Killing the Bismarck

Killing the Bismarck
Author: Iain Ballantyne
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 523
Release: 2014-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1848849605

“An excellent account . . . A suspenseful narrative that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.” —WWII History Magazine In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy’s pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans, to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved. He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat and mouse game, shadowing Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battle cruiser Hood, in which all but three of her ship’s complement were killed—an event that filled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo-bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas. Finally, the author takes us into the final showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler’s fleet. This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called “ordinary sailors” caught up in extraordinary events—conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power.

Bismarck

Bismarck
Author: Iain Ballantyne
Publisher: Ipso Books
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2016-05-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1504059158

With extensive eyewitness accounts, the author of Killing the Bismarck vividly reconstructs the day British soldiers sank the infamous Nazi battleship. May 26, 1941. After a desperate chase lasting three days and more than seventeen hundred miles, Britain’s Home Fleet would finally close in on the world’s most powerful battleship, the very ship that sank the Royal Navy’s battlecruiser HMS Hood. The German battleship Bismarck was literally in a class by itself, being one of two newly-designed Bismarck-class ships in the German fleet. But it would soon face, and ultimately lose, a brutal fight to the finish involving more than five thousand men of the Royal Navy and twenty-six thousand men of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. Historian Iain Ballantyne spent years conducting interviews with surviving veterans who had been present on that fateful day. Published here for the first time, alongside a compelling narrative of the final twenty-four hours of the mission to sink the Bismarck, are transcripts of those interviews, offering the unique eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors who participated in one of the most significant sea battles of World War II.

Bismarck

Bismarck
Author: Michael Tamelander
Publisher: Casemate
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1935149822

The author of Blitzkrieg covers one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in an “outstanding book about naval warfare” (World War II History). When the German battleship Bismarck—a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns—left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of May 18, 1941, the British battlecruiser Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to find her quickly, as several large convoys were heading for Britain. On May 24, Bismarck was found off the coast of Greenland, but the ensuing battle was disastrous for the British. The Hood was totally destroyed within minutes, with only three crewmen surviving, and Prince of Wales was badly damaged. The chase resumed until the German behemoth was finally caught, this time by four British capital ships supported by torpedo-bombers from the carrier Ark Royal. The icy North Atlantic roiled from the crash of shellfire and bursting explosions until finally the Bismarck collapsed, sending nearly two thousand German sailors to a watery grave. Tamelander and Zetterling’s work rests on stories from survivors and the latest historical discoveries. The book starts with a thorough account of maritime developments from 1871 up to the era of the giant battleship, and ends with a vivid account, hour by hour, of the dramatic and fateful hunt for the mighty Bismarck, Nazi Germany’s last hope to pose a powerful surface threat to Allied convoys. “Exciting story-telling . . . recreat[es] the thrill of the hunt.” —International Journal of Maritime History “[An] epic sea chase and its vivid, human details.” —World War II

Hunt the Bismarck

Hunt the Bismarck
Author: Angus Konstam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019-09-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472833856

A ground-breaking narrative account of one of World War II's most exciting chase stories, the pursuit of the legendary German battleship Bismarck. Hunt the Bismarck tells the story of Operation Rheinübung, the Atlantic sortie of Nazi Germany's largest battleship, Bismarck, in May 1941 and her subsequent pursuit by the Royal Navy. Bismarck entered naval service in the summer of 1940. She was well-armed, with eight 15in guns as well as a powerful array of lighter weapons, while her armoured protection earned her the reputation of being unsinkable. This claim was put to the test in May 1941 when she sortied into the Atlantic and fought the legendary battle of the Denmark Strait, destroying HMS Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy. Bismarck was now loose in the North Atlantic. However, damage sustained in the battle limited her ability to roam at will, and the Royal Navy deployed the Home Fleet to avenge the sinking of the Hood. The stage was set for the greatest chase story in the history of naval warfare. Drawing on a wealth of first-hand accounts and intertwining extensive research into a fast-paced narrative, this is the most readable and accurate account of Bismarck's epic pursuit ever produced.

The Sinking of the Bismarck

The Sinking of the Bismarck
Author: William Shirer
Publisher: Young Voyageur
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2017-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0760354332

An acclaimed historian provides a thrilling account of the British Navy's unlikely defeat of the world's most feared battleship!

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea
Author: Michael Veitch
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-07-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0733645909

'Readers look for and admire good writers and great writing. They will find it, in spades, in The Battle of the Bismarck Sea.' - The Canberra Times In the thick of World War II, during the first week of March 1943, Japan made a final, desperate lunge for control of the South West Pacific. In the ensuing Battle of the Bismarck Sea, a force of land-based Australian and American planes attacked a massive convoy of Japanese warships. The odds were against them. But a devastating victory was won and Japan's hopes of regaining the initiative in New Guinea destroyed. More importantly for Australians, the victory decisively removed any possibility that Australia might be invaded by Japanese forces. It was, for us, one of the most significant times in our history - a week when our future was profoundly in the balance. Bestselling author Michael Veitch tells the riveting story of this crucial moment in history - how the bravery of young men and experienced fighters, renegades and rule-followers, overcame some of the darkest days of World War II.

