One of the best known events in WWII naval history is the hunt for and the destruction of the German battleship Bismark. Thanks to a movie, a popular song, and decades later, the discovery of the ship itself on the bottom of the Atlantic, the Bismark has been kept alive for many. There have also been a substantial number of books on the subject to which you can add this one, a book that tells the story based on interviews with survivors and brings together all that is new from the last several decades.

It starts with a look back at naval developments in ships and their operations from the mid-late 1800s until the Bismark was built and put to sea. One often does not realize the purpose of these sorts of ships and we are given an excellent background into German naval planning in general, and the construction of the types of ships that Germany built in particular. Specifically these large ships were never built to slug it out with enemy (and in this case that means British) battleships. German naval surface power would never be able to successfully rid the oceans of the British Navy, so their efforts were put into what is known as cruiser warfare. This is the use of ships that were able to seek out convoys and sink as many merchant ships as possible, all the time avoiding battle with big-gun British ships.

The background section covers all of the German surface actions in this regard up until the sailing of the Bismark, and to this reviewer, is an important part of the story itself. It shows how the ship was to be used and the motives behind its deployment.

Secrecy and breaking out into the Atlantic undetected were keystones to the operation of the Bismark and other German surface ships. The plan was to find convoys and sink as many ships as possible. This was a task that was not as easy as it seems, and often convoys escaped undetected. When they were discovered, the results were the sinking of a large number of ships, but not as many as hoped. With the advent of radar, the ability to pass bottleneck areas undetected was greatly reduced. The truth is that cruiser warfare was never an effective means of sinking enemy ships. Far more were destroyed by mines or aircraft than surface raiders and of course, the huge toll taken by submarines was the major reason that Germany stopped concentrating on large surface ships after the loss of the Bismark.

The story of the Bismark itself is superbly told and the authors provide what has to be the best rendition of the ship's final and only combat voyage. Their interviews add a great deal of life to the story of the men who served on the ship and how they reacted to combat and the final destruction of Bismark. It is a story that is brought to life in these pages and is a book that is by far the best on the subject that I have yet read. For this reason, it is a title I can highly recommend to you as I know you will be as drawn into events as was I.

July 2009

Review book courtesy of  Casemate Publishing, where you can order your copy of this and many other superb books.

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