Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck by Ludovic Kennedy

by Ludovic Kennedy

In May 1941, the German battleship Bismark, then the most formidable fighting ship afloat, escaped into the Atlantic, posing a terrible threat to the convoys that kept Britain supplied. This book gives a first hand account of the pursuit and sinking of the Bismark.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, War, World War II, Historical

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster, and author. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Strathclyde in 1985 and also held similar posts at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling. He was knighted in 1994 for services to journalism.

He was a member of the crew of the British destroyer HMS Tartar that took part in the pursuit and destruction of the German battleship Bismarck in May of 1941. 'Sub-Lieutenant' (1942) told of his naval experiences and 'Pursuit' (1974) told of the sinking of the Bismarck.

He undertook many campaigns on behalf of people who had been wrongly convicted of murder, including Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans and also wrote an account of the trial of Stephen Ward following the Profumo affair. He also wrote an account of the murders at Ten Rillington Place.

He married actress Moira Shearer (1926-2006) on 25 February 1950 and the couple had four children.

He died of pneumonia at Salisbury, Wiltshire on 18 October 2009.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice history book. Sometimes the number of names of all the Captains and Admirals involved can get a bit overwhelming but the writer does a good job of mixing the historical battle with personal memories of the people involved. Nice read. Recommended

[Eric_W · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook: I remember seeing the classic movie Sink the Bismarck when I was a teenager and it was one of those formative things that changed my mind about joining the Navy. It was based on the eponymic book by C.S. Forester written in the fifties (the movie came out in 1960, I believe. Wikipedia reports Forester wrote it as a the screenplay before the book.)

Kennedy’s book, published in 1974, is a clear, page-turning, recounting of the actions of the British and Germans in a rather astonishing game of hide-and-seek as the Bismarck and the Prince Eugen tried to break out into the Atlantic where they could easily overwhelm convoys to England. The Bismarck was the biggest and best battleship ever constructed and the irony of its being taken out of action leading up to its sinking by a WW I Swordfish biplane dropping a torpedo was not lost on navies after WW II. Pearl Harbor and the Bismarck's sinking ended the reign of the dreadnought. (Not to mention the two-minute destruction of the HMS Hood, pride of the British navy.)

The assumption is that the British admiral running the show turned the Hood in such a way that the vulnerable upper decks were presented to the German guns. I'm skeptical they gave it much thought but perhaps they did. In any case no one was left after the explosion of the Hood who could say one way or the other. Whether a few more inches on the deck would have saved it from the direct hit it took from a 15 inch shell is problematic. Lots of luck was present on both sides, both good and bad showing how, in war, happenstance is always present. Lots of “if” we had done this, of “if” we had done that, perhaps the outcome would have been very different.

Lots of heroes, if you can call following orders under extreme conditions, heroism. The captains of the Suffolk and Norfolk, the two British cruisers who located the Bismarck (of course, if they had not had the new longer range radar that would not have happened) and shadowed her for days getting almost no sleep for the crew, is worth a citation. Not to mention the inexperienced pilots of the rickety old Swordfish biplanes who flew off the carrier Victorious, knowing they might not have enough fuel to make it back and that they would have to make a carrier landing at night, something they had never done before. In spite of very heavy anti-aircraft fire from the Bismarck all made it back safely, even the pilots of two aircraft that ran out of fuel and had to ditch.

Note that the book was published before the 1975 revelations of the role of Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine. (The Luftwaffe enigma code had been broken early in the war; the naval version not until later.) In a delicious irony, it was revealed only after the war, that the Catalina, which located the Bismarck after it cleverly turned back across the wakes of the two British cruisers and headed toward France (and unknowingly towards the Ark Royal , was flown by an American on patrol. That fact could not be revealed at the time because the United States had yet to enter the war, Pearl Harbor being yet six months in the future.

Excellent read (listen).

