An 18 inch MK XII torpedo like those used by the Swordfish against the battleship Bismarck. The contact pistol is fitted and when the point of one of the "whiskers" strikes the enemy hull, the detonator is fired and the warhead explodes.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 634 May 26, 1941
In 30 hours since her last sighting by the British, German battleship Bismarck travels 750 miles Southeast towards France. At 10.30 AM, a Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat piloted by British Flying Officer Dennis Briggs and US Navy ensign Tuck Smith (from Lough Erne, Northern Ireland) locates Bismarck 700 miles West of Land’s End, England. British Admiral Tovey orders Royal Navy ships to the area, including Force H from Gibraltar with aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. At 4 PM, 15 Swordfish launch from Ark Royal but attack British cruiser HMS Sheffield in error (no damage done) and return to Ark Royal to reload torpedoes. At 8.55 PM, the Swordfish attack Bismarck and return to Ark Royal safely. 1 torpedo hits the armour belt causing little damage but the other jams her rudder hard to port, causing Bismarck to steam in circles. Tovey sends 6 destroyers to harry Bismarck and maintain contact overnight while the capital ships converge.
http://www.kbismarck.com/histoperi.html
26 May 1941 (Monday):
1030. Sighted by Catalina Z/209 flying boat at about 49º 20’ North, 21º 50’ West.
1740. Sighted by Sheffield.
2047-2115. Attacked by fifteen Swordfish of the 810th, 818th, and 820th Squadrons from carrier Ark Royal. The Bismarck is hit by two (or three) 18 inch MK XII torpedoes. One torpedo (or two) hits the port side amidships, and another hits the stern in the starboard side. As a result of this attack both rudders jammed at 12º to port.
2054. Bismarck reports to Group West: “Attack by carrier-borne aircraft!”
2105. Bismarck reports to Group West: “[Position] Square BE 6192. Have sustained torpedo hit aft.”
2115. Bismarck reports to Group West: “Torpedo hit amidships!”
2115. Bismarck reports to Group West: “Ship no longer manoeuvrable!”
2130-2155. Fires six salvoes against the Sheffield. Distance nine miles. No hits scored.
2140. Bismarck reports to Supreme Command of the Navy (O.K.M.) and Group West: “Ship unable to manoeuvre. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Führer.”
2238. Sighted by Polish destroyer Piorun.
2242. Opens fire against Piorun.
2325. Bismarck reports to Group West: “Am surrounded by Renown and light forces.”
2358. Bismarck reports: “To the Führer of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler: We shall fight to the last man with confidence in you, my Führer, and with rock-solid trust in Germany’s victory!”
2359. Bismarck reports to Group West: “Ship is weaponry-wise and mechanically fully intact; however, it cannot be steered with the engines.”
http://www.kbismarck.com/bismarck-chase.html
The Bismarck is Located.
In the morning of 26 May, as the Bismarck was approaching the French coast, the crew was ordered to repaint the top of the main and secondary turrets yellow. Hard job considering the state of the seas, nevertheless it was carried out although the yellow paint washed off at least once.
A few hours earlier, at 0300, two Coastal Command Catalina flying boats had taken off from Lough Erne in Northern Ireland on a reconnaissance mission in search for the Bismarck. At about 1010, Catalina Z of 209 Squadron commanded by Dennis Briggs sighted the German battleship that immediately answered with very accurate anti-aircraft fire.2 The Catalina jettisoned her four depth charges and took evasive action after her hull was holed by shrapnel. Then reported: “One battleship, bearing 240º, distance 5 miles, course 150º. My position 49º 33’ North, 21º 47’ West. Time of transmission 1030/26.” After more than 31 hours since the contact was broken, the Bismarck had been located again. Unfortunately for the British, however, Admiral Tovey’s ships were too far away from the German battleship. The King George V was 135 miles to the north, and the Rodney (with a top speed of 21 knots) was 125 miles to the northeast. They would never catch up with the Bismarck unless her speed could be seriously reduced.
