TBT — World War II Combat Footage: Sinking of the Bismarck

Posted on by May 28, 2020

On Throw-Back-Thursday, here is footage of the sinking of the German battleship Bismark, 79 years ago yesterday, by the Royal Navy in a three-day running battle in which the Bismark sank the British battlecruiser HMS Hood.  Ultimately, the German battleship was disabled when her rudder was jammed in a torpedo attack by obsolescent Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.   Here is a British newsreel of the events.  Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.

World War II Combat Footage – Sinking of the Bismarck

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TBT — World War II Combat Footage: Sinking of the Bismarck — 2 Comments

  1. There is a brilliant National Geographic series titled “Drain the oceans” that uses multi-beam, high resolution sonar to define the wreck. Bob Ballard discovered that when the Bismark hit the seabed, it went down a muddy slope bow first leaving a “wake” in the form of a trench behind it. The high def sonar shows it beautifully. It also shows the port rudder missing and the starboard rudder bent to 45⁰ demonstrating just how much trouble she was in. It also suggests she was scuttled rather than be captured.

    Other programmes show the seabed around Alcatraz and why it was so difficult to escape from and one programme details the area around Pearl Harbour and how America may actually have fired the first shot of the Pacific war.

    All fascinating stuff.