RustyBattleship

Rather than write a whole book, I will just hit the highlights that formed my theory of why the Bismarck was put in such jeopardy. It took me about two years to research this and start putting the pieces together. I needed a sledge hammer (in my head) to make some of them fit, but here goes.

We have to start way back on April 9, 1940 when Denmark ceded Greenland over to America when Germany occupied Denmark.

Now we jump to 1941 when DKM Bismarck was fueling up in Gotenhafen. A fuel hose broke and it was 200 tonnes short of a full top-off.

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen later anchored in Grimstadfjord, Norway. Prinz Eugen topped off her fuel tanks. Bismarck did NOT but still took the time to be repainted in a haze gray.

Operation Rheinburg had begun, but several months too early.

Originally, the Bismarck was to team up with her sister ship Tirpitz and Lutjens' former two Battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (with which he sunk over 20 ships earlier that year). Probably Prinz Eugen's sister ship Hipper would join up also making a very powerful Battle Group.

But this wouldn't happen until August at the very earliest when Tirpitz was fleet ready and repairs on the two smaller Battleships were complete.

Rheinburg HAD to start NOW, in May. Supposedly to spend several months at sea raiding convoys.

With only two ships? No Destroyer escorts? No refueling tankers? No submarine pickets?

Something was in a hurry here and it wasn't convoy raiding.

Lutjens took total command and insisted on breaking out through the Denmark Strait north of Iceland despite objections from even higher command.

Their departure was kept secret from Hitler until the ships were past the point of no return (without refueling).

Lutjens passage was at an alarmingly slow pace and fog covers actually passed the ship. By picking up a couple of knots he could stay hidden in the fog patches.

When a British Cruiser spotted him, he opened fire -- and missed with visibility of only 6 miles. Also the recoil of the 15-inch forward guns knocked out his Radar. However, Prinz Eugen's Radar was still working but had shorter range.

Lutjens was ordered NOT to take on any enemy (British) Battleships. When Hood and Prince of Wales came along, he had no choice.

You all know the history of the battle so I won't go into detail here except to say Lutjens made a horrible decision afterwards.

He lost a lot of fuel and instead of fuel oil he had full tanks of sea water up forward trimming the ship down by the bow. His Naval Architect recommended scuttling both anchors and their chains to reduce weight.

However, that would require the ship to slow down to do the removal safely without further damage to the ship. Lutjens claimed he may need those anchors for his return to France.

And just what was his stern anchor for?

He was behind schedule. For something.

In the meantime, the USCGC Modoc met with the USCGC Northland and spent about an hour together exchanging info on their search for possible survivors of a U-boat attack. On board Northland was the new Governor of Greenland and TWO State Department representatives. Supposedly those three were there to convince the Greenlanders (mostly Eskimos) that possession by America was not going to be as nasty as their former German owners said they would (there were still German communications posts in Greenland that some of the Greenlanders had already taken out).

Now remember, Greenland was already FREE of Germany for over a year. And what the hell does an Eskimo care about whose in charge in town?

Modoc and Northland split up with Modoc heading South and Northland (supposedly) toward Greenland.

In the meantime, both German warships were being tailed closely by two British Cruisers and the quickly repaired Prince of Wales, with a couple of Aircraft Carriers in support.

Now, the unthinkable happens. Lutjens orders Prinz Eugen to split away. He would no longer have the support of her 8-inch guns and massive AA batteries.

Remember, AA batteries.

Very shortly after the split, Bismarck crosses the bow of Modoc and passes by her port side only a mile away.

A few minutes later Modoc spots British aircraft and they begin to form a line to torpedo Modoc, but then spot the Bismarck only 6 or 8 miles further away. At the same time the British ships were preparing to fire on Modoc until a sharp eyed gunnery officer noted that German Battleships do not paint their smokestacks Yellow.

Modoc witnessed the first torpedo plane attack on Bismarck with awe. That was until Bismarck used its main batteries to fire in FRONT of the aircraft so the columns of water would bring them down. Then Modoc went into full flank and got the hell out of there.

