Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fair Dowdy and I'm to blame a chark reboarding.
Speaker 1: And as you know, we've been talking about shipwrecks quite
Speaker 1: a bit recently, and most recently we talked about military shipwrecks,
Speaker 1: the Vassa, the Monitor, the Hunley, and the Yamato and
Speaker 1: between the four. I was thinking about this, trying to
Speaker 1: go over that list in my head. We had design flaws,
Speaker 1: we had rushed schedules, we had air attacks, and we
Speaker 1: had torpedoes. But this episode is going to combine all
Speaker 1: of that. We have all four of those things in
Speaker 1: one ship, plus a really heavy dose of revenge, which
Speaker 1: always makes a good podcast. Yes, before we get to that, though,
Speaker 1: we're gonna set the scene for you a little bit.
Speaker 1: In early nineteen forty one, the United States was still
Speaker 1: nearly a year away from entering World War Two, but
Speaker 1: the country provided vital wartime supplies to the Allied nations,
Speaker 1: and to do so, American merchant ships had to cross
Speaker 1: the Atlantic to get to Europe. And this unbroken chain
Speaker 1: of supplies was really vital for the United Kingdom since
Speaker 1: they're an island nation. Yeah, so we all know pretty
Speaker 1: much how effective the German u boats were at disrupting
Speaker 1: this chain thinking the merchant ships. But the German navy
Speaker 1: also knew that having a few massive battleships out there
Speaker 1: would make the blockade a whole lot easier around England.
Speaker 1: So that's why in May one they sent the battleship
Speaker 1: Bismarck and the cruiser Prince Eugen to blockade Britain. That's
Speaker 1: pretty scary because at this time the Bismarck was the
Speaker 1: most feared warship in the world. Yeah, launched pretty recently
Speaker 1: before that, and it was tough, very thick armor, very
Speaker 1: fast and armed with very very big guns. It had
Speaker 1: an efficient crew top equipment. It was like the ultimate ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everybody knew it too. In the first volumes of
Speaker 1: his memoirs, Winston Churchill wrote that finishing work on two
Speaker 1: new British battleships, the King George the Fifth and the
Speaker 1: Prince of Wales, was vital because quote, the arrival of
Speaker 1: the Bismarck on the oceans before these two ships were
Speaker 1: completed would be disasters in the highest degree, as it
Speaker 1: can Neither be caught nor killed, and would therefore range
Speaker 1: freely throughout the oceans, rupturing all communications. And just in
Speaker 1: case Churchill's quote isn't enough for you, there's a National
Speaker 1: Geographic peace titled Nazi super Ship describing the Bismarck. So
Speaker 1: I think that gives you a pretty good idea of
Speaker 1: what kind of vessel this was, Yeah, pretty intimidating. So
Speaker 1: May ninety one, the Bismarck and the Prince Eugen are
Speaker 1: deployed from Gottenhoffen on the Baltic coast and they're planning
Speaker 1: to wind their way around to the Atlantic. They're then
Speaker 1: spotted off the coast of Norway by Royal Air Force reconnaissance,
Speaker 1: but they slip away before anything can be done. So
Speaker 1: the British Home Fleet converges onto the Atlantic to try
Speaker 1: to off the ship, and they're covering all the routes
Speaker 1: that they can. They cannot let the Bismarck get out
Speaker 1: into the open, so there's no sign of the ship
Speaker 1: for days and then finally on May twenty three, the
Speaker 1: cruiser Norfolk sites the Bismarck in the Denmark Straight and
Speaker 1: this is perfect because the Prince of Wales, which is
Speaker 1: the new British battleship that England was rushing to complete
Speaker 1: is there along with six destroyers and the battle cruiser Hood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Hood was a type of battle cruiser that
Speaker 1: had been developed before World War One, and this type
Speaker 1: of ship was really fast, designed to outrun ships, but
Speaker 1: consequently not quite as well armored as other as some
Speaker 1: other ships were. Nevertheless, the British really liked the battle
Speaker 1: cruisers and had built quite a few of them during
Speaker 1: the war during World War One, and the Hood was
Speaker 1: built in nineteen eighteen and final British battle cruiser. But
Speaker 1: even though she needed a refit by this point, she
Speaker 1: was still kind of a point of pride for the
Speaker 1: British and she had been sent out with the powerful
Speaker 1: but still untested Prince Wales is kind of protection guidance.
