[42][43] Gerhard Junack, the senior surviving engineering officer, ordered his men to set the demolition charges with a 9-minute fuse. At the end of it you had the 1st of October 1939. It was dark. in the water? 0000007977 00000 n I found out about this episode from crewmates. ship for sleeping. be repaired. The salvo also damaged the forward main battery turrets. A first attempt to scuttle her with a torpedo from the Tartar failed but then she was sunk by gunfire from other destroyers arriving at the scene. Register and add yourself to the Crew List of the USS Bismarck Sea (CVE 95). We had to snap on the sail and is Poland. Interviewer: What kind of steel The task was then passed on to U-74 but by then the Bismarck had already sunk. Was Bismarck Sunk Or Scuttled? - Rebellion Research It we knocked them all out. Because I had previously been awarded the Iron Cross One died later of his wounds. starboard side. Bruno: We had three really good meals every day. The Juneau sank in less than a minute. One hit us right under the starboard side, on ''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery. Bruno: My name is Bruno Rzonca and I am the only survivor from the Bismarck living in the United States. Bruno Rzonca at the Lake County Fairgrounds military show in Crown Point, Indiana, on 4 October 2003. Anything about the crew, families, origins, etc. I said "I cant help you". Those mats could float and be used in emergency. the back. Nickname of a cat, reportedly in service as a ship's cat during World War II. List of last surviving veterans of military operations - Wikipedia While the British cruiser Dorsetshire was busy rescuing survivors from the water, Midshipman Joe Brooks[a] jumped over the side to help wounded Germans scramble up his ship's side. Interviewer: How long and how that was the worst part of my life. Last survivor of the Basque Auxiliary Navy. 0000004277 00000 n Under the command of the Fleet Commander Gnther Ltjens, the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen tried to break out into the Atlantic in order to attack convoys. Bismarck was involved in a battle with The Prince of Wales, an allied battleship, where it was badly damaged, and became unmaneuverable. Prince Bruno Rzonca was 23 when the Bismarck went down, and he is the only Bismarck survivor who lived in the U. S. Maschinenobergefreiter Bruno Rzonca was one of 116 suvivors of nearly 2500 men aboard Bismarck when she was scuttled on May 27, 1941. Deteriorating weather makes a concentrated attack impossible. The fully fuelled aircraft was then pushed overboard to reduce the risk of fire in the upcoming battle. I was there to the last moment you know, and even so when I was ship on the intercom. For one horrible week in 1941, the Bismarck dominated the seas. 0000008047 00000 n Bruno: I was a machinist working on a machine shop. [7][48] The destroyer Maori is also damaged by bombers[7], Dorsetshire and Maori picked up 85 and 25 survivors respectively. Launched on Valentine's Day 1939 at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, the battleship Bismarck inspired love in many of those watching her go down the slipway.. A powerful representation of Germany's rise from the ashes of the First World War, it was a fearsome combination of size, swiftness and firepower. I didn't On 24 October 1941, Cossack was escorting a convoy from Gibraltar to Great Britain when she was severely damaged by a torpedo fired by the German submarineU-563. I was 100 feet away the Bismarck, it was a nice, nice ship. Shell splinters rained down on Sheffield, killing three men and wounding two others. In May 1941, the British battlecruiser HMS Hood chased down the German battleship . SINKING OF THE GERMAN BATTLESHIP BISMARCK ON 27 MAY, 1941. With both fire control stations out of action, Bismarck's shooting became increasingly erratic, allowing the British to close the range. In the Skagerrak there was a Swedish boat and it The slow rate at which the ship sank meant that all but one of the crew could be saved. a big explosion. torpedo boats with us, and we went over to the them. What happened? Between 02:30 and 03:00 the destroyers fired starshell at Tovey's request in order to make her position visible for the battleships. an air rifle as a kid. the voice on the intercom? Interviewer: You see, people that build models of Bismarck want to keep their model as accurate as possible Interviewer: On the evening couldnt distinguish the ship, and then a while later I saw the flag on and from the air pressure he was flung over to the other side on the railing You just have to only 6 or 7 guys per boat and we won almost every time [he laughs]. The U-556 was anyway too low on fuel to be able to carry out the order. It's estimated that some 20 -+5 are still alive. Bruno: A month later [May 1940] At 10:30 on 26 May Bismarck was detected by a Coastal Command Catalina reconnaissance aircraft from 209 Squadron RAF that had flown over the Atlantic from its base on Lough Erne in Northern Ireland across the Donegal Corridor. from those who did see the Hood go down with field glasses. Bodies were piled around the turrets, they were all an hour, the water was 15 C. and the waves 30 feet high. Unsinkable Sam aka Oskar, drawing at UK National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Bruno: It was, I think 15 miles. She . William Herbert (Bert) Millener recently died on his 103rd birthday. [41], By around 09:31 all of the Bismarck's four main battery turrets were out of action. The second phase was the shadowing and harassment of Bismarck during the night of 26/27 May by British and Polish destroyers, with no serious damage to any ship. One of the Last Known Veterans of the Search for the German Bismarck men sitting on a bench and I asked: dont you want to save yourselves? command of the boiler room and he got nothing to say anymore. Bruno: Very loud and the blast knocked the lighting out from some of the hallways. Other times he wore a ribbon (a black-white-red ribbon worn in the button hole) that signified that

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