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rétegklasszikus a történelemtudomány és a történelmi regény határvidékéről. Tényekből gazdálkodik ugyan, de lényege mindazonáltal az irodalomból kölcsönzött drámai ív, ami egy végső kataklizmában csúcsosodik ki – ez esetben abban, hogy a kor legnagyobb csatahajója, a Bismarck sok izgalom után végül (bluggy, bluggy) csak elsüllyed. A második világháború pedig amúgy is jó sok lovagi csörtét kínál feldolgozásra – az atlanti csata egyik kulcsmomentuma pedig külön alkalmas az ilyen „lovagias bajvívás”-jellegű* átiratra, mert (csakúgy, mint az észak-afrikai hadmozdulatok) hiányzik belőle a háború legmocskosabb oldala: a civil áldozatok (már ha a kereskedelmi hajók legénységétől eltekintünk), a városok porig rombolása, vagy a holokauszt. Csak a nagy hajók vannak face to face, a böhöm nagy ágyúk, meg a hegymagas hullámok. A macsóság.

Mellesleg ez a könyv rekviem is a csatahajókhoz, amelyek azóta már boldogabb (boldogtalanabb?) vadászvizeken kergetőznek egymással. Merthogy a Bismarck üldöztetése és pusztulása önmagán túlmutató esemény**: egy lenyűgöző fegyver hattyúdala. Itt vannak ugyanis ezek a döbbenetesen nagy acélmonstrumok (én már azt sem értem, hogy egyáltalán hogyan maradnak fenn a vízen), hihetetlen tűzerejükkel és páncéllemezeikkel. Az ember rájuk néz, és legyőzhetetlennek hiszi őket. Örökkévalónak. Aztán egyszer csak megjelennek a színen azok a picike repülők, és kiderül, hogy tulajdonképpen milyen sérülékenyek – egy szerencsésen elindított torpedó, és annyi, a mesének vége. Ez az epizód tulajdonképpen a tengeri háború paradigmaváltásának jele: hogy a nagy csatahajók ideje lejárt, és lassan átveszik a helyüket az anyahajók.

Azoknak ajánlom, akik néha még ólomkatonákkal álmodnak. (Vagy Counter-Strike-kal. Mit tudom én, mi van most.)

* Itt megjegyezném, hogy azért húztam egy kicsit a szám, mert Kennedy pöttyet mintha túlhangsúlyozná ezt a jelleget. Én elhiszem, hogy a német haditengerészet a többi fegyvernemhez képest mentes volt a náci ideológiától, csak azt nem tudom, hogy ennek miért kéne olyan nagyon örüljek, ha ettől függetlenül magas szakmai tudásukat latba vetve mindent megtettek azért, hogy a führer valóra válthassa terveit. Nem nagyon látom, mi a különbség aközött, hogy valaki „Heil Hitlert”-t kiáltva, vagy anélkül süllyeszti el a Harmadik Birodalom nagyobb dicsőségére a szövetségesek hajóit.
** Mint ahogy amúgy a második világháború majd minden eseménye önmagán túlmutató… de hát megbocsátható, ha egy szerző az épp általa feldolgozott eseményt kicsit túlmutatóbbnak gondolja a többinél.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Bismark was the pride of the Nazi German Navy. At over 800 feet long, she was the largest battleship in the world, and with her sweeping bow and elegant superstructure, she was certainly one of the most beautiful. At the time of her sinking in May 1941, she was also one of the newest big gun ships afloat, and one of the most potent. So when the Royal Navy heard that she had escaped the Baltic sea along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, they were very worried.

Ludovic Kennedy's account of the hunt, chase, and final destruction of the Bismark is short and to the point - he jumps straight into the planning for operation Rheinubung, the Nazi plan to send surface raiders into the Atlantic to disrupt the allied convoys from America - and he unveils a few little-known facts along the way.

The Germans didn't manage to keep their breakout secret very long. The Swedish cruiser Gotland spotted the Bismark and Prinz Eugen and their attendant destroyers before they had passed The Skagerrak, and thanks to sympathetic members of the Swedish Navy, the Naval Attache at the British Embassy was radioing the information to the Sea Lords the same day.

The key to Bismark's success was her ability to get into the open Atlantic unscathed, and hopefully un-noticed. That this didn't happen was partly due to good intelligence work, and some mystifying decisions by the German Admiral Lutyens, who spent a day and a night in the fjords of Norway, which gave the British time to get some ships together to track her down.

Lutyens' failure to refuel while in Norway turned out to be his greatest error, but more of that later on.

