HMS London Warships of the Royal Navy Iain Ballantyne

H.M.S. London - Iain Ballantyne

THE BISMARCK HUNT

In this edited extract from his book

H.M.S. LONDON

Iain Ballantyne tells how the WW2 British cruiser became involved in the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck and then, using top secret Enigma intercepts, for the enemy vessel’s supply ships.

THE blackest news of the war so far for the Royal Navy reached HMS London on 24 May. The German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen had broken through the Denmark Strait, destroying the battle-cruiser HMS Hood and damaging the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales. While the Bismarck's 15-inch guns finished the Hood off, the Prinz Eugen - London's counterpart - had managed to inflict considerable damage on the vulnerable old battlecruiser's upperworks with her 8-inch guns. Only three sailors out of Hood's 1,421-strong crew survived.

Damaged by shells from the 14-inch guns of Prince of Wales, the Bismarck should have immediately turned for home. Instead both German warships pressed on into the Atlantic, where supply vessels were waiting with the provisions they needed for an extended campaign against British merchant shipping. The German surface raiders hoped to be aided in their fight by seven U-boats using the same supply ships.

British warships were drawn into the Bismarck hunt from all points of the compass: The old battleships Revenge and Ramillies from Canadian waters; battleship Rodney, heading out from the Clyde with her destroyers and cruisers; Force H - including the battle-cruiser Renown and carrier Ark Royal - from the Mediterranean. Most important of all, the battleship King George V, carrying the Home Fleet commander Admiral John Tovey, the carrier Victorious and battlecruiser Repulse plus five cruisers, were within striking range. The London was also called away from escorting the troopship Arundel Castle, with orders to join the chase. Shortly before 5p.m. on 24 May she received a signal, which said:
'Part company with Arundel Castle and destroyers. Order them to proceed in execution of previous orders. London proceed at economical speed...your movements should be adjusted to close enemy and you should prepare to take over shadowing duties.'

The London’s Engineering Artificer Gordon Bruty noticed the change in pace:
'Down in the engine room of course we didn't know what was going on. We were aware that something was up but not the exact nature of it. The machinery was working at high speed and you wouldn't do that for nothing. I think that we were told eventually that we were taking part in the hunt for the Bismarck.'

After Ark Royal's Swordfish inflicted damage that slowed her up, the Bismarck was cornered on 27 May. Rodney and King George V's big guns did the main damage, while torpedoes from the cruiser Dorsetshire completed her destruction. Prinz Eugen had parted company with the Bismarck on May 24 and, after a week prowling the Atlantic she headed for Brest. This left the supply ships to be hunted down and destroyed, with HMS London one of several British cruisers ordered to scour the central and southern Atlantic. At 9.19am on 25 May the London had received further instructions by signal from the Admiralty, diverting her away from the Bismarck hunt. A general signal from the Admiralty said: 'London...proceeding to search for enemy tanker.'

Aside from tidying up loose ends from the Bismarck chase, it was important the supply vessels should be eliminated in order to hamper the activities of U-boats and ensure heavy ships trapped at Brest would have no sources of supply should they break out into the Atlantic. HMS London headed for a rendezvous on 3 June with the destroyer HMS Brilliant, which would be her hunting partner. The following day at 07o 35' N - 31o 29' W, the two British warships found their first German supply ship, the 17,000 tons Esso Hamburg, which had, in fact, re-fuelled the Prinz Eugen on the morning of 28 May. The oil transfer had been curtailed when the German cruiser's lookouts spotted smoke on the horizon. Ordnance Artificer Bramley helped man HMS London’s 8-inch guns.

'During this time I was in Y turret. You couldn't see anything, just the mechanism working and the sound of the gun going off. My job was to oversee and maintain the hydraulics. When we found the Esso Hamburg she started heading away from us and I remember a Petty Officer in Y turret saying "for tuppence I'd put a shell through them buggers". But instead, the London used her two-pounder pom-pom to put some shots across her bows. It put the fear of God in them. When the man who had fired the two pounder got back home he found that his family had been killed in an air raid. I am sure if he had known he would have made certain his warning shots hit the German ship.'

