OT: Search for the Battleship Bismarck

[Shiloh 12]

Nice documentary on the epic tale of the sinking of the battleship Bismarck tied in with the modern-day search for her wreckage miles below the surface. Very well done piece.

 

http://www.snagfilms...leship_bismarck

[Olham 164]

Damn, I hate to see lines reading like this one:

 

 

Sorry, we have not been given the rights to stream this film in your area.

 

 

But thanks anyway, Shiloh - I think I have seen it on German TV.

[Slartibartfast 153]

So do I try Expat Shield Herr Olham normally works a treat but you have to connect it and disconnect it manually I find it useful to watch BBC programs that are not shown in Austria...

[Shiloh 12]

Sorry to those who can't view this - damn limitations. This is also a great documentary I viewed last night on the Hindenburg and a new theory as to what might have contributed to the disaster.

 

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/hindenburgs_fiery_secrets

[Flyby PC 23]

Thing that gets me about Bismark is she was sunk on her maiden journey, but the King George V who was instrumental in sinking her was even newer than she was.

 

I don't mean that in a "Mine is bigger than yours" context, merely the amount of money invested in such large battleships was a truly massive gamble just in terms of money alone. For all the tragedy of Hood being sunk in the manner she was, she left a a fine history behind her. I suppose Bismark's was no less remarkable, however short it was.

 

There's something about the war at sea you don't get in any other context when these witheringly massive ships, each weighing thousands and thousands of tons start knocking seven bells out of each other. I forget the exact numbers, but from the 1400 men lost with Hood there were 3 survivors. I believe there were around 1900 men lost with the Bismark. Whenever I see pictures of these massive wrecks, I always find them very haunting. With Bismark, there are 1900 stories of how men died, most of which nobody will ever know, whether men died instantly in a blast, or suffered the rasping agony of drowning in complete darkness. I think I could cope with war as a soldier or an airman, but think I would struggle to cope with war at sea.

 

 

 

Edit - Expat Shield assigns anybody a UK IP address, but I don't think it will help Olham this time, because my UK IP address gets the same message.

 

 

 

Edit 2 - Bismark from a crew of 2221, there 115 survivors. There could have been many more, but the ships picking them up had to get underway after submarine reports, and 3 survivors were indeed picked up by U-74. Tough call, but that's war I suppose.

 

3 survived, but 1415 men went down with Hood, and some say there were no bodies recovered, not one. They all went down with her.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Flyby PC

[Shiloh 12]

I think I could cope with war as a soldier or an airman, but think I would struggle to cope with war at sea.

 

 

I'm with you Flyby. On a ship you may be unfortunate enough to face the grim realization that your afloat in the middle of a large body of water and even if rescuers are looking for you, unless they have an exact location of where you went down, you aren't likely to be found. You can be brave and keep swimming/treading water for however long, but eventually men will start dropping off and you know your time is coming soon. It must be an utterly helpless feeling and who wants to have their life end like that?

 

The USS Indianapolis in WW2 is a perfect example of this hopelessness but in this case many survived the harrowing experience.

 

Regarding the Bismarck, there is speculation that the commander of the British ship chose to leave the majority of German sailors behind as retaliation for the HMS Hood being sunk. At least that is the viewpoint of many of the Bismarck survivors.

Edited April 28, 2012 by Shiloh

[Flyby PC 23]

Tough to call as I say Shiloh.

 

There were two ships picking up survivors before the alarm, and both moved away to avoid being torpedoed. Co-incidence or not, there was at least one U-boat in the area close enough to pick up survivors who might have been just as keen to avenge the sinking of Bismark. I'm not going to second guess the mind of the Captains concerned. They made the judgements they felt appropriate, and afterall, they had stopped in the first place.

 

I recall Jack Hawkins in a B+W film,( the Cruel Sea was it?), when he had to depth charge a U-boat target close to British sailors thus killing them. He did what duty required, and had to find a way to live with it. That was just a film of course, but it certainly happened at war.

[Flyby PC 23]

Interesting Blog on the subject -

 

http://nineteenkeys....gnominy-of.html

 

To quote the Captains Granddaughter -

 

Thankyou Bob for your comments, but Captain Martin then went on to become Commadore at the Naval base in Durban South Africa. He was awarded the DSO in Oct 1941, CBE in Jan 1944 KBE in Jun 1946, He was the Admiral in charge of the landing Force in Rangoon in the Burma Campaign. Tell me where in these honours and further commands does it relate that he was a discrace to the Royal Navy. My father received a letter from a Bismarck survivor many years later,having nothing but praise for my grandfther and the way they were treated on board Dorsetshire upon their rescue.

 

 

 

To his credit, the author of the blog admits he's German and was indeed seeking to portray martin as a murderous monster, but despite his personal prejudice, he acknowledges the truth that this was not in fact the case.

 

-"I must report to you now, that much of what I have learned has been personally explosive because it has compelled me to reassess long-held views and to re-examine that which, to my mind, was established as correct to a moral certainly."

Edited April 28, 2012 by Flyby PC