Accurate gunnery from the battleships Rodney and King George V. destroyed the power of Hitler's greatest warship by putting the complicated mechanism of her control out of action so that she became un-navigable, and by silencing her big guns.

The cruiser Dorsetshire fired her torpedoes. Four minutes later the Bismarck turned over, exposed her keel above the sea, cracked in two-and sunk.

There was nothing left of her. But hundreds of Germans were struggling in the water. A stiff gale was blowing.

They had no rafts or floats. To launch boats had been impossible.

500 CADETS

There had been about 2,400 men and boys aboard; there were 500 young cadets in addition to the ship's normal company, in training for the ships Hitler is building. Of all these only about 100 were saved.

A warship did all she could until the Germans themselves brought rescue work to an end. The seas were too high for boats to be launched, but ropes and lifebelts were flung over the side.

Men too weak to climb were hauled aboard by loops around their shoulders. Hundreds more might have been saved - probably 400 - but a submarine was sighted, then a flight of German aircraft.

Survivors from the Bismarck are hauled aboard a British

warship, while hundreds more swim in gale-swept waters.

More than 2,000 men were on board.

A hundred were saved. Eight or nine torpedoes and scores of

shells hit the Nazi battleship before she finally heeled

over with her crew swarming like black dots on the hull.

THREW OUT RAFTS

So the warship had to speed away. But before leaving her crew threw rafts and lifebelts into the sea. The Germans left in the sea sank in a few minutes.

Those rescued were confined to the ship's recreation-room. Chilled, weary, punch-drunk from two hours of salvoes of heavy shells, they had no spirit left.

Some were wounded. Those suffering from extreme exhaustion were given hot baths, wrapped in blankets, well fed.

One man, a stoker, who had kept himself afloat with one arm, had to have the other arm amputated. He was given blood transfusions, rallied, but died next day.

They put a German imperial eagle flag - they had no swastika aboard - over his coffin and mustered the prisoners on the quarter-deck. The chaplain read the committal service.

In Britain - without setting foot on it. A thick bandage

over one eye and dressed only in a jacket, underpants and socks ....

A wounded German sailor from the Bismarck is carried up

a gangway by a British soldier.

NAZI SALUTE

As the British saluted, one German shot up his arm in the Nazi style. He was followed by the other officers and men.

One officer took the loss of his ship with philosophic calm, the surgeon-commander who attended him told me, just shrugging slightly and saying. "Well, that's that."

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