The last battle of the Bismarck changed the tides during World War II. The Bismarck was Germany’s most famous battleship during World War Two, and was sunk on May 27, 1941. The Bismarck had already sunk the battleship HMS Hood before being sunk herself. For many, the end of the Hood and Bismarck symbolized the end of the time when battleships were the dominant force in naval warfare, to be replaced by submarines and aircraft carriers and the advantages these ships gave to naval commanders.
The Bismarck weighed over 50,000 tons and about half of this weight was armor. This amount of armor gave the Bismarck many advantages in protection but it did not slow her down. It was able to go a speed of 29 knots in normal conditions. When launched in 1939, the Bismarck carried a vast array of weapons. The ship carried 8 15-inch guns, 12 5.9-inch guns, 16 4.1-inch Anti-Air guns, 16 20mm Anti-Air guns and 2 Adaro 96 aircraft. The Bismarck had a crew of 2,200 to make this vessel functional. In comparison this ship to the HMS Hood, which was built about 20 years prior, it weighed 44,600 tons. It was considerably faster than the Bismarck, reaching a maximum 32 knots. The ship did not need nearly as many men to make the ship functional and had a crew of 1,419. The Hood was launched in 1918 and was equipped with 8 15-inch guns, 12 5.5-inch guns, 8 4 inch-AA guns, 24 2-pounder guns and 4 21-inch torpedoes. Even with all these advantages, the Hood had one major problem; it did not have the same amount of armor as the Bismarck. Within two minutes of being hit by the Bismarck, the Hood had broken her back and sunk.
On May 18, 1941, the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen secretly escaped out of the Baltic port of Gdynia to attack allied convoy...
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...e attack had hurt the Bismarck. Through the night, the Bismarck was annoyed by destroyers under the command of Captain Vian.
The destroyers followed the Bismarck and sent her position back to the Norfolk. On May 27th at 08.47, the Rodney opened fire on the Bismarck. At 08.48, the King George V followed. The Bismarck tried to fire back but a salvo from the Rodney took out the two forward gun turrets. By 10.00 all the Bismarck’s main guns had been destroyed and her mast had vanished. By 10.10, all her secondary guns had been destroyed and the Bismarck sat in the water like a sitting duck. At 10.15, Tovey ordered the Dorsetshire to finally sink the Bismarck with its torpedoes. Three of the torpedoes were fired at the Bismarck causing massive amounts of damage. She sank into the ocean at 10.40. Out of a crew of 2,200, there were only 110 survivors and 4 were officers .
Before the landings were to begin, the coastal German defenses had to be adequately prepped, and softened by a combination of a massive battering by United States ships, and bombing by the United States Air Force. Between the hours of 0300 and 0500 hours on the morning of June 6, over 1,000 aircraft dropped more than 5,000 tons of bombs on the German coastal defenses. As soon as the preliminary bombing was over, the American and British naval guns opened fire on the Normandy coastline (D' Este 112). A British naval officer described the incredible spectacle he witnessed that day: "Never has any coast suffered what a tortured strip of French coast suffered that morning; both the naval and air bombardments were unparalleled. Along the fifty-mile front the land was rocked by successive explosions as the shells of ships' guns tore holes in fortifications and tons of bombs rained on them from the skies. Through billowing smoke and falling debris defenders crouching in this scene of devastations would soon discern faintly hundreds of ships and assault craft ominously closing the shore.
At 11:54 p.m., Hashimoto ordered 6 readied torpedoes at a depth of 4 meters and a speed of 48 knots. Next, Hashimoto had the torpedoes fired at the ship. At 12:02 p.m., the first explosion came and then the second. Red flames shot up lighting up the darkness. Smoke soon followed.
During the Normandy landings, particularly at Omaha Beach, the destroyers of the Allied armada played a critical role and kept the Normandy invasion from becoming an unprecedented defeat. To fully understand the importance of the destroyer action on Omaha Beach, th...