Only the Force H, under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir James F. Somerville, sailing from Gibraltar, had a chance to intercept Bismarck. The battlecruiser Renown (Captain Rhoderick R. McGriggor) was in the best position, but having lost the Hood only two days earlier, the Admiralty did not permit Renown to engage the Bismarck. The best hope for the British was to launch an air strike from the carrier Ark Royal. The Ark Royal had already launched 10 Swordfish at 0835 to try find the Bismarck, and once the report of the Catalina sighting arrived, the two closest Swordfish altered course to intercept. At 1114, Swordfish 2H located the German battleship too, followed seven minutes later by the 2F. Shortly afterwards two more Swordfish, fitted with long-range tanks, were launched to relieve 2H and 2F and keep touch with Bismarck.
At 1450, fifteen Swordfish commanded by Lieutenant-Commander J. A. Stewart-Moore took off from the Ark Royal (Captain Loben E. Maund) to attack the Bismarck. At 1550, they obtained radar contact with a ship and dived to attack. The attack, however, turned out to be a failure since the ship sighted was actually the light cruiser Sheffield (Captain Charles A. Larcom) which had been detached from Force H to make contact with the Bismarck. Luckily for the British, the Sheffield was not hit by any of the 11 torpedoes launched because they had faulty magnetic pistols. Two torpedoes exploded upon hitting the water, three on crossing the cruiser wake, and the other six were successfully avoided. The Swordfish returned to the Ark Royal where they landed after 1700, but not without trouble because of the terrible weather conditions. The rise and fall of the stern was measured to be 56 feet, and three aircraft smashed their undercarriages against the flight deck. Shortly afterwards, at 1740, the Sheffield obtained visual contact with the Bismarck.
The British put every effort on one last attack. It would be dark soon, and they knew this was their last real chance to stop or at least slow down the Bismarck. If they failed again, the Bismarck would reach the French coast on the next day, since another air strike late at night was unlikely to succeed. Therefore, at 1915, another group comprised of fifteen Swordfish, mostly the same used in the previous attack, took off from the Ark Royal, and this time their torpedoes were armed with contact pistols.
Meanwhile, the pursuing British forces had run across U-556 (Lieutenant Herbert Wohlfarth) which sighted the Renown and the Ark Royal at 1948. The German submarine was perfectly placed for an attack, but could not do so as it had no torpedoes left. Wohlfarth had spent his last “fishes” on the ships of convoy HX-126 a few days back. Therefore, U-556 could only make signals reporting the position, course and speed of the enemy.
The Swordfish striking force, this time under the command of Lieutenant-Commander T.P. Coode, first approached the Sheffield to get the range and bearing to the Bismarck, and at 2047, began the attack. Bismarck’s anti-aircraft battery opened fire immediately. During the course of the attack, the Bismarck received at least two torpedo hits. One torpedo (or two) hit the port side amidships, and another struck the stern in the starboard side. The first hit did not cause important damage, but the second jammed both rudders at 12º to port. The Bismarck made a circle and then began to steer northwest involuntarily into the wind. As before, none of the Swordfish were shot down although some were hit several times. The damage to the Bismarck was so serious that at 2140, Admiral Lütjens sent the following message to Group West: “Ship unable to manoeuvre. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Führer”.
The impact in the stern area caused the flooding of the steering and other adjacent compartments. This meant that all repair attempts would have to be done under water. Divers were ordered to enter the steering compartment in order to free the rudders, but the violent movement of the water inside made this an impossible task. It was not possible to lower divers over the side due to the high seas. As an alternative, it was considered to blow the rudders away with explosives and try to steer the ship using the propellers alone, but the idea was rejected fearing that the explosion could damage the propellers.
Destroyers Attack Bismarck.