Actually only one plane was brought down by the water column tactic but none by anti-aircraft fire.

Anti-Aircraft fire that could have been enhanced if Prinz Eugen was still --- ummm ---escorting Bismarck.

One torpedo did hit Bismarck's side armor but did not penetrate (the Kipper torpedos of Swordfish airplanes were not considered the world's best).

The same is true of the later second attack when one VERY LUCKY torpedo hit the rudders of the Bismarck.

This is not to say that the hit would not have been made if Prinz Eugen was still there. But it would have made it much more difficult for the planes to get into proper launch mode. So the chances of such a lucky hit would have been greatly reduced.

Well, the rest you know.

Or do you?

What happened to Prinz Eugen? Very little is mentioned of her so-called Raider patrol.

What happened to the two State Department reps on board Northland?

What happened the next month in June of that year?

What happened in December of that year?

My theory (laugh all you want as I'd rather make people happy than sad) is:
Prinz Eugen was NOT Bismarck's escort. Instead, Bismarck was Prinz Eugen's DECOY so the Cruiser could rendevous with somebody (Northland perhaps?) and have a certain package of proposals given directly to FDR.

Was the rendevous made later but kept secret? If so it would reinforce the idea that FDR wanted war and was going to support Russia anyway when Operation Barbarossa was launched in June. And in return the third member of the Axis powers would be ordered to stay away from Hawaii -- for a while.

You decide.

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pdf27

I think you really need to apply Occam's razor to this theory. German U-boats were more than capable of making such a trip all the way to the CONUS far more safely and with greater discretion. A rendezvous with a heavy cruiser with half the RN combing the North Atlantic for it is neither subtle nor likely to stay secret for very long. Taking a civilian boat out to meet a single U-Boat in a deserted bay however is easily concealed, easily denied and frankly far safer too at the time.

Finally, I don't think Germany had anywhere near that level of influence on the Japanese - remember they utterly failed to get them to attack Russia, and it's rather questionable if the Japanese were part of the axis in more than name only.

__________________
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Rule 2: Treat all members of the press as French

gunnut

Very interesting. A good spy/thriller topic if anything.

So where did Prinz Eugen go after she split from Bismark? Everyone was so busy with Bismark there was no mention of Eugen. Where was she spotted next?

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"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

RustyBattleship

That's my point. The British Home Fleet didn't give a diddly-damn about Prinz Eugen. They wanted Bismarck. Prinz Eugen could do whatever she wanted to do.

Even her own cruise book mentions nothing of her deployment after the battle (Prinz Eugen em Ersten Gefecht). One of my supervisors at LBNS had a copy of the book given to him by Kapitan Bremmerman, the C.O. of Prinz Eugen when she was in Long Beach being readied for Operation Crossroads.

The reason the C.O. was so generous because his chief cook, a Warrant Officer, was an old friend that served aboard the Nevada with my supe before the war broke out.

smilingassassin

VERY interesting theory, though I must agree, subs would be a far safer and discrete form of linking up. When you think about it though, Prinz Eugen made a far better raider than Bismarck and I could see the attempt to use Biz as a decoy to allow PE to begin her sortie.

omon

the best way to hide something is to put it in the plain veiw. nobody would think that Prinz Eugen isn't just the ecscort. split in the heat of the battle and nobody would notice, it was foggy that day, wasn't it(just like it happened)imo. sub can be spoted from the air, and if sunk wouldn't deliver the package.
us stole a sunken ussr sub right from ussr navy noses, they never foud out utill us sent them a video of ceremony were us buried remaines of ussr sailors.

germany had a big influence on japan. they fed them with new thech. weapons, resourses, to attack russia ment sighning death warrant, germany knew it, they still needed japan as ally, russia is very close, but us... not so close, us took care of japan after it took care of germany.

this is interesting.
i'll talk to my father about it, i'm sure he knows more than me.

wasn't yamato hit in the rudder as well?

omon

ok talk to my fater today, he showed me some of books on Prinz Eugen, too bad they are in russian.

