Program Information

In its 1941 raiding foray into the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck represented both the strengths and weaknesses of naval surface conflict in World War II.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: In its 1941 raiding foray into the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck represented both the strengths and weaknesses of naval surface conflict in World War II.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Sending Bismarck and Prinz Eugen on a raiding trip into the North Atlantic represented a grave risk for the German High Command. Yet, the same hubris that led Hitler to invade Russia that same month aroused in him the temptation to use the pride of the German navy in an exercise in power projection that was almost completely divorced from reality. While Bismarck, unopposed, could have wreaked havoc in the convoys slowly making their way across the Atlantic from Fortress America, the day of the surface raider unsupported by aircraft was over. The ship was a terrifying concentration of firepower made less vulnerable by its thick armor, but it would prove itself extraordinarily vulnerable to the airplane and surface radar, even though both were in their embryonic stages of development.

Even then Bismarck proved itself a formidable weapon system. Within minutes of encounter it destroyed the pride of the British Navy, HMS Hood, off Iceland. It slipped into the fog bank and for thirty hours eluded its pursuers in a dash to the protection of German fighters based on the French coast. It concentrated the minds of almost the entire British Home Fleet, drawing naval units from other vital duties. Ironically, in the end Bismarck was brought to heel by an ancient Speery Swordfish open-cockpit biplane whose desperate attack with a single torpedo rendered the giant battleship's rudder inoperable and open to its final destruction on May 27, 1941. Rediscovered by deep-sea explorers in 1988, Bismarck, its hull largely intact, lies on the floor of the Atlantic, a ghostly warrior whose time had passed.

The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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