Battleship Bismarck

Battleship Bismarck
Author: William H. Garzke
Publisher: Seaforth Publsihing
Total Pages: 624
Release: 2019-06
Genre: World War, 1939-1945
ISBN: 9781526759740

This new book on Bismarck offers a forensic analysis of the design, operation and loss of Germany s greatest battleship and draws on survivors accounts and the authors" combined decades of experience in naval architecture and command at sea. Their investigation into every aspect of this battleship has taken fifty-six years of painstaking research, during which time they conducted extensive interviews and corresponded with the ship s designers and the survivors of the battle of the Denmark Strait and Bismarck s final battle. Albert Schnarke, for instance, the former gunnery officer of Tirpitz, Bismarck s sister ship, aided the authors greatly by translating and supplying manuscript materials from those who had participated in the design and operations. Survivors of Bismarck s engagements contributed to this comprehensive study including D B H Wildish, RN, damage control officer aboard HMS Prince of Wales, who located photographs of battle damage to his ship. After the wreck of Bismarck was discovered in June 1989, the authors served as technical consultants to Dr Robert Ballard, who led three trips to the site. Film maker and explorer James Cameron has contributed a chapter, which gives the reader a comprehensive overview of his deep-sea explorations on Bismarck and it is illustrated with his team s remarkable photographs of the wreck. The result of nearly six decades of research and collaboration, this new work is an engrossing and encyclopaedic account of the events surrounding one of the most epic naval battles of World War Two. And Battleship Bismarck finally resolves some of the major questions around her career, not least the most profound one of all: Who sank the Bismarck, the British or the Germans? AUTHORS: William H. Garzke is a graduate of the of the University of Michigan with a degree in naval architecture and marine engineering. Robert O. Dulin is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and later earned his MS in naval architecture and marine engineering from MIT. William J. Jurens currently serves as an associate editor for Warship International. James Cameron is a Canadian film maker and deep-sea explorer.

Summary of Iain Ballantyne's Killing the Bismarck

Summary of Iain Ballantyne's Killing the Bismarck
Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
Total Pages: 58
Release: 2022-05-16T22:59:00Z
Genre: History
ISBN:

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The launch of the battleship Bismarck was celebrated by the German people, but Hitler made it clear that Germany would not be spending more resources on its fleet than necessary. #2 Hitler did not want war with the British, and he knew that building a fleet to rival the Royal Navy would provoke them. He told the admirals that he was the boss. The British Naval Attaché thought that Hitler was a disciple of Bismarck, and that he wanted to leave the navy in a half-developed state. #3 Hitler was very interested in military technology, but he could not find a single word to say about Bismarck’s masterpiece of naval construction and weapon technology. He was not moved to comment.

Justifying Genocide

Justifying Genocide
Author: Stefan Ihrig
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 471
Release: 2016-01-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674915178

The Armenian Genocide and the Nazi Holocaust are often thought to be separated by a large distance in time and space. But Stefan Ihrig shows that they were much more connected than previously thought. Bismarck and then Wilhelm II staked their foreign policy on close relations with a stable Ottoman Empire. To the extent that the Armenians were restless under Ottoman rule, they were a problem for Germany too. From the 1890s onward Germany became accustomed to excusing violence against Armenians, even accepting it as a foreign policy necessity. For many Germans, the Armenians represented an explicitly racial problem and despite the Armenians’ Christianity, Germans portrayed them as the “Jews of the Orient.” As Stefan Ihrig reveals in this first comprehensive study of the subject, many Germans before World War I sympathized with the Ottomans’ longstanding repression of the Armenians and would go on to defend vigorously the Turks’ wartime program of extermination. After the war, in what Ihrig terms the “great genocide debate,” German nationalists first denied and then justified genocide in sweeping terms. The Nazis too came to see genocide as justifiable: in their version of history, the Armenian Genocide had made possible the astonishing rise of the New Turkey. Ihrig is careful to note that this connection does not imply the Armenian Genocide somehow caused the Holocaust, nor does it make Germans any less culpable. But no history of the twentieth century should ignore the deep, direct, and disturbing connections between these two crimes.

Hunter Killers

Hunter Killers
Author: Iain Ballantyne
Publisher: Orion
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2013-09-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1409144208

HUNTER KILLER: a submarine designed to pursue and attack enemy submarines and surface ships using torpedoes. HUNTER KILLERS will follow the careers of four daring British submarine captains who risked their lives to keep the rest of us safe, their exploits consigned to the shadows until now. Their experiences encompass the span of the Cold War, from voyages in WW2-era submarines under Arctic ice to nuclear-powered espionage missions in Soviet-dominated seas. There are dangerous encounters with Russian spy ships in UK waters and finally, as the communist facade begins to crack, they hold the line against the Kremlin's oceanic might, playing a leading role in bringing down the Berlin Wall. It is the first time they have spoken out about their covert lives in the submarine service. This is the dramatic untold story of Britain's most-secret service.