until the last man and die with honor. Despondent men sent hasty radio messages home to their loved ones. It was a bizarre combination of courage and a funeral procession. Some surviving crew later claimed that morale was low and Lütjens was pushing them into death.

The battleships HMS King George V and HMS Rodney with its nine 16-inch guns were soon in range, along with the carrier Ark Royal and the cruisers Dorsetshire and Norfolk. At 8:47 AM on May 27th, the British battleships opened fire. Bismarck was struck repeatedly and took a tremendous amount of damage. Smoking and on fire, Bismarck stubbornly returned fire, its turrets blasting away at the enemy in a desperate struggle. At a short distance, the British warships mercilessly pounded Bismarck. The carnage inside the German ship was horrifying and its senior officers were likely killed by this time. Bismarck was a gnarled, charred hulk but its gun crews continued to fire. Finally at 9:31, all of Bismarck’s guns fell silent. 

There would be no surrender. The cruiser HMS Dorsetshire closed in and fired its torpedoes into the helpless ship. It is believed the Germans set off explosive charges to scuttle their ship at about the same time. Nevertheless, in twenty minutes, Bismarck rolled over and sank under the waves. The United Kingdom had exacted their revenge.

With hundreds of German sailors in the water, Dorsetshire and HMS Maori moved into position, and dropped nets over their sides. With hands and feet numb from the cold, and many badly injured, the weary German sailors struggled up the nets. Some British sailors went over the side to attach ropes and help haul up the desperate men. A total of 110 German sailors from Bismarck were rescued - 85 on Dorsetshire and 25 on Maori. Sadly, the rescue had to be cut short when a U-boat was suspected of being nearby. Dorsetshire and Maori sped off, leaving their German naval counterparts to their fates. Only a handful of the remaining German sailors would be rescued.

Following the Bismarck’s sinking, Admiral John Tovey issued a statement, reading, “The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying." In the end, of its 2200 crew, only 114 survived. Admiral Günther Lütjens and Captain Ernst Lindemann were among those killed. 

Word of the sinking of the Bismarck reached Winston Churchill as he was addressing the House of Commons. After reading the note handed to him, he announced, “I venture to intervene for a moment. I have news that the Bismarck has been sunk.” A round of cheers erupted throughout the chamber.

A bit of controversy took place regarding the sinking of Hood, when First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound pressed Admiral Tovey to court martial Captain of the Prince of Wales, John Catterall Leach, and commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, Rear Admiral William Frederic Wake-Walker, for not pursuing and re-engaging Bismarck after Hood’s destruction. Tovey refused, saying he would resign as Commander and Chief of the Home Fleet, and testify on their behalf at any such courts-martial. Dudley backed down, and no court-martial ever took place. 

The end of the war with Nazi Germany and its allies was still a long way off. The German and Italian navies still prowled the Atlantic and Mediterranean and would sink many more ships in the years to come. And the Empire of Japan would be yet another huge obstacle to overcome. The tremendous loss of life on HMS Hood, and the loss of the beloved ship itself would be mourned, and the destruction of the Bismarck wouldn’t bring them back. 

But the sinking of the Bismarck was significant for a number of reasons. First, it provided a much needed morale boost to the Royal Navy, Winston Churchill, and the British people. Though they stood virtually alone facing the Nazi menace at the time, this momentous victory provided the courage and motivation to keep fighting. 

Conversely, Bismarck’s sinking was a shock to the Germans. Adolph Hitler especially was despondent and the loss dissuaded him from using his surface navy to take on the Royal Navy in any meaningful way, preferring instead to use his u-boats. No major German warship patrolled the Atlantic for the duration of the war. In addition, Hitler’s confidence in Admiral Raeder began to fade. Raeder would ultimately be replaced with Admiral Karl Dönitz as Chief of the German Navy High Command in 1943. 

