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Sinking of the Bismark in 1941
written by robert nicklin
 My most vivid memory of WW2 out of dozens of action's that I took part in
was the sinking of Hitler's pride of the German navy the Bismark she was the
largest battle'ship in the world and
had the reputation of being unsinkable.
We were some day's out of Capetown on
our way home to England escorting a very
large convoy with destroyer escorts and
an armed merchant cruiser when we received avery important signal with regards the where'abouts of the Bismark,
so leaving the convoy in charge of the
cruiser off we went into what was now
becoming a force eight gale my ship H.M.S. Dorsetshire a county class Cruiser carrying eight 8" guns went at
top speed all through the night and when
arriving on the scene the action had just started.
And in the next two hours we fired 240
8" shells at the Bismark and I could see ours and the Battle'ship Rodney's
shells smashing into her superstructure
and when she was nothing more than a
burning wreck we were order'ed in to
finish her off'and as we closed in to
fire three torpedo'es into her I could see large numbers of men jumping over-
board into what was a very rough sea,
we lay off after firing the torpedo'es
and watched her turn slowly over and
bottom up showing her newly painted under-side'and scores of men still
scrambling about on her steel plate's
as she slowly sank beneath the waves'the
pride of the German navy was no more and
the Royal Navy had avenged the sinking
of H.M.S.Hood.
We then started the dangerous task of picking up survivors and being stopped
in the water for this'we were now sitting ducks for any u/boat that may be in the area' boat rope's were thrown
over the side and the survivors hung onto themas best they could and the lads began to pull them up the big sides of the ship but the rope's began
to get slippy and men were seen to fall
back into the sea'so loops were tied in
to the ropes so that the men could put a
foot in to make easier but some were so
weak they had'nt the strength to hang on
but we managed to some eighty odd men
(84) and were still hauling men over the
side when an officer on the bridge sighted what he thought was a periscope'
and as I have already answered a question from a German civilian on the
internet as to why we left all those men
to their terrible fate so quickly-- Now
would the skipper of that U/boat let us
carry on picking up those survivors " I
THINK NOT" so our skipper Captain Martin
had no alternative but to push off.
Now men were still trying to get on board but once the ship started to move
the cries and screams of those poor souls I live with even today'if only that U/boat had stayed away after all
they were human beings the same as us
and one memory I shall remember even more tomorrow the 27th May sixty four
years to the day the day the Bismark
went down.
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