Bernie
Busch of
Brisbane, Australia, has a question, , about the survivors from the Bismarck sinking
Why did the Royal Navy not pick up more Bismarck survivors?
LAST Sunday evening the SBS in Australia aired the first of what may be a very good series called ‘Germany’s War’.
This one was on the sinking of the Hood and the subsequent destruction of the Bismarck.
Very interesting footage included the great Granddaughter of Bismarck launching the mighty battleship and a grainy old film claimed to be taken from the deck of the
Prinz Eugen, of Hood under fire and as she blew up.
My inquiry relates to the casualties on Bismarck
which, unlike Hood, did not blow up and sink in minutes, so there was plenty time to rescue men in the water. The show claimed that only around 120 or so of a total of over 2,000 German sailors were taken aboard RN ships. There was footage of the Germans in water. It looked like thousands of them. This was accompanied by an old
British Naval Officer lamenting what a pitiful sight it was.
Indeed. Perched in front of the TV, I am also lamenting and wondering what black hearted swine gave the order to abandon 2,000 teenagers in the middle of the Atlantic and later claim it was because U-Boats were in the area. I can understand the Royal Navy was keen to revenge Hood,
but that was mass murder most foul.
I also wonder about the reaction of the typical German
U-Boat skipper of the time. If one had been present, peering through a periscope and seeing Royal Navy ships fishing men out of the ocean, what would he have done, torpedo the rescuers?
I don’t think so.
To my point: Were only 120 or so Bismarck sailors rescued? I always thought it was more.
- Hitler’s
War - New
York Times reports Explorers confirm Hitler’s Battleship
Bismarck was scuttled, not sunk by British guns:
“The American conclusions have
infuriated the British, who denounce them as revisionist
claptrap.”
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