Prinz Eugen split from bismark for a reason, germany had destroyed 3 english ships in 1 hour or so, at one time. when 1st ship was sinking second came to his rescue, was hit as well, tird ship went to help, and was hit as well, they were hit by a sub, so germans after that, used this tactic, if one of the ships i geting hammered, the rest should drop life boats, and get as far as posible, not to get sunk as well. so that is why Prinz Eugen split.
further history of Prinz Eugen, having refuled by shpihern on may 26, than had problems with #1 and#2 boilers, prop got damaged by ice. on june1 arrived at brest.
in jan 5 1946 beceme a part of usn as ix300, june 9 1946 arived at attol bikini.
june 1 1946 bomber Able droped the n bomb, only paint peeled off, second blast this time underwater did more damage, but not enough to sink it. third n blast made some more damage, it than was towed to island Carlos, where it capsized and sunk, it is still there.

RustyBattleship, i wish you could read russian, i'd give you a lot documentarys to read, adout ships, and anything else, i have accses to tons of it.

RustyBattleship

Too bad I can't read Russian since my paternal grandfather was a Cossack.

As for the Bikini tests, there were only TWO bombs, not three. Test Able was an air burst with Nevada as target. It missed by about a thousand yards but it was not my cousin's fault. The Plutonium bomb on a parachute is extremely INaccurate.

(My cousin was Woodrow Swancutt, the pilot of the plane and a cousin of mine. We listened to his bomb drop on the radio).

The second bomb, test Baker, was a shallow water blast suspended from a landing boat. Because of the extraordinary amount of radiation hazards caused by the radioactive vapor cloud, President Truman cancelled the deep water test that was to be test Charlie.

However, in 1954 preparations and equipment were designed and built at Long Beach Naval Shipyard for a deep water test including three midget submarines set at different distances from the bomb. It was called Operation Wigwam.

I had just hired in to the shipyard as an apprentice ship fitter and did some layout work on the diver's ladder for the Wigwam barge that was to lower the Wigwam bomb. It was a 30-kiloton atomic bomb detonated at a 2,000-foot depth in 16,000 feet of water just 450 miles Southwest of San Diego on 14 May 1955.

omon

strange, my book never said anyting about canceling charly, but not gonna argue who is right, and who is wrong, up to charly, it said the same thing you did. may be lost in translation,

RustyBattleship

Yes. While working for the Navy we studied a few translations and found errors in -- shall we say --- editing and confirmation of facts.

The most interesting one I found I picked up at the Soviet Pavillion during the World's Fair in Vancouver, B.C. It was a small book showing how mean America is with arming its Military with Missiles mounted on full track vehicles.

Strange, they were showing pictures of their own equipment.

I bought it and gave it to one of our "Intelligence" types who laughed so hard I thought he was going to fall out of his chair.

Dreadnought

Mr. L. question for you:

Prince Eugan was brought here to Philly Naval Yard for turret inspection as well as a few other areas of the ship (there are pics of her in PNSY AND Boston) after a short stop in Boston before the Atomic tests. Would you be inclined to believe those "documents" were still onboard at this time and or removed at either of these two locations or at sea during the journey while in U.S. custody?

__________________
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Dreadnought

Omon if you post a copy or email me a copy (as few pages) I can have it translated pretty quickly in "rough" form. The blanks would have to be filled in where words appear to be missing in our translation of it though.

Dreadnought

Sorry Mr. L. I left Long Beach out of her journey. I do know she stopped at Boston to relace the crew or what was left of the crew. And to Philadelphia where they lifted her turrets to see the rotating assemblies among other things. There are pics of her on the net here at Philly and in Boston during this time period.

I always found this info interesting:

Propellers.
The three propellers were of 4.70 meters in diameter and had three blades. The port and middle propellers rotated counter clockwise and the starboard propeller clockwise. Each propeller had a volume of 2.4 m³ and achieved 270 revolutions per minute at full speed.

A few questions for you consideration....

Bismark like many of her Jutland predesesors deployed the typical German three shaft arrangement. Could Bismark have survived the torpedo hit/steering damage if in fact she was designed with a fourth shaft for aid in steering after the hit even know the rudders were jammed?

