The Battle of the Denmark Strait

[Urs Heßling]

moin, Robert,

You believe that Admiral Lütjens ordered the Bismarck to sail to the starboard side of the Prinz Eugen, leaving the cruiser in the direct line of fire from the Prince of Wales and in violation of German naval regulations mandating that smaller naval units be placed on the lee (protected) side of larger warships during combat engagements with enemy forces.

NEIN. Von einem solchen Befehl an die Schiffsführung BS war nie die Rede

Neither do not accept NH-69727 as showing the Bismarck firing to starboard.

JA, da man die Frontseiten der Türme (= Schußrichtung !) erkennen kann.

If you agree that this sums up the consensus of the members of the Marinearchiv Forum,

NEIN, da viele Mitglieder sich (aus verständlichen Gründen) gar nicht (mehr) geäußert haben.

.. we can bring this theme to a close.

JA, bitte !!

Gruß, Urs

[Wink]

Hello Urs,

You stated that such an order on the Bismarck's direction was not in the discussion.

In his Antwort #32 am 26 Juli 2012 under the theme Die Zeit Faktor, Antonio Bonomi stated: "Then we move to where the Bismarck was sailing and I provided you an official evidence from an eyewitness written book on 1943 that Bismarck was sailing on Prinz Eugen starboard side during the period 05.55 until 06.03.  What you have to sustain it was not true?"

In his Antwort #24 am 04 August 2015, Antonio Bonomi asked Skaras: " Can you list here for me the errors or positive orders Adm. G. Lutjens gave at Denmark Strait in your opinion?"  In his Antwort #26 am 04 August 2015, Sarkas replied: "The point is: why did he get into the battle this battle.  He could have turned back to Norway after his formation had been shadowed by British cruisers."

The belief here seems to be that the Bismarck came up on the starboard side of the Prinz Eugen at the very beginning of the battle, presumably at the order of Admiral Lütjens, and there were no contrary comments from any other members of the Forum, including Sarkas.

I can understand your disagreement with the statement that my posting represents the consensus of the members of the Marinearchiv Forum for the reasons that you gave, but I sensed from the responses, and lack thereof, that what I wrote did in fact represent the thoughts of most members of the Forum.  They are all consistent with the basic premise that the starboard views of the Bismarck had not been reversed.

I felt that it was time to bring this matter to a close, but I did not want to exclude any further comments from other members of the Forum, or responses thereto from myself where indicated.  I therefore leave it up to your discretion as to when to end this tread.

Gruß

Robert   

[Olaf]

(...) but I sensed from the responses, and lack thereof, that what I wrote did in fact represent the thoughts of most members of the Forum. 

You've got your right, and we've got our silence.

Happy  ~ Olaf!

[Wink]

Hello Olaf,

Well said.  I believe that you hit the nail on the head in describing the problem.  Instead of a serious discussion of the issues, this exercise quickly deteriorated into a game between me and the rest of the membership of the Marinearchiv Forum.  At times, your silence was deafening. 

The purpose of my theme was to discuss the evidence from German sources regarding the battle of the Denmark Strait since there was no version of the battle that had been universally accepted by the naval history community.  After an in-depth analysis of all of the evidence, I made a number of significant discoveries that shed new light on various aspects of the battle, and I wanted to share those with you and the rest of the community.

I incorporated my findings in the book "The Battle of the Denmark Strait," which is now in print.  Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rohwer was an ardent supporter of my first book, "The Bismarck Chase," but that book was based on limited information from secondary sources.  My new book is far more comprehensive and accurate than my first book, and Dr. Rohwer was impressed by the scope of its content.

After reading my book, Dr. Andrew Lambert, Professor of Naval History at King's College London, commented that he was persuaded by the new treatment of the Denmark Strait action and that he was confident that it would become the standard version of the action.  His colleague, Dr. Geoffrey Till, also a Professor of Naval History at King's College, had favorable comments on the book as well.

I know that you are not all PhDs, and neither am I, but I believed that you still might have a serious interest in this important naval event in the history of the Kriegsmarine in World War II, so I tried to present the evidence in the simplest terms possible.  I quoted text material in German exactly as it appeared in the official documents and asked if you agreed with its implications.

You all saw the responses that I received.  You have no idea of the degree of disappointment that I feel in view of the high expectations that I had for receiving intelligent responses that either supported my position or proved me wrong.

With that, I close this theme.

Gruß

Robert