Chapter 2 - The Great Carrier War

(Part 3)

The Sinking of the Bismarck

On May 22, 1941, the battleship Bismarck and her escort the Prinz Eugen left port in Norway to begin attacks on British shipping lanes across the Atlantic. The Royal Navy promptly dispatched the HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales to find the German ships and put them out of action. The Bismarck was sighted on May 23 in the Denmark Strait, and the British ships began firing their guns on the target. Their salvos were ineffective against the Bismarck's heavy armor, but when the Bismarck opened up with her huge guns, she quickly sank the HMS Hood with over 1,400 of her crew. The HMS Prince of Wales withdrew, but not before managing to rupture two of the Bismarck's fuel tanks.

Because of the continuing loss of fuel from her ruptured tanks, the Bismarck had to abandon her planned attacks on Atlantic shipping and sailed towards Brest for repairs. On May 24, the HMS Victorious launched a strike of nine Swordfish against the Bismarck, but only one torpedo hit the German ship, with little effect. The Bismarck was then able to use the cover of fog to elude her pursuers.

On May 26, an American PBY Catalina patrol plane sighted the Bismarck, and HMS Ark Royal launched 14 Swordfish. In the heavy fog and mist, the Swordfish mistakenly began an attack run on the cruiser HMS Sheffield, but luckily their torpedoes all misfired. The flight of aircraft returned to the HMS Ark Royal and within an hour were rearmed with a different type of torpedo and were again launched to attack the Bismarck. This time the Swordfish pilots found the German ship and scored two torpedo hits, one damaging her propellor and the other jamming her rudder. She was left sailing in aimless circles. The British battleships caught the Bismarck on May 27 and sank her, with the loss of almost 1,900 of her crew.

The HMS Ark Royal played a major role in the sinking of the Bismarck

The biggest threat to Britain continued to be the German U-boats. Royal Air Force Sunderland seaplanes and B-24 Liberator bombers were used for anti-submarine patrols, but the range of these aircraft still left an area of no aerial coverage in mid-Atlantic. To solve this problem, the British mounted catapult-launched Spitfire fighters on 50 merchant ships (known as Catapult Armed Merchants or CAMs). Their first success came on August 3, 1941, when a Spitfire shot down a German Condor patrol plane, which were used to guide the U-boats to the merchant convoys.

The next step in the growing battle of the Atlantic was the development of escort carriers. The first of these small ships, which were intended to sail across the Atlantic with the convoys to provide continuous air cover, was the HMS Audacity. Almost immediately after becoming operational in June 1941, F4F Wildcats from the HMS Audacity shot down a Condor patrol plane near Gibraltar. However, the battle of the Atlantic would not be won for several more years, as exemplified by the sinking of the HMS Ark Royal on November 14, 1941 by a German U-boat.

The first escort carrier, the HMS Audacity, started life as a German merchant ship

| Home | Intro | Ventures | Sea | Air | Space | SciFi | Racing | Movies | Art | Travel | Exit |

| Intro | Early Years | Carrier War | Changing Role | Ship Directory | Bibliography | Tour the Big E |

Last Updated: January 1, 2003