Nearing the end of his life, Otto von Bismarck said, “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans,” (History.com Staff 1). As it so happens, Mr. von Bismarck was correct. The first World War was triggered by the unmerited assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke. The day Ferdinand was killed, was his and his wife’s wedding anniversary (History.com Staff 1). The couple was visiting Sarajevo in a open car, a rarity at the time (Ben Cosgrove 1). Unfortunately, this city held threatening nationalists and terrorists. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by a young man named Gavrilo Princip. Princip had been trained in terrorism by the Black Hand, a Serbian secret society (The Editors of Encyclopedia
The German tank destroyers at the start of the Lorraine Campaign were the Sturmgeschütz III or Stug III (assault gun) and Jagdpanzer IV (tank hunter). The Sturmgeschütz III was also was an aging design, having been in service since 1940. It weighed 24 tons, carried a high velocity 75mm gun, and had 3 inches of armor. Next was the Jagdpanzer IV, a 26 ton tank destroyer designed after the German defeat at Stalingrad and based on the Panzer Mark IV chassis. It was relatively new, had a high velocity 75mm gun and 3 inches of armor. Both of these tank destroyers had a major disadvantage; they had no turret, which meant the whole tank destroyer had to be aimed at the target, using precious time.
We believe we were hit by two torpedoes, one around frame 8 or 10, because the bow was blown off forward around ten. Another one [torpedo] around frame fifty. We believe that they were large torpedoes, that they were running close to the surface, because none of us believe the magazines blew up, that is the only way we can account for the flashes of flame through the ship.
of something big. This battle marked the being of the end of World War II.
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date that will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval
World War 2 was a large scale war around the war that lasted 6 years. The war was devastating on all the countries involved on both sides. There was a considerable amount of death in WW2 estimated at 15,000,000 battle related deaths. There were many different battles in WW2 but today I will be report on one of the greater battles close to the end of the war. This battle is known as the Battle of the Bulge.The Battle of the Bulge began on December 16th, 1944. It started with Hitler ordering a large surprise attack on the Western Allies using his 3 armies. The Germans came out of the dense woods of the Ardennes forest in Belgium. Towards the beginning of the battle the Germans were winning due to the nature of the surprise attack and their experience level. The damage they caused was so great they created a “bulge” of sorts in the Allied front, hence the name of the battle. But we later will see the Germans progress in the beginning of the battle will be short lived.
Goering’s plan for the defeat of Britain consisted of three phases. First, the Luftwaffe would bomb the British Navy and any merchant ships crossing the English Channel. The goal of this was to cause a shortage of supplies and a weakened morale in Gre...
The two participants, SS Mont-Blanc and the Norwegian ship SS Imo were both doing their part for the war effort, the former transporting explosives to the Western Front, the latter helping the Belgian refugees. The two ships met in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was the early morning of 6th December 1917, and just before 9 am, a small collision at 1 mph speeds occurred between the two. This collision, despite its scale, ignited benzole fastened to the deck of Mont-Blanc.
Von Der Porten, Edward P. The German Navy in World War II. New York: Thomas Y.
... Harbour on 19 February: in total, 45 Allied warships and merchant vessels were in the harbour at the time of the raids. The warships included the United States Navy destroyer and seaplane tender . The RAN ships in port were the sloops and, corvettes and, auxiliary minesweepers and, patrol boat Coongoola, depot ship, examination vessel, lugger, and four boom-net ships. Several USN and Australian troop ships were in the harbour along with a number of merchant vessels of varying sizes. Most of the ships in the harbour were anchored near each other, making them an easy target for air attack. In addition to the vessels in port, the American Army supply ships Don Isidro and, Philippine vessels acquired as part of the South West Pacific Area command's permanent Army fleet earlier in February, were near Bathurst Island bound for the Philippines on the morning of the raid.
On the 22nd June 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union under Directive 21. Under the codename “Operation Barbarossa”, it was recorded as the largest military operation ever seen in history as it involved more than 3 million Axis soldiers and 3,500 armoured vehicles. Throughout the war Operation Barbarossa was a conflict that demoralised the Germans and significantly contributed to the Allied victory.
“The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves” (Trueman).