destroyed, the smashed and broken turrets lay over at crazy angles, the barrels pointing down into the sea or up towards an empty sky, and the broken, twisted steel girders and plates of what had once been her superstructure glowed first red, then whitely incandescent as the great fires deep within blazed higher and higher. But still the BISMARCK did not d
Beyond all question, she was the toughest and most nearly indestructible ship ever built. She had been hit by the PRINCE OF WALES, she had been hit by hundreds of heavy, armour piercing shells from the KING GEORGE V, RODNEY, NORFOLK and DORSETSHIRE. She had been torpedoed by aircraft from the ARK ROYAL and from the VICTORIOUS, and now, in this, her last battle, torpedoed also by the RODNEY and the NORFOLK. But still, incredibly, she lived. No ship in naval history had ever taken half the punishment the BISMARCK had, and survived. It was almost uncanny.
In the end, she was not to die under the guns of the two British battleships that had reduced her to this empty blazing hulk. Perhaps, in their wonder at her incredible toughness, they had come to believe that she could never be sunk by shell-fire. Perhaps it was their dangerous shortage of fuel, or the certainty that U-boats would soon be on the scene, in force: or perhaps they were just sickened by the slaughter. In any event, the KING GEORGE V and the RODNEY, their mission accomplished, turned for home.
The BISMARCK never surrendered. Her colours still flew high, were still flying when the DORSETSHIRE closed in on the silent, lifeless ship and torpedoed three times from close range. Almost at once she heeled far over to port, her colours dipping into the water, then turned bottom up and slid beneath the waves, silent except for the furious hissing and bubbling as the waters closed over the red hot steel of the superstructure.
The long chase was over: the HOOD was avenged.
The MEKNES
The English Channel, during the years 1939–1945, was the setting for countless extraordinary and sometimes, during the invasion summer of 1944, frankly incredible spectacles; but it can safely be said that at no time in the war did it present a sight more astonishing, incongruous and utterly improbable than that to be seen on a night in late July in the year 1940, some 60 miles off the Isle of Wight.
This sight was a ship, just an ordinary 6,000-ton cargo and passenger liner, but it was behaving in a most extraordinary fashion. One could have looked at it, then looked again, and still have been excused for flatly disbelieving the plain evidence before one's eyes. During the hours of darkness in the wartime Channel secrecy, stealth, and above all an absolutely enforced blackout, were the essentials without which there was no hope of survival. One careless chink of escaping light, one thoughtlessly struck match or cigarette end glowing in the darkness, and the chances were high that a U-boat's periscope or torpedo boat's bows lined up and locked on the betrayed bearing.
Yet there was light to be seen aboard this ship. NOT JUST ONE LIGHT, BUT HUNDREDS OF THEM. It was as if a section of the Blackpool illuminations had been transferred en bloc to the middle of the Channel. Every blackout scuttle had been removed, and the lights behind the portholes switched on. The lights on deck and on the superstructure blazed. The bridge was floodlit. Powerful projectors lit up the name and nationality marks painted on either side of the hull, while another illuminated the big flag painted on the deck. Finally, two powerful searchlights were trained on the tricolour flag that fluttered high above the stern.
The night was fairly calm, the sky clear, visibility good: the brilliantly illuminated vessel must have been clearly visible over at least 500 square miles of the Channel and over 10 times that area for any plane cruising overhead.
The ship was the MEKNES, owned by the COMPAGNE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, and she had excellent reason for this blatant self-advertisement. Or at least, tragically, so it was imagined at the time.
The MEKNES was en route from Southampton to Marseilles with 1,180 French naval officers and ratings, mostly reservists who had served aboard a French battlecruiser until the fall of their country, then transferred to Britain. They had since elected to return to their own country. Marseilles, at that time, was technically a neutral port, and these repatriates were non-combatants: the French Vichy Government, under the aged Marshal Petain, had just concluded a separate peace with Germany. The French repatriates, therefore, were entitled to be regarded as neutrals, and afforded the protection that international law demands for neutrals. Accordingly, the British Government had informed Vichy of the repatriation, with instructions that the Germans be advised and asked to provide a safe conduct. Precautions would be taken, the British added, to ensure that there would be no mistaking her identity.
