Drawing on survivors’ accounts and the authors’ combined decades of experience in naval architecture, Battleship Bismarck is a marine forensics analysis and engineering study of the design, operational career and loss of Germany’s greatest battleship. This investigation is the result of fifty-six years of painstaking research, during which the authors conducted extensive interviews and correspondence with the ships’ designers and survivors of the Battle of Denmark Strait and Bismarck‘s final battle. Albert Schnarke, former gunnery officer of DKM Tirpitz, sister ship of Bismarck, aided greatly by translating and circulating early manuscript materials to those who participated in the design and operation of Bismarck. Survivors of Bismarck‘s engagements actively contributed to this comprehensive study, including Vice Admiral (then Lieutenant) D. B. H. Wildish (RN), damage control officer aboard HMS Prince of Wales, who located photographs of battle damage to his ship. After the wreck of Bismarck was discovered in June 1989, the authors served as technical consultants to Dr. Robert Ballard, who led three trips to the site. Filmmaker and explorer James Cameron provides a comprehensive overview of his deep-sea explorations of Bismarck, illustrated with his team’s remarkable photographs of the shipwreck.

The result of these nearly six decades of research and collaboration is an engrossing and encyclopedic account of the events surrounding one of the most epic naval battles of World War II. Battleship Bismarck has finally resolved some of the major questions such as: who sank Bismarck, the British or the Germans?

Edition: 2019