How many died on bismarck

Well, toward the end, Bismarck's upper decks were in flames, she could no longer fire her guns accurately, and sailors were leaping from the decks to bob in the water. When Bismarck finally did sink, she sank very fast. The Germans probably did try to keep the burned-out ship from falling into British hands by detonating preset charges on the ship's bottom. But did they speed Bismarck's sinking by minutes or by hours?

Who knows? For that matter, who really cares? Yet there are those who still feel that the British victory is tarnished by a German coup de grace. I don't get it, but then I was raised in an American grammar school, not a British one. My concern is with Fulton and that French steamboat -- not with German sailors hastening the Bismarck to her inevitable grave.

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Civil War. We have reason to believe a formidable Atlantic raid is intended. Neither side sought a battle. Twice, the admiral turned towards the enemy vessels to try and drive them away and once Bismarck even opened fire, narrowly missing Norfolk , but the British cruisers hung on until reinforcements arrived at dawn the following day. Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland — second-in-command of the home fleet, who was sailing on Hood — faced significant challenges. Hood had a formidable reputation, but she was old, and to ensure that she could reach high speeds and boast big guns, her designers had sacrificed deck armour.

Conversely, Prince of Wales was so new that she had left port with civilian technicians aboard to work on her unreliable four gun turrets. Within minutes, Holland realised his mistake and started to turn his ships to bring their aft rear turrets into action, as shells from both German ships began to drop around Hood and smash into her superstructure.

But it was already too late. I just watched in horror… the Hood had gone. The entire battle lasted just nine minutes. He wisely withdrew under cover of a smoke screen, and for the rest of the day, Prince of Wales and the two cruisers, now under the command of Rear Admiral Frederic Wake-Walker in Norfolk , continued to shadow from a distance.

One exploding shell flooded a boiler room, reducing her speed, while the other penetrated an oil tank, contaminating her fuel and causing it to leak into the sea. Which way would she go? She had a wide choice, and we were vulnerable almost everywhere. And if Bismarck did manage to escape, the damage to British prestige would be incalculable, particularly in the still-neutral United States. Desperate to slow Bismarck , Admiral Tovey, moving south from Scapa Flow but still about miles away, pushed his aircraft carrier HMS Victorious ahead at high speed to launch an air strike.

Victorious flew off her aircraft just after 10pm, when she was miles from Bismarck. Bismarck dodged eight torpedoes, but the ninth struck the centre of the vessel.