And there most certainly was no mistaking her identity, when the MEKNES left Southampton at 4.30 p.m., cleared the Isle of Wight, and steamed down the Channel at fifteen knots.
All went well for the first few hours, and even the most apprehensive were beginning to relax, becoming increasingly confident that the guarantee of safe conduct was being scrupulously observed, when, at 10.30 p.m., the officer of the watch heard the sound of powerful motor engines closing rapidly. Blinded by the intensity of the MEKNES'S own lights, he was unable to make out even the silhouette of the approaching boat, but the phosphorescent gleam of the high creaming wake it left behind it and the familiar sound of the engines left him in no doubt at all — it was a German E-boat, out on the prowl. At once he picked up the phone to report to the MEKNES's commander, Captain Dulroc, but before he had even begun to speak, the E-boat opened up with its machine guns, raking the superstructure, deck and port side of the ship with heavy and concentrated fire.
Captain Dulroc, ignoring the fire, rushed to the bridge while all around him machine-gun bullets smashed with trip-hammer thuds against steel bulkheads, and whined off in evil ricochet into the darkness beyond. Dulroc still believed in his guarantee of safe passage. He was convinced this was an error in identification that could soon be rectified. He rang the engine room telegraphs to STOP, and gave two prolonged blasts on the ship's whistle to show that he was no longer under way. The machine-gun fire ceased almost at once, and Dulroc flashed out a 'Who are you?' signal.
The reply came immediately — an even heavier burst of fire directed against the bridge with such venom and accuracy that officers and men had to fling themselves flat on their faces to escape the murderous barrage.
Again there came a brief lull in the firing, and Dulroc swiftly seized the opportunity to send out morse signals in the general direction of their still invisible assailant giving the name, nationality and destination of the MEKNES over and over again. But the E-boat captain seemed beyond either reason or appeal. He opened fire again, this time not only with machine guns but with heavier calibre weapons, probably something in the nature of two- pounders.
Within seconds every lifeboat but one on the port side was smashed and made useless. Captain Dulroc and his officers had no illusions left now. The earlier bursts of machine-gun fire might have been the results of misidentification or over-enthusiasm on the part of a trigger-happy young torpedo-boat captain. But the destruction of their port lifeboats had been no accident. They were clearly visible and sharply etched against the surrounding darkness by the numerous deck and floodlights that were still switched on. The E-boat had deliberately aimed at and destroyed them with its heavy gun, and the reason for this destruction was not far to seek.
IT HAD DESTROYED THEIR BOATS SO THAT THEY COULD NOT BE USED — AND THEIR ONLY USE, OF COURSE, COULD BE FOR THE SAVING OF SURVIVORS. THE MEKNES, DULROC KNEW, WAS GOING TO BE DESTROYED.
At 10:55 p.m. the now inevitable torpedo was fired from almost point-blank range. One of the survivors, M Mace, says that he was talking to some friends in his cabin, discussing the machine-gun attacks, when a terrific explosion burst in the cabin walls and threw the men, one on top of the other, in a confused heap in the middle of the cabin deck. Somebody cried out, rather unnecessarily as Mace drily observes, 'We have been torpedoed.' They rose dazedly to their feet and burst their way out through the broken splintered door on to the open deck, to find the ship already sinking beneath their feet, going down rapidly by the stern. But it was not that unnaturally canted angle of the ship that attracted Mace's attention at that moment. The torpedo struck opposite number three hold — and there were over 200 men confined in that one narrow space.
MACE STILL REMEMBERS, WITH WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS A HORRIFYING VIVIDNESS, THE SCREAMS, THE MOANS, AND THE PITIFUL WAILING OF THE TRAPPED, THE WOUNDED, THE DYING AND THE DROWNING IN
