Sink the Bismarck! (1960) – a gripping British wartime naval drama

In February 1939, Nazi Germany's most powerful battleship, the Bismarck, was launched, ushering in a new era of German sea power. In May 1941, British naval intelligence discovered that the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen were about to sail into the North Atlantic to attack Allied convoys. From an underground London war room, Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More) coordinates the hunt for the fearsome Bismarck. The two German warships encountered HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait, and the four warships engaged in a deadly gun duel. The battle resulted in the annihilation and violent disintegration of the Hood, shocking the combatants on both sides. The Prince of Wales is alone and comes under fire from the two German ships. She manages to inflict damage on Bismarck's bow, but Bismarck retaliates, destroying the Prince of Wales Bridge. The Prince of Wales issues a smokescreen to retreat behind. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen also retreated, but were followed by the cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk using radar. Later, the Prinz Eugen broke away and headed for the port of Brest, occupied France, while the Bismarck turned and fired on the British cruisers to cover it during its escape. The attack forces the cruisers to retreat. An aerial assault from the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious damages the Bismarck's fuel tanks, but the ship is otherwise largely intact.

Back at operations headquarters in London, Captain Shepard bets that Admiral Gunther Lütjens (Karel Štěpánek), fleet commander aboard the Bismarck, has ordered a return to friendly waters where submarines and cover air force will make any attack impossible. He plans to intercept and attack the German ship before it is safe. Shepard commits a disproportionate force to the search, and his gamble pays off when Bismarck finds himself en route to the French coast. British forces have a narrow window of time to destroy or slow their prey before German support and their own dwindling fuel supplies prevent further attacks. HMS Ark Royal's Swordfish torpedo planes have two chances. The first fails when the pilots misidentify HMS Sheffield as a Bismarck, but fortunately their new magnetic torpedo detonators are faulty, with most exploding as soon as they hit the sea. Back to the carrier and moving on to the exploders of conventional contact, their second attack, this time on the Bismarck, was successful. A torpedo causes only minor damage; but a second catastrophic blow near the stern blocked the rudder of the German battleship.

Unable to repair the rudder, Bismarck goes around in circles. During the night, two British destroyers attacked the crippled battleship with torpedoes. One of them hits, but Bismarck retaliates, sinking the destroyer HMS Solent. The main force of British ships, including the battleships HMS Rodney and HMS King George V, found the Bismarck the next day and rained shells on it. Lütjens insists that German forces will arrive to save them, but he is killed when a shell hits the Bismarck Bridge. The remaining bridge officers are killed and the crew abandons their sinking ship. Aboard the King George V, Admiral John Tovey (Michael Hordern) orders the newly joined cruiser HMS Dorsetshire to finish off Bismarck. The cruiser fires torpedoes at the German battleship, sinking the ship faster than its crew can escape. King George V's captain, Wilfrid Patterson (Jack Gwillim), bows his head as Bismarck disappears beneath the waves. Admiral Tovey orders Dorsetshire to collect the survivors, finally saying tersely: "Well, gentlemen, let's go home."

A 1960 British black-and-white CinemaScope war film directed by Lewis Gilbert, produced by John Brabourne, screenplay by Edmund H. North, based on the book by CS Forester / "The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck/" (1959) , cinematography by Christopher Challis, with Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Laurence Naismith and Geoffrey Keen.

This was shot in black and white in order to intercut it with newsreel footage. The use of Edward R. Murrow reprising his war broadcasts from London also lends an air of authenticity and an almost documentary feel.

Producer John Brabourne was able to use his influence as son-in-law of Lord Mountbatten, then Chief of the Defense Staff, to obtain the full cooperation of the Admiralty. The last major units of the World War II fleet were being withdrawn, and the soon-to-be scrapped battleship HMS Vanguard provided footage of a capital ship's 15-inch turrets in action and was used for scenes set aboard HMS Hood, Prince of Wales, King George V and Bismarck. The cruiser HMS Belfast, now preserved in London, represented the cruisers involved in the pursuit of Bismarck, including HMS Norfolk, Suffolk, Sheffield and Dorsetshire. A Dido-class cruiser in reserve was used as the setting for the destruction of the Bismarck, and one of its large inclined funnels is seen in the final scenes. The aircraft carrier HMS Victorious is briefly depicted as itself, the same ship is also used to depict HMS Ark Royal sailing from Gibraltar.

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