Kennedy tells this story in an almost cinematic way, constantly changing viewpoints from the Allied forces, to the Germans, and back to land HQ of both sides. This style allows him to cover all the bases, and to keep building tension until the final denouement. He often relies on an "I was there" style, describing what crew might have been doing or even thinking during the interminable hours of the chase (Kennedy was a junior officer on HMS Tartar, a ship in Captain Vian's destroyer flotilla that harassed Bismark the night before she was sunk). Sometimes his turn of phrase is a little clunky, but his description of the last moments of HMS Hood send chills up the spine, and his description of the chaos on Bismark just before she went down is horrifying - there is no romance of the sea here.

Because he was a naval officer and a journalist, Kennedy has been able to combine his innate knowledge of the sea with his ability to find facts, and come up with some fascinating insights into - as is emblazoned on the cover of my paperback edition - "one of the great sea sagas of all time". For instance it is little known that one of the key allied weapons in the search for the Bismark - their Catalina float planes - were crewed by US airmen seven months before the US declared war on the Nazis. Another amazing fact is that a German U Boat, U 556, actually sailed in between the two capital ships of the Allied "Force H" - HMS Renown and HMS Ark Royal - but could not do a single thing as she had run out of torpedoes! Shortly after this incident the Ark Royal launched the torpedo bomber raid that crippled the Bismark's steering gear and sealed her fate.

The only reason those planes were able to reach Bismark was owing to her lack of fuel. She had to get to the French coast, and because she had not refueled when she had the chance, she couldn't move further into the Atlantic to outrun her pursuers. If she'd had that freedom of movement she might have survived, as she would not only have avoided the bombers, but also the battleships that finally sealed her fate. HMS King George V and HMS Rodney were perilously short of fuel themselves, and had to head straight for port before the blazing hulk of the Bismark was finally dispatched by the torpedoes of the allied destroyer flotilla. In some ways this fact make the fate of the Bismark even more tragic.

The story of the Bismark is indeed one of the great stories of naval warfare. Two great ships were lost, along with thousands of lives, and this engagement turned out to be the last great battle fought by ships of the line. Ludovic Kennedy has brought the story alive, and if you think you might like to know more about this interlude of World War Two - the entire saga from Bismark's sailing to sinking took only nine days - it's well worth hunting out this book in your local library or second-hand book dealer.

Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A popular book when first published in 1974, Ludovic Kennedy's "Pursuit" is still a very fine history of the famous chase and short life of the famed German battleship Bismarck in WWII. It gives more than enough information without being too overly detailed with unnecessary technical information. You feel the horror of the Bismarck's sinking of the proudest of British battleships, HMS Hood, in mere minutes and the amazing pursuit by the British navy and final destruction of the Bismarck.

Kennedy gives good descriptions of all the various historical figures involved, both British and German, and is even handed in his approach to them all. Kennedy's book would appeal to both history buffs and to the casual reader who might wish to learn some history of an event filled with courage and bravery on both sides of the story.

After you read the book, look up the 1960 British film "Sink the Bismarck" with Kenneth More, always fine in any role he plays. The film is very well done and fairly accurate (even if More's character was created for the film)...

[Gerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a “play-by-play” of the chase and sinking of the battleship Bismarck, as it says in the subtitle. For the most part, it’s well done. The experience of the sailors aboard the Bismarck, as it was being pounded by the British battleships, is narrated here, something usually not to be found in such narratives. There was one time during the chase when the British lost track of Bismarck and it was hard to follow the course of the two navies; the maps didn’t much help. I would also have liked to read of any exchanges between Churchill and Admiral Tovey during this time.

[Keith Hensby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it. Well written.

[Cary Lackey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An adventurous, tragic tale about (and, really, the death of) 2 great ships, the British battle cruiser HMS Hood, and Nazi Germany's super battleship, Bismarck, during the early years of WWII. The book, by later-BBC commentator, but then junior officer on a destroyer that gave chase to the Bismarck, Ludovic Kennedy, was very well-written, quick paced, and, pardon the cliche, hard to put down. I'd give the book 4.5 stars if I could. Very highly recommended!

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found an old copy in a charity shop and I am glad that I bought and read it. Ludovic Kennedy is an intelligent writer; sticks to the facts and spares us sentimental insights. His first hand knowledge of the subject and personal participation shines through in a way that other writers can not quite capture.

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un saggio storico che ha il passo del romanzo e che racconta giorno per giorno la caccia degli alleati alla corazzata tascabile tedesca "Bismark" nell'Atlantico durante la seconda guerra mondiale: un inseguimento che tiene col fiato sospeso il mondo intero... fino all'inevitabile conclusione!