Speaker 1: You know, they would tag team. I guess. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the day after the cruiser Norfolk learns that the Bismarck
Speaker 1: is in the area, the Prince of Wales spots the
Speaker 1: German battleship. The Hood fires first, but she's going too
Speaker 1: fast to be really accurate. The Bismark, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: has stereoscopic range finders, so a hit to the Hood
Speaker 1: causes an explosion and a huge fire. The ship then
Speaker 1: breaks into two and sinks all of a sudden, and
Speaker 1: all but three of the one thousand, four nineteen men
Speaker 1: who are on the Hood die. Yeah, and so the
Speaker 1: hood thinking means that it's payback time now for the British.
Speaker 1: And even FDR was worried that with the Bismarck on
Speaker 1: the looth, all sorts of damage might ensue. He was
Speaker 1: actually afraid that the Bismarck might come bombard Halifax or
Speaker 1: New York City, or maybe it would go around the
Speaker 1: world and go to Japan, or maybe it would even
Speaker 1: take Martinique. So there were all sorts of gloomy scenarios
Speaker 1: about what the Bismarck on the loose might do. Churchill's response,
Speaker 1: those pretty definitive think the Bismarck so this is revenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's literally revenge, right, because one of the ships that
Speaker 1: the British deploy is actually called Revenge, the battleship Revenge
Speaker 1: from Halifax and it's sent to the situation. But the
Speaker 1: British actually deployed most of their available warships at this
Speaker 1: point they take them off of their original missions. So
Speaker 1: joining the Revenge are the battleships Rodney and the Ramillies,
Speaker 1: for example, which leave behind their convoys and head straight
Speaker 1: to the situation, which I have to imagine it would
Speaker 1: be pretty scary to be out in you boat filled
Speaker 1: waters if you were one of these convoys and you
Speaker 1: see your battleship and most of the destroyers sail on
Speaker 1: off all of a sudden and not comforting. They can't
Speaker 1: spare any of them. So meanwhile, the Bismarck has a
Speaker 1: few different options about what she can do. Admiral gun
Speaker 1: thro Lutgens can take out the injured Prince of Wales,
Speaker 1: which you know sustained a little bit of damage during
Speaker 1: the same battle that sunk the hood Um, so they
Speaker 1: could finish off the Prince of Wales and then go
Speaker 1: back to Norway for repairs and refueling. Or the Bismarck
Speaker 1: could head out into the Atlantic and the plan could
Speaker 1: be to head to France for repairs and possibly resume
Speaker 1: the blockade operation from there, because landing in France you'd
Speaker 1: have a straighter shot then for the Atlantic. And the
Speaker 1: Admiral chooses this second option, going out into the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and eventually trying to get over to France. But the
Speaker 1: Germans are also converging a lot of their fleet in
Speaker 1: the area too, so they know that the British want
Speaker 1: to sink the Bismarck, and they're bringing every available worship
Speaker 1: they can into the area. So the Germans are thinking
Speaker 1: if they put all of their available U boats in
Speaker 1: the area, the Bismarck might be able to trail all
Speaker 1: these British ships into a trap of sorts. If the
Speaker 1: U boats stretch across the ocean and create a net
Speaker 1: of sorts, it could be really, really disastrous for the British.
Speaker 1: There's a big problem though with the plan. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Bismarck is running low on fuel and it becomes clear
Speaker 1: that there will be just enough for them to get
Speaker 1: to France, none for the traps or more importantly, for
Speaker 1: any diversions. And to make the situation more complicated, on
Speaker 1: tiny swordfish planes are launched from the aircraft carrier Victorious.
