Killing the Bismarck

Destroying the Pride of Hitler's Fleet

By: Iain Ballantyne

Narrated by: Traber Burns

Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

In May 1941 the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy's pursuit and subsequent destruction of the Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved.

He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat-and-mouse game, shadowing the Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battle cruiser HMS Hood, in which all but three of her ship's complement were killed, an event that fueled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas. Finally the author takes us into the last showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler's fleet.

This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called ordinary sailors caught up in extraordinary events. Killing the Bismarck is an outstanding book, conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power.

©2010 Iain Ballantyne (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Great British story telling

We all saw old black and movie, this book just filled in human costs and detail of the last battle wagon fight.

Pretty good

Strange story, in-that there doesn't seem to be a lot of historical details from German/Japanese viewpoint, making this an Allied-perspective... then flips to almost declaring the English committed a war-crime in the sinking of the Bismarck. Guess the author just hates everyone.

Really fantastic book!

I've read many books on the Bismarck encounters. I can't promise this is THE best, but it's very good. Please ignore the reviews saying the narrator stutters and pauses. To anyone paying a lick of attention, this is done to let the listener know the next sentence or part of a sentence is in quotes. Much of the book is quotes from people who were there.

The book is primarily made up from many different eyewitness accounts. This makes some of the information factually untrue such as one sailor claiming HMS Rodney slid sideways in the water when she fired a salvo. A bit of math tells you it's so infinitesimal that it can't be felt. Other instances are German sailors convinced they saw/heard torpedoes from HMS Hood. This is debated by some historians as not making any sense at all because of distance and timing. When reading/listening to this book, one must remember it's told less as "this is fact" and more "this is what the people that were there had to say about it."

I found it very exciting overall, despite well knowing the outcome. There were many tidbits of information I did not know - some quite entertaining such as how HMS Rodney lost it's aiming computer because a Marine stuck his boot through the machine mid-battle.

Most especially, now that this title is part of Plus, I highly recommend it - but it would have been worth buying.

Good WW2 account

Very deeply researched recount of the demise of two great battleships, the British Hood and the German Bismark. Contains a large number of interesting eye witness accounts of exactly how it all came about. Very graphic in places.

Thrilling story brought home thru eyes of participants

Enjoyed glimpses into the lives of Royal Navy sailors and officers who hunted down Bismarck. Fascinating!

Good history story

Good factual account of a well known North Atlantic naval battle and the sinking of two famous ships.

Unknown history

I thought I knew the story, but by the conclusion I felt like I was aboard one of the ships! Very good read!!

Decent narrative

It was a decent narrative but could have been more suspenseful. I know we all know how it turns out so still a sense of suspense might have been sustained.

I liked the inclusion of the epilogue in which the fate of the victorious ships, some of which fate was very heroic and also very sad. I liked the inclusion of details of the action of the destroyers, often overlooked. Good to end the story on the gathering of British and German survivors in 1974.

The narrator should have studied the proper pronunciation, in particular of Prinz Eugen which was repeated many times (it’s not pronounced ‘you gain’.

Also, Heinkel III’s are not “Heinkel 3’s”.

Better than expected.

With being a free book, I didn’t expect it to be excellent, good maybe, but nothing more than that. I was wrong. I loved this book. I’ve heard this story at least a dozen times, but never from the British perspective. I learned so much more that I never knew and have now gained a greater appreciation to those on both sides of this unforgettable event. The narration isn’t the best, but it’s good and easy to follow. But, with that said, this book is a must listen.

Find the Bismark!

wonderfully told and richly researched, hard to imagine that all this happened within 3 days of the thinking of the HMS Hood. great story.