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

My grandad was on board the Rodney, possibly in X turret, during its fight with the Bismarck; finding this book in the little antique centre in Henley upon Thames therefore was great, as he never really spoke of what happened. All we know is that he was mentioned in dispatches for bravery: we think he unjammed one of the guns whilst under fire; we have the gazette for this which gives no details, and his medals with the single oak leaf clasp.

Firstly, minor things: the punctuation can be quite jarring at times, and you have to read some sentences in the first half of the book a couple of times to corral the numerous subclauses into logical sense. Occasionally there are some typos, where letters have been swapped around; again a couple of reads to get the sense and off we go. Sometimes you are left thinking “now how on Earth do you know that bearing in mind the chap is dead?” It’s these things which drops the star rating from five to four.

Secondly, is that this is a rich history of a few days in May 1941. The story rattles along setting ships and fog in amongst the ice and office-block-tall waves of the North Atlantic. The 24 hours leading to the sinking of the Bismarck is told through numerous viewpoints, including eye witness testimony of what it was like on board the stricken ship. This is really quite moving and done matter of fact. We are led through the after events as well, with details of what happened to folk after the great ship sank. You cannot fail to be moved by the story of Dorsetshire picking up survivors and having to move off with the job partially done because of the threat of U boats.

Finally, you get a sense of the bravery, the humanity, and the professionalism on both sides: there’s a job to be done, under extraordinary circumstances, and it’s a zero sum game with definite winners and definite losers.

Humbling.

[Rosalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very detailed account of the Bismarck’s journey from Germany to her sinking off the coast of France on May 27th 1941. The Bismarck sailed from German on her maiden voyage on May 18th 1941, calling into German occupied Norway before finally going out to sea in her role of breaking the British blockade of the Atlantic. Her one and only voyage (apart from the necessary sea trails) lasted just 9 days and Ludovic Kennedy is meticulous in his attention to detail about that voyage.
Admittedly at times, it was a bit hard to track of who was who, but on the whole, he kept the pace of the book moving at a steady pace. Ludovic Kennedy managed to: convey the humanity on all the ships both British and German; give us a detailed picture of a significant and yet nameless sea battle of WWII; capture the absolute wild weather conditions; keep the reader interested (even with little naval knowledge); and yet to portray the dignity and grandeur of both the Hood (sunk 24th May by the Bismarck) and the Bismarck.
Two things that I didn’t know before reading this book, firstly that this was the Bismarck’s only journey and that Ludovic Kennedy was on the HMS Tartar, one of the destroyers that was actively involved in this sea battle. Ludovic Kennedy makes no mention of this, (I found it on Wikipedia when I looked him up) he took no glory, rather he reflected on the high cost in terms of: lives lost; men injured; and the loss of such great warships.
In his introduction Ludovic Kennedy hoped that his book would be unpartisan, focusing instead on humanity and I think that he achieved that.

[Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very well written description of the events when the German Battleship Bismarck broke into the Atlantic Ocean in May of 1941 to threaten convoys bringing critical, sustaining materials to Britain during World War II. The author’s descriptions of events were easy to follow along with the maneuvers of each side. The reasons for such maneuvers and decisions were well explained and easy to understand the logic behind each move. Due to the sinking of the Bismarck, many necessary documents and personnel were lost leaving some German maneuvers not quite fully explained. The author also provides many details from the people directly involved in these events. Generally speaking, the German Battleship Bismarck has been presented as an unrivaled master of the sea. This book shows that the Bismarck was quite vulnerable due to her lack of air support and supporting vessels such as destroyers and oilers. Also, while the Bismarck’s sinking of the British Battleship Hood is often portrayed as a totally one-sided victory, the Bismarck did receive significant damage during that encounter which contributed to her later demise. That damage was to Bismarck’s fuel capacity and consumption that forced certain sailing decisions upon her Admiral and Captain that limited her ability to shake-off British Naval vessels in pursuit. The fact that the British had radar capabilities much better that the German radar also greatly enhanced the British Navy’s ability to track the where about of the Bismarck and lead to her destruction by over whelming forces.

