Featured battle : Bismarck. Sinking of

Part of Second World War

Date : 18 May 1941 - 27 May 1941

The newly built powerful pocket battleship Bismarck sailed from port in consort with the heavy cruiser Prine Eugen. Their mission was to break out into the Atlantic and once there attack vital allied convoys. The British Home Fleet were alerted and the radar equipped HMS Suffolk sighted the Germans at 1930 hrs on the 23 May in the Denmark Strait. The Germans were intercepted by HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. In the exchange of fire HMS Hood was sunk, hits on the Bismarck both flooded compartments making her sail bow down and caused fuel loss. These hits although not serious meant that speed had to be reduced, this became significant later in the battle. The Germans parted company and both were lost for about 24 hours. Bismarck was found by searching aircraft at 1036hrs on the 26th May. On the 27th a torpedo launched by a Swordfish from HMS Ark Royal damaged a rudder causing Bismarck to sail in a large circle. The RN capital ships closed and at 1040hrs on the 27th May Bismarck rolled over and sank.

The Two Battles of Copenhagen

Gareth Glover
This book covers the two battles of Copenhagen, the intervening years and what followed. Both the political and military aspects are dealt with in relation to one another. There is an extensive bibliography should the reader wish to follow up any thread in greater detail.
I declare my bias I am a Gareth Glover fan and I am pleased to say that this book will not disappoint others like me. The narrative flows easily without getting bogged down in lists or too much factual detail. But the detail, the product of much research, is contained in the appendices of which there are thirty six. The author’s forte in flushing out hitherto unpublished first hand accounts is used to good effect. He makes clear the difference between reporting and opinion whenever he has exercised his judgement especially when dealing with variations between a number of original accounts.
There are a number of illustrations throughout the book and a well chosen set of colour plates in the centre of the text. The weak point, true of almost every recently published book, are the maps. It is all very well to insert small facsimiles of the original maps which were used at the time but they are very little use without scales to the reader attempting to understand locations. I turned to the maps in The Great Gamble by Dudley Pope, published in 1972, and used its four excellent maps.
This is a most readable, informative and enjoyable book which we fully recommend to anyone with an interest in the Napoleonic period.

Pen & Sword Military, 2018