Would Bizmarks damaged steering have played such a role in steering diffaculty if she wasnt designed with the three bladed propellors and in fact designed with say a 5 or 6 blade arrangement?

Why would they design such a awesome warship being driven by a three shaft arrangement with two shafts countering the one? I do realize that certain equipment counters this offset without getting to deep in theory or explanation. Would they have done this to conserve weight/space for more armor or the planned upgunning of the rifles had she survived the conflict and went into refit?

Sorry to bore you with these questions but was just wondering?

Thanks.


Removal of turret Anton at Philadelphia.

Attached Images

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RustyBattleship

For Dreadnought:
I don't want to take up band width on this wonderful board by reprinting your questions. But I'll try to answer them the best I can.

As for the supposed "documents" I SUSPECT may have been aboard, they would not have been there at that time. Our fiction adventure novel was for our central characters believing the documents were aboard Bismarck. We came to a halt when my co-author had serious family problems at the same time I realized that Bismarck could have been a decoy so Prinz Eugen could deliver the documents.

If such documents as I theorize they COULD have been (a non-aggression pact between the U.S. and the Axis powers) they would have been disposed of right after Operation Barbarosa started as that then committed America to support Russia in supplies and weapons.

They don't exist anymore and any former officers of Prinz Eugen that may still be alive either didn't know about them or are keeping their mouths shut.

When Prinz Eugen was brought to the East Coast for study and removal of one of her 8-inch guns (as your picture shows) Kapitan Bremmerman was invited to attend a Naval Inquiry that concentrated more on the Bismarck and Hood engagement than anything else. Surprisingly, the Kapitan said he thinks it was really the Prinz Eugen that sunk the hood when one of his 8-inch shells ignited the flare rocket magazine. His theory was that some of the rockets and flares went DOWN into the ship and set off the main magazine just as one of Bismark's 15-inch rounds hit. Visibility was hazy at best and logs of hits and misses were done manually with only quick spot checks of a chronometer recording times.

Of course, such a revelation drew attention away from any other questions members of the board may have had.

When the ship was in Long Beach, some of the crew were still aboard. A couple of piers over was the Nevada being rigged with cameras, monitoring equipment for structural damage and radiation, and being overpainted with common Red Lead paint normally used as a primer in those days. It was NOT a special paint as some suggested. We wanted the ship painted red as the target and Red Lead primer was the cheapest and most available around.

One of the ship-fitter supervisors was Don Foster who served aboard Nevada as a Seaman Apprentice before WW II. He received his discharge well before the war broke out but then went to work at the new Long Beach Naval Shipyard and was part of the Nucleus Group that got the shipyard into operation.

When Prinz Eugen came in, Don decided to sneak off from his regular time card duties and checking on his men to "Skylark" (as he used to like to call it) on the German Cruiser to wander around and compare its construction and compartmentation. A German Warrant Officer was staring at him and approached him. Don thought that he was going to be run off the ship because he wasn't part of the specially assigned shipyard workers.

The German Warrant looked at Don's badge and said, "Don Foster. I knew it was you. We haven't seen each other in years."

Turned out that that German was a Baker's apprentice aboard Nevada the same time Don was serving on her. They both opened their shirts to show the tattoos of a baby with boxing gloves all pre-war Nevada crewmen had. The German's parents decided to move back to Germany for some reason and when the war broke out, he was immediately "conscripted" into the Kriegsmarine as a warrant officer because of his perfect English and having served aboard an American Battleship.

That's how Don got to meet Kapitan Bremmerman and got some really neat souvenirs off the ship.

Woooo. Taking up too much band width here though you've gone to a bigger server. But I have met some VERY interesting people in my life, particularly at the shipyard, and want to get my history book of the yard published. But on a retirement annuity there is no way I can afford to self-publish it.

Dreadnought

Thanks Mr.L.

If you would please in time examine the other questions and speculate. I understand were trying to ward off band width usage. I was just interested to see if any of these factors could have changed the outcome from your perspective. Outside of commanding the ship at hand. Thanks.