Speaker 1: A torpedo hit causes minimal damage, but it's the Bismarck's
Speaker 1: first casualty. Yeah, there's actually the first sailor is killed
Speaker 1: aboard the Bismarck, so literally its first casualty. But the
Speaker 1: next day the Bismarck reduces its speed and starts performing
Speaker 1: some repairs because it's accumulated a few problems by this point,
Speaker 1: and also engages a little bit with the Prince of Whales,
Speaker 1: even though neither ship is ultimately hit. That night, though,
Speaker 1: the Bismarck finally manages to shake off the British ships
Speaker 1: that have been nearby and breaks free and the British
Speaker 1: ships lose contact. Unfortunately, though for the Bismarck, they don't
Speaker 1: realize that the British have lost that radio contact. They've
Speaker 1: lost their signal. They don't know where they are, but
Speaker 1: the Bismarck doesn't know that. Yeah, so they keep sending
Speaker 1: messages out that get all bunched together and end up
Speaker 1: coming out in one very, very long signal. And by
Speaker 1: the time they're warned that the Brits actually did lose contact,
Speaker 1: and by the time they start maintaining that strict radio silence,
Speaker 1: it's too late. The British have already picked up on
Speaker 1: the signal again. Yeah. Still, though, the mood is actually
Speaker 1: merry on board the Bismarck. That night, Hitler even sends
Speaker 1: a birthday message to add religions. But by the next
Speaker 1: morning patrol aircraft find the ship. The Bismarck still has
Speaker 1: a chance, though, to make a break for France. At
Speaker 1: this point, there's no way that the British ships that
Speaker 1: are nearby can catch up with them unless the Bismarck
Speaker 1: slows down considerably slowed down, right, But the best option
Speaker 1: the British have is to use their aircraft carrier, the
Speaker 1: Arc Royal, to deploy more tiny swordfish planes with torpedoes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this time those swordfish planes get two hits and
Speaker 1: one of them jams the Bismarck's twin rudders and makes
Speaker 1: it so she can't maneuver anymore and it will be
Speaker 1: impossible for her to get away. And just by the way,
Speaker 1: you might want to look up the swordfish planes. They
Speaker 1: really look kind of like balsa wood biplane, super tiny,
Speaker 1: especially when you see them compared to something the size
Speaker 1: of the Bismarke. It's pretty striking. So the ship, the
Speaker 1: Bismarck is bombarded through the night by nearby British and
Speaker 1: Polish destroyers, but there are no hits. By the next morning,
Speaker 1: the Rodney and the King George the Fifth arrive and
Speaker 1: open fire. The Norfolk arrives pretty soon and joins in.
Speaker 1: Then the cruiser the Dorset shore, and ultimately it's a
Speaker 1: two hour long attack, with the Rodney even getting into
Speaker 1: point blank range by the Bismarck. Ultimately, two thousand, eight
Speaker 1: hundred and sixties seven shells are fired on this ship,
Speaker 1: but it just won't go down. Finally, though, the Bismark
Speaker 1: does go down, and it's three torpedoes from the Dorset
Speaker 1: shore that sink her the morning of May with the
Speaker 1: captain saluting on deck and the flag flying, So just
Speaker 1: to give you an image of what that would have
Speaker 1: looked like. Some people though, have suggested that the Bismarck
Speaker 1: was scuttled by her own crew, yeah, instead of being
Speaker 1: sunk by the Allied ships. But regardless, the captain had
Speaker 1: already given the order to abandon ship and around eight
Speaker 1: hundred people on board managed to escape. Some of the survivors.
Speaker 1: You can actually see interviews taped interviews with some of
Speaker 1: the survivors, and they were count working really deep inside
Speaker 1: the ship at their stations and eventually realizing that the
Speaker 1: British were shooting more and more and they were shooting
Speaker 1: less and less, and when the ship went silent, it
Speaker 1: was time to go, and they picked their way out
Speaker 1: of the labyrinth I mean this huge ship, you can
Speaker 1: imagine what it might be like underneath it all. And
Speaker 1: for those who made it onto the deck, of course,
Speaker 1: there's still the bombardment going on, so there's metal everywhere,
Speaker 1: and there's bodies and they try to protect themselves behind
Speaker 1: the gun turrets. And finally, of those eight hundreds who survived,
Speaker 1: not really that many managed to ultimately escape and be rescued.