After the aerial torpedo attack, the new erratic course of the Bismarck caused her to close the range with the Sheffield. At about 2145, Bismarck opened fire on the Sheffield at a range of about nine miles. Bismarck fired a total of six salvoes and the British cruiser turned away to the north under the cover of a smoke screen. The Sheffield was not hit, but some splinters disabled her radar and injured twelve men of whom three died later.3 The turn caused Sheffield to lose contact with Bismarck, but at 2200, she made contact with the destroyers of the 4th Flotilla (Captain Philip L. Vian) Cossack, Maori, Zulu, Sikh and Piorun, and provided them with the approximate bearing and distance to the German battleship.
At 2238, the Polish destroyer Piorun (Commander Eugeniusz Plawski) sighted the Bismarck. The German battleship responded shortly thereafter with three salvoes. The destroyers proceeded to attack, but Bismarck defended herself vigorously in the dark. At 2342, splinters knocked down Cossack’s antennas.
An 18 inch MK XII torpedo like those used by the Swordfish against the battleship Bismarck. The contact pistol is fitted and when the point of one of the "whiskers" strikes the enemy hull, the detonator is fired and the warhead explodes.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191813/Pilot-sank-Bismarck-tells-tale-70-years.html
‘I sank the Bismarck but only found out 59 years later’: British pilot learns of his place in history
By Daily Mail Reporter
Every war veteran has a story to tell. But few could rival John Moffat’s extraordinary tale.
Now 89, Mr Moffat had a ringside seat to the sinking of the Bismarck, one of the most dramatic sea battles of the Second World War.
But it was relatively recently that the pilot, who gave up flying only last year, found out just how pivotal his role was.
It was the torpedo he fired that crippled the rudder of the German battleship, leaving it at the mercy of Royal Navy ships which then sank it in the Atlantic off the west coast of France on May 27, 1941.
He was piloting one of three Swordfish open-cockpit biplanes that set off from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal to take vengeance on the Bismarck, which days before had destroyed the British warship Hood with the loss of 1,416 lives.
‘What nobody talks about were the conditions - they were unbelievable,’ recalled Mr Moffat, who has written a book, I Sank The Bismarck, about his experiences.
‘The ship was pitching 60ft, water was running over the decks and the wind was blowing at 70 or 80mph.
Bismarck
‘And nobody mentions the deck hands who had to bring the planes up from the hangars - they did something special. After they brought them up they had to open
the wings which took ten men for each wing. And then they had to wind a handle to get the starters working.
‘I only stopped flying nine months ago and there are no other planes in the world that could have done what the Swordfish planes did that day.
‘After take-off we climbed to 6,000 feet to get above the really thick cloud and we knew when we were near because all hell broke loose with Bismarck’s fire. We got the order to attack and I went down and saw the enormous bloody ship. I thought the Ark Royal was big, but this one, blimey.
‘I must have been under 2,000 yards when I was about to launch the torpedo at the bow, but as I was about to press the button I heard in my ear “not now, not now”.
‘I turned round and saw the navigator leaning right out of the plane with his backside in the air. Then I realised what he was doing - he was looking at the sea because if I had let the torpedo go and it had hit a wave it could have gone anywhere. I had to put it in a trough.
‘Then I heard him say “let it go” and I pressed the button. Then I heard him say “we’ve got a runner” - and I got out of there.
‘My navigator was a chap called John “Dusty” Miller and I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to find out what happened to him or where he is.’
Mr Moffat pulled up before the torpedo hit and didn’t see it strike. The following morning he flew to the ship for a second attack but there was no need.
He watched as the Bismarck, which had been under siege from the Royal Navy, rolled over. And he saw hundreds of German sailors leaping into the water as she started to sink. Only 115 of Bismarck’s crew of 2,222 survived.
‘I didn’t dare look any further, I just got back to the Ark Royal and I thought: “There but for the grace of God go I”,’ said Mr Moffat, who now lives in Dunkeld, Scotland.
He only found out it was his torpedo that crippled the Bismarck when the Fleet Air Arm - the Navy’s air force - wrote to him in 2000. He said: ‘It gave me a sort of satisfaction.’