National Geographic: The Search For the Battleship Bismark

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On February 14, 1939,

the massive hull of au

unfinished German warship

slid into the water at Hamburg.

For the Nazi party,

it was a day to celebrate the

country's resurgent military power...

a moment to be savored

by the Fuhrer himself.

Two years later, the ship was

finally ready for action.

When she left port in the

spring of 1941,

She was widely regarded as

the most elegant

and the most dangerous

battleship ever built.

She would never return.

Her name was the Bismarck,

and she was about to become a legend.

Summer, 1988.

A converted trawler named

Starella leaves Spain,

bound for the North Atlantic...

where the Bismarck sank nearly

half a century ago.

The story of what happened to

the battleship during her brief moment

on the world's stage

has captured the imagination of almost

everyone who's heard it

including Bob Ballard,

the man who found the Titanic.

Now he's looking for the Bismarck.

Come around... one, five, three.

One, five, three.

I knew the story of the Bismarck,

as a child.

It was an elegant ship, a warship.

It was very much like the Titanic,

in the sense it was on a maiden voyage.

It had such a short life and a very

exciting and violent life.

I mean, it was alive for less

than two weeks at sea.

It's an exciting story.

To find it gives you the opportunity

to retell it to

a new generation of people.

Even before the search begins,

Ballard is feeling the pressure.

Well, if I don't find it,

I'll be disappointed, obviously.

So will a lot of other people.

But, it was sort of

interesting on this one.

When I did the Titanic,

on one believed I would find it.

Now, on one believes

I won't find the Bismarck.

And I don't... I think I preferred

when they didn't think I would find it.

If the Bismarck is as elusive today

as she was half a century ago,

Ballard has his work cut out for him.

Nineteen forty one. Monday, May 19th.

The Bismarck leaves German waters

on her first mission

What her commanders hope will be a

three-month reign of terror

on British shipping in

the North Atlantic.

She is a monumental weapon

a sixth of a-mile long,

displacing 53,000 tons.

Her 15-inch guns are aimed with the

help of stereoscopic range finders

and can hurl a one-ton shell

Her crew of over 2,000 men

has been hand-picked

for duty on a ship rumored

to be unsinkable.

Many are 18 or 19 years old,

about to see combat for the first time.

The Bismarck is like a huge cat

waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey.

But first she must prowl into enemy

territory without being seen.

Two days out of port the Starella

approaches the Bismarck's

last known position,

Because no one knows exactly

where she sank,

the search could cover nearly a

hundred square miles.

As far as the location of

where the Bismarck was lost,

we have four separate positions.

One was by the Dorsetshire,

which was the ship

that dogged the Bismarck

and then actually dealt the final blow

when it torpedoed it from both sides.

It gives its position over here

in the eastern search area.

Then there's the position of one of

the destroyers

which was over in the western area.

A published report also puts

it in the same area.

Then we have a secret document

that puts it even yet in a fourth area.

Ballard is a pioneer

in the use of sophisticated technology

to explore the deep sea.

Over. This is bridge... three,

four, zero, now.

All right. Let's put it in.

take over the control.

Okay, bridge... one, eight, five, three

These transponders will sink to the

seabed and begin to emit

powerful acoustic signals,

allowing Ballard to pinpoint his

position on the surface.

Sonar provides his first glimpse

of the terrain lying

three miles beneath the ship.

I should pick up bottom right here.

Got a helluva long ways to go.

Looks pretty gruesome... real gruesome.

I don't know.

The worst is looking like it's with us.

It's horrible topography.

Huge mountains. Solid rock.

Hand to hand combat.

Where we dropped the first

transponder it was nice and flat,

but the second transponder went in

near a mountain and trying to get

go the third we're in solid mountains,

which is just, you know, horrible.

Ballard is worried

that the rugged topography

below will make it

dangerous to maneuver Argo,

an underwater sled carrying

video cameras,

lights, and sonar equipment.

Argo is designed to photograph the

bottom while skimming

just above the pitch dark seabed...

at the end of miles of cable.

Our biggest fear is losing the vehicle

because that's the

biggest fear you've got.

Hanging up on a cliff and cutting

your cable and then losing it.

I've come close before.

I don't want to do that again.

Ballard decides to avoid

the mountains and focus his search

on the flat mud plains to the west.

For the men who operate Argo

like Ballard's son,

Todd the long watch is just beginning.

Nineteen forty one. Tuesday, May 20th.

The Bismarck steams north

and west through Danish waters.

With her is a heavy cruiser,

the Prinz Eugen.

For the men aboard the Bismarck,

the times couldn't be better.

The war is Europe is

nearly two years old,

and Germany still hasn't suffered a

significant military defeat.

Hitler's troops occupy most of Europe.

The German Luftwaffe is carrying out

bombing raids against Britain,

which stands alone against

the Nazi advance.

Only England and her legendary sea

power stand between Germany and victory.

But even the Royal Navy

has never done battle

with a ship quite like the Bismarck.

And the idea was that the Bismarck

would break out into the Atlantic

with the cruiser Prince Eugen.

And she would spend a three-months

cruise going up and down

the Atlantic sinking all the ships

bringing from America the food,

the petrol, the ammunition,

that was keeping us going,

keeping the war going.

Although the United States won't

enter the war for another six months,

supply convoys from America

are already being

hit hard by the German navy.

If the Bismarck had cut out onto the

Atlantic sea routes,

she could have done an

enormous amount of damage.

I think that if she had done that,

she could've altered

the course of the war.

So it was very, very critical.

She had to be sunk.

But first, she has to be found.

As far as British intelligence knows,

the Bismarck is still safely

in German waters,

finishing her sea trials.

In fact,

she is already making her escape

from the confined waters of the Baltic.

The German plan is simple,

bold... and risky.

First they hope to slip through the

narrow waters off Sweden and Norway

and break through to the North sea.

If the Bismarck hasn't been detected,

it should be no problem

to sail into the Atlantic-perhaps

through the Denmark Strait.

But the Bismarck is detected.

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon,

a British Spitfire

snaps this photograph,

showing the Bismarck nestled

in a Norwegian Fjord.

The report that Bismarck is trying

to break out is confirmed.

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