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SHIPWRECK TODAY Resting three Miles beneath the Atlantic Ocean, a Nazi Warship once feared and revered now slowly rots away...silently in her watery grave.
The Bismarck Is Found Dr Robert D. Ballard and his team who discovered the wreck of the Titanic four years earlier in 1985, had taken two years to discover the wreck of the Bismarck. The first expedition to find the wreck was on July 1988 but sadly ended in failure. A second expedition was staged in late May 1989, and on June 8th, 1989, after covering hundreds of square miles of ocean sea floor, Dr Robert Ballard and his team finally found the wreck. the wreck was some 600 miles west of Brest at a depth of 3 miles which is 4,790 meters or 15,700 feet. Either way of saying it, the Bismarck was a long long way down with many tons (per square inch) of sea pressure bearing down on her The wreck of the Bismarck is literally sitting on the side of an underwater mountain range, at the bottom of a vast landslide that occurred exactly 50 years ago, (at the time of writing this). The landslide occurred when the 50,000 ton Battleship slammed into the seabed.
Here the exact position of the wreck is indicated
The wreck of the Bismarck is standing upright on the sea bed embedded in mud and silt, most of the secondary battery gun emplacements still point defiantly to the skies and the Nazi Swastika's still adorn the decks. Remembering that the ship received heavy damage from British shell fire and torpedo attacks, the Bismarck's remains are in surprisingly good condition. We must remember too that the ship hit the sea bed with some considerable force, similar to a speeding train running into the side of a mountain. Below is the sequence of how the Bismarck actually sank. Due to bandwidth and cost restrictions, I am sorry the image is not any bigger.
The wreck as it is today, three miles at the bottom of the sea. Three miles !..that is incredibly deep, so deep that light does not reach it from the surface. The ocean seabed at this depth is still relatively unchartered as no-one has every really gone that deep to find out. The only way that we know of the terrain and topography at this depth is from sensitive electronic mapping equipment. This kind of information is usually sought by the Navy or specific scientific departments.
Most shipwrecks around the world are badly deteriorated, as salt water is the natural enemy of steel, the Bismarck however, has stood the test of time quite well. Except for a piece of the stern that broke away, the rest of the super structure is completely intact. All of the ships main turrets ( held in situ by gravity) are displaced though, they fell off when the ship capsized. Some other parts of the superstructure such as the foremast and the funnel are missing too, presumably ripped off as she sank. The secondary battery turrets and most anti-aircraft guns however, are still there, and look as if they are waiting to be manned. The forward conning tower and bridge, though heavily damaged are also still in situ. There is still a surprising amount of woodwork and paint still adorning the wreck and it is likely that the wreck will remain in a solid condition for several hundred years to come. There are no plans to raise her at all as she is represents a sea grave. Below some accurate renditions of the Bismarck are presented, based on the surveying and photo's that was taken of the ship in 1989 by the Ballard team.
__________________________________________________________ A War Grave
This page is yet another testimony to the total and frightening waste of lives and material that wars destroy. I often ask myself the question..... why ? It appears that it was all for nothing, maybe one day we will learn the reasons. Copied from http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk Bismarck
sinking commemorated
Accompanying the veterans at the Imperial War Museum, in south London, was Heinz Steeg, rescued from the water after the Bismarck, which was launched by Hitler and said to be "unsinkable", went down. Harry Cuffling, 82, from the Isle of Wight, was one of the men who dragged Mr Steeg on board the cruiser, the Dorsetshire. "The German sailors were huddled together in a crowd", he said. "The sea was very rough and they looked extremely cold. They couldn't talk. We felt no animosity towards them. It's human nature." Mr Steeg said he wanted to do the same after the Bismarck shelled the British battleship, HMS Hood, which sank in just three minutes. "There is never any great feeling of joy or celebration when a ship is sunk because a ship is a beautiful thing. But I remain thankful that the men of the Dorsetshire could come to my aid," he said. Sir Ludovic Kennedy, a sub-lieutenant on HMS Tartar during the battle and author of a book on the sinking of the Bismarck, paid tribute to what he called his "band of brothers". He described the naval engagement as one of the most "memorable, important and dramatic events" of the second world war. "The damage she could have done to us and the whole war effort was incalculable. That was why she had to be eliminated and she was eliminated by a good share of luck, skill and courage. The fate of the Bismarck proved that the era of the battleship was over, he added, killed by air power and left "as dead as a dinosaur". George Bell, 77, who was a 17-year-old captain's messenger on the Dorsetshire at the time, told how he watched the Bismarck capsize. "I remember seeing her turn over completely. All you could see was her huge keel lying in the water before it went under." Leslie Sayer, from Col Chester, Essex, who flew a Swordfish biplane on a torpedo mission against the German warship, said: "We were apprehensive, concerned and bloody frightened, in that order." May all the mariners who gave their lives in all the wars rest in piece. Monday 23 April 2001
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