[Au Yong · Rating 5 out of 5]

When word reached the Admiralty that the Bismarck had left her berth initially at Gydnia, then at Bergen, the Home Fleet was brought to short notice for steam.
The details of the pursuit and sinking of the Bismarck have been recounted numerous times. But Ludovic Kennedy revealed to his readers a good deal of "insider information" not generally found in the accounts by other naval historians.
For instance, it is not widely known that Captain Henry Denham was naval attache to the British Embassy in neutral Sweden. When he received timely intelligence that Bismarck had slipped her moorings in Bergen, it was his classified, most immediate telegram to the Admiralty that set the alarm bells ringing.
From that moment on, it seemed as though the author has taken his readers on board the various ships involved in the actions. His descriptions are detailed and vivid.
The ardent readers of naval actions during the Second World War in general and the Bismarck chase in particular will not regret reading this book.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outdated scholarship, but excellent atmosphere. Kennedy was present on one of the destroyers near the end of Bismarck's last stand.

In particular the depiction of the horror aboard Bismarck as two British battleships slowly pummeled it to death is a far cry from the usual very sanitized depictions of naval warfare in which the ships are destroyed in great detail but the men aboard just disappear. Kennedy talks in disturbing but important detail about the effects of heavy explosive shelling on men crammed into tight, metal spaces.

[Sully Augustine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a library hardback over the past few evenings. Well written and easy reading. It contained a surprise. It turns out the US sent pilots to train the British in use of Catalina flying boats which were sent under Lend Lease, and a couple of those US pilots were aboard the planes that found the Bismark just before it reached the point where German air cover would have enabled it to reach the safety of the French ports. That fact wasn't made public because Americans, as neutrals, were not supposed to engage in combat operations.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good straightforward account of the battle that raged across the Atlantic as the British tried to minimise the damage that the German battleship could cause in WWII. The author focusses on the facts as he was able to ascertain them, with some interesting speculation on the causes of some of the missed opportunities plus some passages covering the presumed emotions of the ordinary sailors involved. Well worth a read for anyone interested in military or naval history, or who enjoyed watching the classic film on the same subject.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in the early days of World War II is fairly well known. What made this book so good for me was the great detail the author goes into, both on the British and the German points of view. Now I've always had a tendency to root for the underdog, even when it's the enemy. and this along with the fact that as a former Navy man It bothers me when a fine ship is destroyed, led me to find myself almost hoping the Bismarck would evade her pursuers and make it safely back to France. Of course that did not happen. History is history.

[Kramer Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty entertaining story of - as you'd expect - the chase and sinking of the Bismarck. My only complaint really is that it was a bit hard to follow precisely what was happening at times. Who was torpedoing whom? Which navy did this or that ship belong to? Was this officer one of the Brits or the Germans? Other than this confusion, it was a pleasant and fun (and educational!) read.

[Andrea Maisano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un testo classico su una delle più importanti battaglie navali della Seconda guerra mondiale. Un testo preciso e ben scritto che non perde però il lato umano della vicenda diventando così una sorta di requiem sia delle navi che hanno partecipato alla vicenda sia - e soprattutto - degli uomini che all'interno di questi giganti di acciaio e ferro hanno combattuto e sono morti.

[Roger Weeks · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed, compelling read of the historic sinking of the Bismark, from the viewpoints of the various captains and ships involved in the hunt- including the Bismark itself.
Interesting to finally read about such a pivotal part of WWII and appreciate the complexity and valour involved.

[Jack Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was originally a BBC television documentary hosted and written by Ludovic Kennedy, himself a junior watchkeeping officer in one of the pursuing Royal Navy ships.
The tale is told with authority and clarity, an epic story of victory and defeat and the slim margins of chance that separate the two.
A great story, well told.

[Erik Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched, balanced account of this famous clash of the titans.

[Mark Rowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, sad, gruesome in places. First book I’ve read in a single sitting in quite a while.

[Ignacio Andres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recomendado. Un clásico de la literatura naval bajo el contexto de la segunda guerra mundial.

Ignacio Olguín B

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book to understand the story of the Bismarck, from the British perspective at least. Maintains a good pace, tension and excitement throughout.

[Ben Rocky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely excellent naval history, beautiful prose & appropriate detail throughout.

[Karl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring!!

[Josh Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little slow to get to the action, but there were some great personal accounts that added a lot to the tension

[Pei-jean Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filled in the many gaps I had on the hunt and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.