Operation Rheinübung Part 2, The Battle of Denmark Straights (May 24th, 1941)
Evening of the 23rd the German Battlegroup detected first one and then a second trailing ship. Radio intercepts identified the ships as Royal Navy heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Suffolk. Lütjens made repeated efforts to drive off or sink the enemy cruisers but to no avail. With their position reported there were but two choices press ahead or turn back Lütjens elected to press ahead. To allow contact to be broken in the early hours of the 24th Lütjens ordered the Graf Zeppelin to prepare an anti-shipping strike scheduled for dawn, 3:45 AM on the enemy cruisers.
The first up where Gruppe 3 and 4 the Fi-167 equipped with torpedoes. Then Gruppe 5 and 6 with the Ju-87s carrying armored piercing bombs. Oberstleutnant Walter Hagen the commander of Trägergruppe – 186 requested that his strike aircraft arrive together in one large mass. Lütjens left the air strike details in the hands of the Luftwaffe officer and by 4:40 AM the four gruppe were assembled and on their way with their Bf-109 escorts.
The arrival of German aircraft badly shocked Admiral Wake-Walker on Suffolk despite Graf Zeppelin presence being a possibility. Hagen attempted to have the torpedo bombers and dive bombers attack together but the result ended up being disjointed. The Gruppe attacked over a period of five minutes. At the end of which one Fi-167 had been shot down, five more Fi-167 damaged and four Ju-87s damaged. Norfolk was hit by one torpedo that broke the back of the heavy cruiser and Suffolk was hit by multiple SC-500 AP bombs (1,100 lb) that left the cruiser burning.
At the same time as the battle with the British cruisers was reaching its height the hydrophone station on board Prinz Eugen reported the following, “Noise of three fast-moving turbine ships at 280° relative bearing.”
With the threat to his rear eliminated Lütjens pressed ahead to clearly identify what the threat to the south was. It would be some time for the German carrier to recover her aircraft and prepare another attack. Z-7 hung back with Graf Zeppelin while the other destroyers pressed ahead with the heavy ships.
With the destruction of Suffolk and Norfolk Admiral Holland sensed an opportunity to bring the Germans to a gunnery action before their carrier could be ready for another air battle. It was either that or withdraw as Task Force H with HMS Ark Royal was far to the south escorting a convoy out of Gibraltar. Staying within range of German carrier and allowing it to pound his squadron with impunity was clearly the worst possible option.
The two forces soon came into range of one another. At 5:52 AM the British opened fire and the Germans returned fire at 5:55 AM. Sea conditions prevented either the German or British destroyers from taking any meaningful part in the battle to come until the end stage. The German formation was Bismarck, Tirpitz and Prinz Eugen while the British line was Hood, King George V and Prince of Wales. The respective ships each engaged their opposite numbers. Also, the two squadrons angled into one another to close the distance as quickly as possible. For the British’s this meant they could only fire with their bow weapons while the Germans could fire full broadsides.
Despite the King George V drawing first blood with a hit on Tirpitz it was Bismarck that got the first kill. Just after Admiral Holland ordered a turn to unmask his rear batteries HMS Hood was twice around the mainmast at 6:00 AM. Moments after the hit on Hood a tower of orange and yellow flame rocketed into the sky and Hood disappeared in a smoke cloud.
At once King George V turned to avoid the wreck of Hood and in turn so did Prince of Wales. Captain Patterson on King George V assumed command of the squadron and like Admiral Holland he had but two choices continue the engagement or break off. With range now 14,000 yards Patterson elected to continue the battle and resumed previous course. It was several minutes before Captain Leach on Prince of Wales was able to inform Patterson that his ship was experiencing serious mechanical problems with his guns. Lütjens ordered his ships to redistribute their fire with Bismarck engaging King George V, Tirpitz Prince of Wales and Prinz Eugen Prince of Wales. Only Bismarck changed its fire which left both German battleships firing on King George V.
Between 6:00 AM and 6:10 AM the range dropped to 10,000 yards. During that time King George V was hit 9 times by the German battleships. The most serious hit was on A turret resulting in its destruction as splinters set off ready charges and burning out the turret; this hit occurred at 6:09.
At 6:10 a torpedo salvo from Prinz Eugen arrived hitting Prince of Wales once amidships.
With the engagement clearly going against him Captain Patterson ordered the battle broken off. Both King George V and Prince of Wales turned hard over and began laying smoke.
On Bismarck a brief debate occurred between Captain Lindemann and Admiral Lütjens. Before Hood’s destruction she had failed to hit Bismarck at all and since wasn’t even targeted. To Lindemann his ship was fully combat capable and two enemy battleships were fleeing in obvious distress. The rear King George V ship’s fire was erratic and had been dropping off all engagement. The forward King George V ship had clearly taken a bad hit. It was obvious choice to the German Captain, close in and finish the British. Lütjens it was far more complex of a situation Tirpitz had been hit several times, turret Dora was out of action and the squadron had to slow because of her damage. Prinz Eugen while doing yeoman work engaging an enemy battleship had been hit three times in turn; reporting flooding in her bow. The news of the Torpedo hit on Prince of Wales ended the debate, the Germans would press the engagement.
From the bridge of King George V, the report of the German ships turning to follow him was ominous. The Germans clearly sensed blood and were moving in for the kill. Worse Y turret on Prince of Wales was now totally out of action and she couldn’t fire back at all with the squadron heading directly away from the Germans. The only saving grace was that the Germans could now only fire with their bow weapons. Multiple fires had been started from all of the 128mm hits from the German secondaries.
With the radical course change by the British and Germans no hits were achieved for several minutes as gunnery solutions were lost. Just as the Germans once again found the range the British destroyers arrived and began an attack on the German squadron. The German destroyers moved to meet their opposite numbers and the large German ships broke off the engagement. At 6:23 the battle was functional over.
The result of the destroyer engagement was little more than to end the battle. On the German side Bismarck was unscathed while Tirpitz had been hit seven times by 14” shells with flooding reducing speed to 25 knots and gun turret D out of action. Prinz Eugen had been hit three times by 14” shells, her captain was confident he could make good repairs. On the British side Hood was lost, King George V had been hit fifteen times by 15” shells loosing A turret, both primary fire control stations, a 5.25” mount destroyed by a 15” shell that failed to explode and numerous other damage that caused fires and flooding. Prince of Wales had been hit by Prinz Eugen six times with 8” shells that caused various minor damage including fire and flooding and of course a 21” torpedo that that was causing flooding in boiler room B. The boiler room was functional on Prince of Wales but anything above 20 knots increased the flooding. Various mechanical problems made it questionable for Prince of Wales main armament.
Captain Patterson reported that neither battleship was combat ready and he was withdrawing. Admiral Lütjens decided that Tirpitz was to return to Norway but the rest of the task-group would continue. The battle had used up 40% of Bismarck’s munitions. By 10:30 am Graf Zeppelin reported the its aircraft were ready for another mission.
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