[PzLdr]

Until the Japanese sank H.M.S PRINCE OF WALES and REPULSE off Malaya in December, 1941, no aircraft attack ON A MANEUVERING warship had succeeded in sinking her [BISMARCK comes to mind. Damaged yes, sunk, no]. In the only previous carrier/ surface vessel combat, SCHARNHORST and GNIESENAU sank the British fleet carrier H.M.S GLORIOUS. So no one was certain a carrier could sink a battleship. And as you point out, it appears a mismatch - in favor of the battleship.

[CougarGA7]

In a follow up to about the worst job of forshadowing I ever have done (Never post at one a.m. after you have been working since 5:30 am the previous morning). Author Karl-Heinz Freiser in a discussion of the constant planning and re-planning leading up to the Sickle Cut plan describes the January 10th incident as follows:

The an episode occurred in January that cast doubt on all the past planning. This was a typical case of friction, the way von Clausewitz had described it, one of those little grains of sand that can play havoc with the gears of a gigantic military machine. Major [Hellmuth] Reinberger, a general staff officer in the airborne forces, was to travel on official business from Münster to Cologne on 10 January. In the officers club the evening before, he met Reserve Major [Erich] Hoenmanns, a pilot who had been recalled to duty, who persuaded him to come along the his plane. In-flight visibility suddenly deteriorated. In addition, the Rhine was frozen over and could hardly be distinguished from the adjoining riverbanks. Hoenmanns realized that they had drifeted off course and wanted to turn back. At that moment, the engine quit for some inexplicable reason and the aircraft made a crash landing, although nobody was injured. A farmer, who was far from where they had crashed, told them that they were near Mechelen on Belgian territory. Reinberger was very upset to hear that because in his attaché case he carried extracts from the strictly secret deployment plan as well as operations orders fro airborne missions. However, he managed to burn only some of the papers before Belgian gendarmes showed up and arrested both officers.

- Karl-Heinze Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend: The 1940 Campaign in the West

Half-burned secret documents from the German aircraft that made an emergency landing near Mechelen on 10 January 1940 - Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freidburg i.Br. [Federal Military Archives] (ZA 3/55)