Speaker 1: The British ships picked up a little more than one
Speaker 1: hundred men, but then they left the area after a
Speaker 1: U boat scare. Some accounts even say that men were
Speaker 1: in the process of being hauled up when the British
Speaker 1: ships had to leave. A little bit later U boats
Speaker 1: and a Spanish heavy cruiser come around and find a
Speaker 1: few more guys. But basically, if you weren't on that
Speaker 1: those first American ships in the area, that was it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There were only one hundred and fifteen men of the
Speaker 1: eight hundred that escaped which were rescued. Two thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred officers and men were killed total, and the survivors,
Speaker 1: of course then are prisoners of war. They were interrogated
Speaker 1: and kept as prisoners for for the rest of the war.
Speaker 1: I don't think that, uh, there was too much information
Speaker 1: that was obtained from them, though they seemed to be
Speaker 1: like they were knowledgeable about their own immediate job, but
Speaker 1: not how the whole ship operated. But the Royal Navy
Speaker 1: nevertheless considered sinking the Bismarck to be one of its
Speaker 1: biggest comp Blishman's It's still pretty highly regarded, and that's
Speaker 1: partly because the battleship seemed invincible. But clearly something went
Speaker 1: wrong for this huge monster ship too ultimately be taken
Speaker 1: down like this. Yeah, so what was it? Well, some
Speaker 1: people think that the Bismarck just might not have been ready.
Speaker 1: She had lost training time at sea due to the
Speaker 1: severe winter of and there was no making up for
Speaker 1: lost time. Basically, her schedule was absolutely inflexible. There wasn't
Speaker 1: even enough time to put her through the complete battery
Speaker 1: of naval ordinance tests. Some of her artillery, fire control
Speaker 1: and radar equipment was actually installed too late to test
Speaker 1: even so there was no way to know. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: even the stuff that was tested didn't seem entirely up
Speaker 1: to snuff. The report, which was filed ironically four days
Speaker 1: after the ship had already thunk, made a hundred and
Speaker 1: seventeen observations and recommendations regarding improvements to weapons systems, and
Speaker 1: a lot of these were minor, but there were a
Speaker 1: few pretty serious ones, and some regarded the ammunition. Um
Speaker 1: that was pretty telling because the Prince of Wales had
Speaker 1: actually been struck by several German duds, that suggests the problem.
Speaker 1: And the onboard anti aircraft artillery made up one third
Speaker 1: of the suggestions. And if we think about those swordfish,
Speaker 1: not a single swordfish was was shot down, so clearly,
Speaker 1: even though the Germans were firing pretty heavily on them,
Speaker 1: there was a problem there. And I think the report
Speaker 1: even noted that there weren't the correct anti aircraft technical
Speaker 1: manuals and diagrams on board, so not even the literature
Speaker 1: they needed. Yeah, but of course all these recommendations came
Speaker 1: way too late. Um. But the takeaways here where that
Speaker 1: even though it went down eventually, the Bismarck was remarkably tough,
Speaker 1: that withstood a constant barrage for hours. Well the hood
Speaker 1: had gone down in just a matter of minutes. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't equipped to fight aircraft. I mean that seemed
Speaker 1: like the thing that kind of really did it in
Speaker 1: and I mean clearly that was also a hint that
Speaker 1: air power would be the future of the war, months
Speaker 1: before Pearl Harbor even happened. So I guess historically that's
Speaker 1: probably one of the biggest interests in the Bismarck, that
Speaker 1: it's this hint about what ends up coming later in
Speaker 1: the war. But and since this is a shipwreck, we
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta close out with our our fine, there's right, definitely.