In the aftermath of the Bismarck’s sinking, the importance of aircraft in naval battles was fully realized. Combined with the success of the Fleet Air Arm's November 1940 attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto, dominance of the seas was shifting from battleships to aircraft carriers, and the bombers and fighters they carried. A squadron of slow Swordfish biplanes disabled the massive and powerful battleship Bismarck. The sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales in 1941 by Japanese bombers, and the sinking of four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser by American bombers at the Battle of Midway in 1942, cemented the importance of air power during naval conflicts.

Grand Admiral Karl Donitz was briefly the German head of state following Hitler’s suicide, and before Germany’s surrender to the Allies. Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz were both convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg in 1945. Raeder was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 1955 due to failing health, and he died in 1960. Dönitz remained unrepentant of his actions during the war, and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. After being released in 1956, Dönitz spent his remaining years in relative obscurity in West Germany, and he died in 1980.

Ordinary Signalman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn, and Midshipman William John Dundas were the only survivors from HMS Hood. Briggs went on to serve during operations at the invasion of mainland Italy, D-Day in Normandy, and served during the Korean War. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1973 with the rank of Lieutenant, and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Briggs often appeared as a guest-speaker, gave lectures and interviews about his experience of surviving the sinking of HMS Hood. Ted Briggs passed away in 2008, at the age 85.

Able Seaman Robert Tilburn served in the Pacific theater later in the war, and in the Korean War. Tilburn left the Royal Navy in 1952. Like Briggs, Tilburn spoke about his time on HMS Hood and gave post-war interviews for various newsreels and documentaries. Tilburn died in 1995 at the age of 1974. 

Ted Briggs and Robert Tilburn were the first two Presidents, respectively, of the HMS Hood Association, founded in 1975. Briggs later served another term as President, a position he still held at the time of his death.

Midshipman William Dundas served on board a number of vessels through the rest of the war, including HMS Neptune, HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HM Submarine Porpoise. He later would serve aboard HMS Warrior during the Korean War, and he retired from the Royal Navy in 1958. Unlike Briggs and Tilburn, Bill Dundas never spoke about his experiences on HMS Hood, preferring to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself. Dundas died in 1965, as the result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

The wreck of the Bismarck was discovered by legendary underwater researcher Robert Ballard in 1989, 15,000 feet underwater. In 2025, the underwater research team at Magellan filmed remarkable footage of the wreck, which is available on their YouTube channel at Magellan-GG.

There were understandably very few monuments or memorials in post-war Germany commemorating events from World War 2. However, the Laboe Naval Memorial, near Kiel, established a memorial hall with plaques commemorating numerous German warships, including Bismarck, alongside ships from other eras of German naval history. The memorial honors all sailors lost at sea, regardless of nation, and it has become a prominent location for families of lost sailors, to visit and remember the fallen.

The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen made it to the German controlled French port of Brest, where it was bottled up by the Royal Air Force for the next seven months. She saw further action in the North Sea and the Baltic during the war, and was surrendered to the Royal Navy after the collapse of Nazi Germany. She was then transferred to the United States as a war prize, and was used during the nuclear test bombing at Bikini Atoll in 1946. She capsized and sank near Kwajalein Atoll later in 1946.

The wreck of HMS Hood was found in 2001 by marine scientist David Mearns of Blue Water Recoveries. The Hood lies broken into three sections in the Denmark Strait, 270 miles southwest of Reykjavik, Iceland in over 9,000 feet of water. Survivor Ted Briggs joined the expedition with Mearns and participated in a wreath-laying ceremony to honor his lost shipmates. A plaque was placed at the wreck site, marking it as the official maritime grave of Hood’s crew.

There are dozens of memorials and monuments remembering the officers and crew that perished on HMS Hood. Perhaps the most well-known is at St. John's Church Boldre in Hampshire. Its Hood Chapel was founded by Phyllis Holland, widow of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland who was in command of Hood when she went down. Among numerous artifacts and models, is the Book of Remembrance which lists all 1,415 men who died. A beautiful granite pillar at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, and plaques at the Portsmouth Naval Memorial, also include the names of all those who were lost.  

That’s going to do it for The Hunt for the Bismarck. Thank you to listeners Dolf and Alden for requesting this episode.