Plot

The World War II story of the Royal Navy's effort to defeat Nazi Germany's most powerful warship.

Chronicles the breakout of the Bismarck during the early days of World War II. Seen from the point of view of the many Naval vessels on both sides and from the central headquarters of the British where the search for the super battleship was controlled.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

In 1941, Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More) takes over as Director of Operations at Naval Headquarters in London just as they receive reports that the Bismarck, the pride of the German Navy, is going out to sea in the North Atlantic. Shepard argues in favor of moving as many ships as possible to the area to find her. In their first encounter with the Bismarck, the Royal Navy loses H.M.S. Hood, the largest ship in the fleet, while H.M.S. Prince of Wales is severely damaged. Shepard then transfers ships from the Mediterranean fleet to go after the Bismarck. They include the aircraft carrier Ark Royal on which his son Tom (John Stride) is serving as an aircraft gunner. Damaged in a second encounter, the Bismarck heads for Brest on the French coast and the safety of German coastal defenses and air cover. The only ship in range is the Ark Royal, but in their first air sortie, they inadvertently attack H.M.S. Sheffield when they mistake it for the Bismarck. In the second air sortie, they damage the Bismarck sufficiently to allow the surface fleet to catch up to her and sink her.—garykmcd

In 1939, the Nazi Germany's largest and most powerful battleship, Bismarck, is launched in a ceremony at Hamburg with Adolf Hitler attending. The launching of the hull is seen as the beginning of an era of German sea power. Two years later, in 1941, British convoys are being ravaged by U-boats and surface raider attacks which cut off supplies which Britain needs to continue the war. In the most recent months U-Boats have sunk 600,000 tons of British merchant shipping.

Britain stands alone in Europe, as Germany rampages across the continent and into Africa. The battle of the North Atlantic is guided by the Admiralty in London. The war room is buried 200 feet underground. This is the central nervous system of the British Navy.

In May, British intelligence discovers the Bismarck, and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen are about to break into the North Atlantic from the coast of Norway, to attack convoys. The Bismark has completed 3 months of training in the Baltics. The Bismarck has the guns and the range to sink every ship in the convoy without ever coming into firing range itself.

The man assigned to coordinate the hunt is the Admiralty's Director of Operations, Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More), who has been distraught over the death of his wife in an air raid and the sinking of his ship by German ships commanded by Admiral Gunther Lutjens (Karel Stepanek).

Staff includes Women's Royal Naval Service Second Officer (WRNS) Anne Davis (Dana Wynter), Commander Richards (Maurice Denham), and others. Shepard is a bit of a disciplinarian and asks all staff to be properly dressed in Military uniform at all times, no eating at the desk (even though Richards had pulled 2 straight shifts in the war room), and no addressing each other by their Christian names.

Shepard reports to First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Dudley Pound (Laurence Naismith). Dudley wants a man like Shepard in the Admiralty as he believes that only a man with cold, hard intelligence will win the battle of the Atlantic, and not one with charm and wit.

Dudley sacrifices an agent to get confirmation that the ship the British are talking about is the Bismarck. The agent is killed when the British make direct contact with him in Nazi occupied territory. But the agent manages to send a partial radio message before he is gunned down. The message does not mention Bismarck, but Dudley proceeds on the assumption that it is. Dudley calls Admiral Sir John Tovey (Michael Hordern) the C-In-C of the Home Fleet in HMS King George V., who asks his officers to create a plan to intercept the Bismarck on any one of its 4 routes. Tovey decides to split his splits to guard all 4 passages.

British air patrols locate the Bismarck in Norway, but torpedo planes sent to hunt it are thwarted by fog and low visibility. Shepard allocates more ships to the home fleet but leaves the convoys perilously unguarded as a result. The convoy was carrying 20,000 troops, but Shepard is willing to take this "calculated risk".

Upon receiving his new post, Shepard discovers Lutjens is the fleet commander on the Bismarck. Shepard's experience of conflict with the German Navy and his understanding of Lutjens allows him to predict the Bismarck's movements. Shepard is aggressive to his staff but comes increasingly to rely on the coolness and skill of his assistant, Anne Davis.

Lutjens is also bitter. After World War I, he considered he had no recognition for his efforts in the war. Lutjens promises the captain of the Bismarck, Ernst Lindemann (Carl Mohner), that this time, he and Germany will be remembered in greatness. Lutjens takes advantage of the dense fog and sets sail to break into the Atlantic.

The two German warships encounter HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait, and the four warships engage in a deadly gun duel. The battle results in the annihilation and violent disintegration of the Hood, shocking combatants on both sides. Prince of Wales is alone and is fired on by the two German ships. She manages to inflict damage on Bismarck's bow, but Bismarck returns fire, destroying the Prince of Wales' bridge. Prince of Wales emits a smoke screen behind which to retreat. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen also retreat, but they are shadowed by the cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk using radar. On hearing of the loss of the Hood, Winston Churchill issues the order to "sink the Bismarck".

Later, Prinz Eugen breaks away and heads towards the port of Brest, in occupied France, while Bismarck turns and fires at the British cruisers to provide cover as she escapes. The attack forces the cruisers to retreat. An air assault from the carrier HMS Victorious damages Bismarck's fuel tanks, but the vessel is otherwise largely undamaged.

The battleship's escape is shadowed by smaller British ships. Shepard, obsessed with Bismarck, must endure the likely death of his son as an air-gunner on a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber from HMS Ark Royal, one of the British ships deployed to the hunt.

Back at London's operations headquarters, Captain Shepard gambles that Admiral Gunther Lutjens, the Fleet Commander aboard Bismarck, has ordered a return to friendly waters where U-boats and air cover will make it impossible to attack. He plans to intercept and attack the German vessel before she reaches safety.

Shepard commits large forces stripped from convoy escort and uses Catalina flying boats to search for the battleship. His hunch proves correct, and Bismarck is located, apparently steaming towards the German-occupied French coast. British forces have a narrow window to destroy or slow their prey before German support and their own diminishing fuel supplies prevent further attack.

Swordfish torpedo planes from HMS Ark Royal have two chances. The first fails: they misidentify HMS Sheffield as Bismarck; the new magnetic torpedo detonators are faulty and most explode as they hit the water. Returning to the carrier and changing to conventional contact explodes, their second attack, this time on the Bismarck, is successful. One torpedo causes only minor damage; but a catastrophic second hit near the stern jams the German battleship's rudder.

Unable to repair the rudder, the German battleship steams in circles. A night attack by British destroyer's torpedoes Bismarck but the battleship returns fire, destroying one of the pursuing destroyers. The main force of British ships (including battleships HMS Rodney and HMS King George V) finds Bismarck the next day, raining gunfire on her. Lutjens in his final moments insists to Lindemann that German forces will arrive to save them, but he dies when a shell destroys Bismarck's bridge. The remaining bridge officers are killed, and the crew abandon their sinking ship.

On board King George V, Admiral John Tovey orders the newly joined cruiser HMS Dorsetshire to finish Bismarck off. The cruiser fires torpedoes at the German battleship, causing the vessel to sink faster than her crew can escape.

After the sinking of the Bismarck and having been told that his son has been rescued, Shepard asks Davis out to dinner, believing it to be nine o'clock at night, only to realize it is nine in the morning. Davis suggests breakfast, and they walk off together.