Speaker 1: In nine Robert Ballard, the famous explorer, discovered the Bismarck
Speaker 1: six hundred miles off the French coast at fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: feet and it was in very good shape. Still. He
Speaker 1: had of course found the Titanic just three years earlier,
Speaker 1: and then in two thousand and four the Hood was
Speaker 1: located and both of the ships weren't touched out of
Speaker 1: respect to the dead, but they were thoroughly photographed and
Speaker 1: videoed and documented. Um I think you can look up
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures of the two of them and
Speaker 1: look at diagrams, and you know, people have tried to
Speaker 1: figure out what exactly went wrong, you know, what were
Speaker 1: the fatal strikes and what explosions occurred on the Hood,
Speaker 1: and just trying to piece together what happened trips to
Speaker 1: both of the sites were also sort of memorial services too,
Speaker 1: because um, there were still survivors of both of them,
Speaker 1: and at the Hood a memorial plaque was actually released
Speaker 1: by its full living survivor. At the time, I thought
Speaker 1: that was one of the most interesting things about researching
Speaker 1: this episode, seeing some of the survivor's accounts. And you
Speaker 1: can even see pictures of the men in the water
Speaker 1: from the Bismarck trying to get aboard the Dorset shore well,
Speaker 1: you know, grabbing the ropes and grabbing onto floating things.
Speaker 1: It's pretty scary looking. Well, that about does it for
Speaker 1: this shipwreck mini series that we've put together here. Um,
Speaker 1: we've covered a lot of cool shipwrecks, and thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone for all of your great suggestions, and we're
Speaker 1: holding on to the rest so hopefully we can do
Speaker 1: more podcasts on them later. I think we realized from
Speaker 1: doing this that all of these, even though we did
Speaker 1: a lot of them as a list, a lot of
Speaker 1: these make great standalone podcasts. We want to save the
Speaker 1: rest so we can cover them fully definitely later on.
Speaker 1: The Bismarck was ultimately intended for a list, It was
Speaker 1: just too long. It was just too long. The story
Speaker 1: is too good. But um, it's like I said, we've
Speaker 1: have it covered here and we're gonna now move on
Speaker 1: to listener mail. So this is kind of an upbeat
Speaker 1: listener mail because I don't want to clothe down on
Speaker 1: such a sad ending. Um it's from Jenny and she wrote,
Speaker 1: Dear Sarah and Dablina. The summer will be a long
Speaker 1: one for me as I finished my year abroad in
Speaker 1: France this week but did not go back to university
Speaker 1: until October. So I've decided to take a grand tour
Speaker 1: like Lord Byron. Although I live in the UK, I've
Speaker 1: never visited much of the continent before, but your podcast
Speaker 1: have definitely inspired me to take some of Europe's history.
Speaker 1: My stops will include Paris, were all thie Versy and
Speaker 1: Marie Intonett's house, Florence where Michelangelo's David is displayed and
Speaker 1: many medic cheese are buried, Rome, with a day to
Speaker 1: see the Vatican and Mad King Ludwig's castle. And then
Speaker 1: she thought that she's gonna stop in Vienna, so she
Speaker 1: was hoping maybe she'd get a little Habsburg history and
Speaker 1: I know that's a popular quest too. I think they
Speaker 1: came up a few times in our in our Bourbon theory,
Speaker 1: and I got mentions. Yeah, but it sounds like a
Speaker 1: really good trip, Jenny, I'm kind of jealous. Can we come?
Speaker 1: I know you pack us in your suitcase, but um,
Speaker 1: I always like hearing about people's podcast inspired vacation. It
Speaker 1: makes me feel good. If y'all go visit museums we
Speaker 1: talked about and stuff, but ye, send us postcards. Definitely
Speaker 1: send us postcards and and just let us know if
Speaker 1: you're going somewhere cool this summer. We promise we won't
Speaker 1: be too too Jella, No, we won't. Well like reading
Speaker 1: your stories. We may read some here and you can
Speaker 1: send those, of course, always to our email at history
Speaker 1: podcast to how stuff works dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: hit us up on Facebook or on Twitter at mist
Speaker 1: in history. And if you want to check out what
Speaker 1: we're up to, you can find us on the blogs
Speaker 1: on our home page at www dot how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
Speaker 1: the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
Speaker 1: right corner of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone
Speaker 1: app has a Rise Download it today on iTunes, M