Comments by "Ben Wilson" (@benwilson6145) on "Bismarck: Why its mission made sense!" video.

  1. This is what Karl Doenitz states. The difficulty of the Icelandic passage did not prevent the battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen from being sent into the Atlantic in May 1941 after the completion of their working up and according to the strategic dispositions already mentioned. After the sinking of the battle cruiser Hood, which proved the outstanding fighting power of the new German battleship, the unit was able to shake off contact with the English once more, but on the next day she was contacted again by an enemy aircraft. In a hard struggle the Bismarck fell victim to the English battleships and formations of aircraft, assembled together from the whole of the North Atlantic. Our own aircraft sent out from western France could not, unfortunately, bring her any effective help because of the great distance. Prinz Eugen succeeded in escaping, and entered Brest in good condition. The sinking of the Bismarck was a grave loss for the navy, even though the leaders, as already mentioned, in their bold and unusual methods of conducting the war, had reckoned with such reverses. In this operation it seems that radio location from ships played a decisive part for the first time. It afterwards became more and more apparent that the enemy had a definite superiority over us in this direction. This superiority was one of the reasons which caused the units of the German Fleet and later the armed merchant cruisers to succumb outside home waters. On the other hand, the strong reaction of English naval forces proved that the strategic object had succeeded - that of keeping the English Fleet busy, added to the direct success attained by sinkings. At this time the English convoys were guarded partly by single battleships, partly by groups of battleships. The intention of the leaders to continue the Atlantic operations with the remaining ships was interrupted by the great threat to the Biscay ports from the air. While the U-boats could be protected against it by the building of strong pens, there was no such possibility for ships. In spite of the strongest air defense measures in Brest, the enemy succeeded in getting various bomb hits on the ships, which prevented them from further operations in the Atlantic.
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