Sink the Bismarck! Even if she surrenders ...

[klr]

... or so claimed a (now-deceased) crewman of HMS Rodney, featured in a new book:

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/441965.php

London, May 27: A British sailor, who was left tormented by the "sinking of the Bismarck", is said to have revealed to his son that the ship was sunk even after the Germans tried to surrender.

The German battleship, which was one of the most famous warships of the Second World War, had a few days earlier sunk the Royal Navy's pride of the fleet, HMS Hood, and all but three of its 1,418 crew.

Then Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to avenge the Hood, and ordered Royal Navy officers, who had been made aware of the attempts of the Germans to surrender, to "sink the Bismarck".

In two hours the battleship, with 2,200 onboard, was a helpless wreck of twisted metal, raging fires and dead and dying crew, and was finished off by torpedoes, slipping under the Atlantic with all but 200 of those aboard.

It was a huge triumph for the Royal Navy, but now the son of one of the British sailors who saw Bismarck's end 70 years ago has come forward to claim that the battle might have ended differently had the German signals been heeded.

Tommy Byers, a sailor on the British battleship Rodney, maintained until he died that the ship hoisted a black flag - the naval sign calling for parley.

He and a second seaman also saw a Morse code flash, which they interpreted as surrender, along with a man waving semaphore flags conveying the same message.

Royal Navy officers were made aware of the signs but they were determined to follow Churchill's orders.

The revelation was unearthed by author Iain Ballantyne for a book about the Bismarck, which has been published 70-years after the sinking on May 27, 1941.

He came across was an interview Tommy gave to his son Kevin before he died in 2004 aged 86.

"Dad knew what he saw. He felt guilty he didn't do more at the time but he wasn't of high enough rank to be heard," the Daily Mail quoted Kevin, 52, from Portaferry, County Down, as saying.

"Something like 2,000 men died and this nagged away at him for the rest of his life," he added.

The second witness was air defence officer on HMS Rodney, Lieutenant Donald Campbell, who in his account of the sinking said he saw the Morse signal, which was also reported by a sailor on the cruiser HMS Dorsetshire.

Cue (or even queue) the conspiracy nuts.

[Atheist-Lite]

There are no rules in war - lives are lost - it wasn't a modern war with TV cameras to appease. Leaving it intact when no one except the Germans knew how to sail the thing would have been dumb.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yawn. You don't surrender and keep your guns working. The guys who claim to have seen signs of surrender have no way of proving their claims. And who the fuck hoists a BLACK flag to surrender? (Well, maybe the French the day before laundry day.)

[klr]

What interests me about this is why the Germans would ever contemplate wanting to surrender even the battered hulk of what had been the pride of the German Navy. That was just not the "done thing". If someone did hang out a black flag, they must have been well down the food chain, and very likely operating on their own initiative as shells rained down on them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What interests me about this is why the Germans would ever contemplate wanting to surrender even the battered hulk of what had been the pride of the German Navy. That was just not the "done thing". If someone did hang out a black flag, they must have been well down the food chain, and very likely operating on their own initiative as shells rained down on them.

What does a 'black flag" represent? The German battle ensign was mostly black, no? Seems to me they were probably rehoisting the colors after the earlier set was shot to shit.

[klr]

What interests me about this is why the Germans would ever contemplate wanting to surrender even the battered hulk of what had been the pride of the German Navy. That was just not the "done thing". If someone did hang out a black flag, they must have been well down the food chain, and very likely operating on their own initiative as shells rained down on them.

What does a 'black flag" represent? The German battle ensign was mostly black, no? Seems to me they were probably rehoisting the colors after the earlier set was shot to shit.

Apparently, a black flag (as well as white) means a "truce" in the maritime context, although how you could operate a truce in those circumstances is beyond me.

It had to be surrender or nothing, and surrender was out. BTW, the Kriegsmarine ensign was mostly red:

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What interests me about this is why the Germans would ever contemplate wanting to surrender even the battered hulk of what had been the pride of the German Navy. That was just not the "done thing". If someone did hang out a black flag, they must have been well down the food chain, and very likely operating on their own initiative as shells rained down on them.

What does a 'black flag" represent? The German battle ensign was mostly black, no? Seems to me they were probably rehoisting the colors after the earlier set was shot to shit.

Apparently, a black flag (as well as white) means a "truce" in the maritime context, although how you could operate a truce in those circumstances is beyond me.

It had to be surrender or nothing, and surrender was out. BTW, the Kriegsmarine ensign was mostly red:

Ah, alles klar, ja! Anyway, the whole story reeks to me. How many ships, how many eyes, how many years, and we're just now hearing this? Methinks old Bossy has pooped.

[klr]

...
Ah, alles klar, ja! Anyway, the whole story reeks to me. How many ships, how many eyes, how many years, and we're just now hearing this? Methinks old Bossy has pooped.

But watch the conspiracy nuts and Brit-haters jump on the story. On a certain other forum, I think the equivalent thread made it to about three posts before someone started to complain about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War, something which has precisely zero relevance to the Bismarck sinking.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

...
Ah, alles klar, ja! Anyway, the whole story reeks to me. How many ships, how many eyes, how many years, and we're just now hearing this? Methinks old Bossy has pooped.

But watch the conspiracy nuts and Brit-haters jump on the story. On a certain other forum, I think the equivalent thread made it to about three posts before someone started to complain about the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War, something which has precisely zero relevance to the Bismarck sinking.

All same-same as that gal that just "proved" the Roswell incident was a Soviet stealth aircraft flown by midgets.