DRAMATIC END

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 153, 31 May 1941, Page 7

DRAMATIC END

SINKING OF THE HOOD. GREAT FLASH DESCRIBED. LONDON, May 80. Dramatic stories have been recounted in the first eye-witness accounts of (lie sinking of H.M.S. Hood by Ihe German battleship Bismarck. The Hood sank within two minutes of being hit in a magazine by the unlucky shot from tiie Bismarck, which, in contrast, remained on the surface for a considerable period after being disabled. ‘‘lt was an almost unl>elievable spectacle,” said one eye-witness, “immediately the Hood was hit there was a great flash of orange and green flame and alter she had blown up all that renvoi nod was a patch of smoke on the water.”

it was not Lill the Bismarck had been attacked by our torpedo-bombers that she took serious steps to escape. Then she set oui for Brest, starting the yti-hour chase by our ships. {ihe was steaming at 22 knots and it was obvious that our forces, though travelling at top speed, could not catch her unless her speed were reduced. This was effected by crippling her with aerial torpedoes. When tlic Bismarck's guns had been silenced there was no sign of her sinking. Then, when the Dorsetshire despatched her with torpedoes, she heeled over. Apparently till the end her German officers and men believed she was unsinkable.

I A great welcome was accorded a ] party of British ratings on their arrival at a Home port alter participating in the sinking of the Bismarck. Only one of them was injured, but among a group of German ratings brought back as prisoners were several who had to be carried ashore on stretchers. CRUISERS’ ROLE. DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS. • (British Official Wireless.) (Bee. 10..">7 a.m.) BUG BY. .May 30. S|>caking of the ship manoeuvres which resulted in the destruction of tin l Bismarck, a naval officer drew special attention to the difficult task of a successful performance by the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, which shadowed the Nazi battleship all night on .May 25. throughout the following day, and most of that night. These ships, of course, were much smaller than the Bismarck and far less heavily armoured or armed, and their duty was to keep her in their sight while taking the fullest advantage of all the tricks of the night and the weather to keep themselves out of her range of vision and, as far as possible, her guns. Beside being small game for the battleship, these shadowing craft had to avoid superficial damage because their chief function was to act as floating wireless platforms. and their transmitters could easily be put out of action. The difficulties of those cruisers were] considerably increased because of the, great variations in visibility. Bain and snow storms were being continually encountered, causing them to hurriedly increase their speed to keep the Bismarck in sight while knowing all the time that a sudden clearance! might expose them to full force of. tliei battleship’s guns. | The fact that they kept track of her all the way down past the Greenland] ice barrier is described by an officer as a “masterly performance.” 3 lie might expose them to the full force oi i the battleship’s guns. NAZIS HAMPERED MOSCOW, May 30. 'The Red Fleet says that the Ger- | man intelligence service has been ham- j pered by the discovery of the destine-; lion of its meteorological and wireless ’ stations in Greenland early in May. j The paper says that the Bismarck s i objective was to disrupt comnnmicadons between Iceland r.id Greenland. The paper pays tribute to the co-: irdination of all arms of the British j

Navy. EIGHTH CRUISER LOSS OF THE YORK. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 29. The cruiser H.M.S. York, the loss of which in Suda Bay was announced today, was completed in June, 1930. Last October the Y’ork took part in an engagement with an Italian cruiser and destroyers off Sicily and sank an Italian destroyer of the Artigliere class which had previously been crippled by the cruiser Ajax. The York is the eighth British cruiser lost since the outbreak of war.