The Sinking of the Bismarck

Introduction

World War II started 1 September 1939 when German forces invaded Poland. Two days later on the evening of 3 September 1939, both Britain and France had entered the war against Germany. Germany had the smallest of the great power naval forces due to their defeat in World War I and the resulting restrictions emplaced on them. These restrictions from the 1922 Washington Treaty limited the German navy on the number, tonnage, and lethality of their fleet. Consequently, Germany lacked the resources to challenge the British Royal Navy directly. German leadership adopted a naval strategy of interrupting British supply channels while avoiding direct engagements with the Royal Navy. This case study will explore the sinking of the Bismarck, Germany’s most powerful battleship.

History

Britain had to preserve its lines of commerce and supply in the Atlantic Ocean in order to survive the war. Germany recognized that disrupting Britain’s lifeline of ship convoys would provide an immediate and distinct advantage in the war. In just the first three months of 1941, Hitler’s surface naval fleet sunk or captured 37 British ships totaling 187,662 tons. The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau together sunk twenty-two ships and 115,622 tons of ships and cargo while operating in the Atlantic. These numbers proved the effectiveness of the German strategy and led the British to disperse their battle fleet. In order to completely cripple Britain and achieve dominance in the Atlantic, Germany employed the one of the largest and deadliest battleship in history, the Bismarck. It was 823 feet in length, over 50,000 tons in weight, and could travel at a speed of 30.8 knots. Great engineering went into her underwater protectio...

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Works Cited

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