大象传媒

Sixty Four years to this very day the pride of Adolf Hitlers navy went to the bottom of the North Atlantic and my memory goes back to how I became involved,my ship was sailing from Capetown escorting a large convoy bound for England with a destroyer escort and an armed merchant Cruiser My ship H.M.S Dorsetshire a county class cruiser carrying eight 8" guns in charge.
Two days out and ploughing through heavy seas we received a signal to proceed at all speed to an area in the north atlantic were it was reported that the German battle ship Bismark had been sighted so off we went leaving the Armed merchant cruiser in charge of the convoy.
All through the night with decks awash at times we pushed on and just before dawn a service was held below decks and prayers were said as the estimated time of our arrival drew near,and every man was closed up at his action station the look-outs peering into the distance were the first to see the action wich had just started.
We closed in to our firing range and a shell from the Bismark went over our heads making a noise like a jet plane but we commenced firing our 8" guns and in the next two hours we fired 240 8" shells at the Bismark and I could see ours and the Battle Ship H.M.S. Rodney's shells smashing into her super-structure and when she was nothing more than a burning wreck we were ordered in to finish her off and as we closed to fire three torpedoes I could see scores of men jumping overboard into what was a very rough sea.

We lay off after firing three torpedoes and watched her turn slowly over and bottom up showing her newly painted under side and scores of men still scrambling about on her steel plates as she slowly sank beneath the waves the pride of the German Navy was no more and the Royal Navy had avenged the sinking of H.M.S.Hood.
We then started the dangerous task of picking up survivors and being stopped in the water to achieve this we were sitting ducks for any U/boat that maybe in the area boat ropes were thrown over the side and the survivors hung on to them as best they could and the lads began to pull them up the big sides of the ship but the ropes began to get very slippy and the men were seen to fall back into the sea'so loops were tied into the ropes so that the men could put a foot in them and make it a little easier for them.
But some were so weak they just hadn't the strength to hang on but we had managed to pick up some eighty odd men (84) out of just over one hundred that were saved, we were still hauling men over the side when an officer on the bridge sighted what he thought was a periscope and as I have already answered a question from a German civilian on the internet'as to why we left the scene so quickly when there was hundrerds of men still alive in that very rough sea, would the Skipper of that U/boat let us carry on picking up those hundreds of survivors "I THINK NOT" so our skipper Captain Martin had no alternative but to push off.
Now men were still trying to get on board as the ship started to move and the cries and screams of those poor souls as they fell off the ropes I live with to this day it was heart breaking' after all they were human beings the same as us.

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