Having secured from Action Stations, with the exception of the gun crews and some damage control teams, many of London's sailors made their way to the upper deck to watch what happened next. It appeared the Esso Hamburg had tried to scuttle herself. Surgeon Lieutenant Ransome Wallis was among those looking on: 'London was steaming about 22 knots in a large circle about a big tanker, which was obviously in its death throes, listing badly and down by the bows. Her crew in two large lifeboats were pulling towards us and we stopped for a short time to pick them up before continuing to circle the stricken ship, which now suddenly capsized and floated bottom upwards. Her underside was painted a bright red.'

The British cruiser’s Boy Seaman Waldie Willing witnessed the scene while crewing one of London's 4-inch guns: 'At first the Germans it looked like they were striking out for the Fatherland. One of our officers got this loud hailer and used it to persuade them to come alongside, which they did and came up the scrambling nets. We were keen to get them aboard as soon as possible, as we were stopped dead in the ocean, a sitting duck for any U-boat.'

The Prisoners of War picked up by the London were German Navy sailors, with a sprinkling of merchant seamen. Able Seaman Tamon heard one of the captives expressing gratitude at being 'liberated': 'He was a Polish messboy called Karel, who was interrogated by two of our Polish Midshipmen. It turned out he had been forcibly conscripted by the Germans in Gdansk and went to sea rather serve in army.' One of the London's sailors asked a German officer how he thought the war was going for the Reich. With great pomposity, the German replied: 'We shall win on the land, in the air and on the sea.' But, on glancing over at his sinking ship, he corrected his statement: 'No, we shall win on the land and in the air.' But the Esso Hamburg was being very stubborn, so HMS Brilliant fired a torpedo into the supply ship, which failed to go off. Next, she poured fire from her 4.7-inch guns into the German vessel, which caught fire and sank. Unfortunately a huge pillar of smoke from burning oil curling up into the sky was a perfect warning sign for any other German vessels lurking in that stretch of ocean. Back aboard London, the German officers had been given the Gun Room as their accommodation. It had been carefully prepared with hidden microphones before they moved. German-speaking members of London's crew - including the Polish midshipmen - were also put in the Gun Room, to pose as prisoners from another supply ship, to see what they might pick up.

More powerful than eaves-dropping, or effective than sailors posing as Germans, was the intelligence being provided by Bletchley Park, the renowned - but very secret - code-breaking centre in the UK, where Germany's Enigma encryption had just been cracked.

On 9 May 1941 to the south of Iceland, U-110 had been forced to the surface and her crew abandoned ship, believing they had successfully set scuttling charges. However, the submarine failed to go down and a boarding party from the British destroyer HMS Bulldog managed to recover an Enigma machine, rotor settings, charts and code books. This amazing episode was kept secret until the early 1970s, when it was finally admitted that Britain had been able to read encrypted German signals throughout the rest of the war, gaining a decisive advantage for the Allies. Although a Luftwaffe Enigma machine had been passed to Britain by the Poles early in the war, Bulldog's boarding of U-110 was the key moment as it yielded the missing items needed to penetrate Enigma. While radio direction finding and British spies in Germany, Spain and Portugal provided essential information in the hunt for the supply ships, cracking Enigma helped fix the planned U-boat rendezvous points.

The cruiser HMS Neptune cornered the Gonzenheim on the same day as London dealt with the Esso Hamburg, while the cruisers Kenya and Aurora sank the Belchen the previous day. On 5 June HMS London found the supply ship, Egerland, which was flying the Panamanian flag. The British cruiser's crew believed they had found their latest victim via their ship's radar, for, like everyone else, they were to remain ignorant of Bletchley Park's work for thirty years. In an attempt to stop the supply ship scuttling herself, the London opened fire and managed to set the Egerland on fire. The German vessel's crew set scuttling charges and abandoned ship, with several more boatloads of Germans now being taken aboard the already crowded HMS London.

Many of the new PoWs were U-boat crews who had been waiting for submarines to turn up and the new intake contained some arrogant individuals who appeared to epitomise the Nazis' Aryan ideal - they were tall, blonde, tanned and very fit. But, as Surgeon Lieutenant Ransome Wallis discovered on examining them, they nearly all had bad teeth.