British RAF Navigator Recalls Destruction Of Bismarck
Randy Boswell, Ottawa Citizen, 10 Nov. 2004
When the bugle's blast fades and the silence sets in during tomorrow's Remembrance Day ceremony, one Canadian veteran's thoughts are sure to turn to his key role in the dramatic chase and sinking of Bismarck, the mighty German warship that terrorized Allied naval forces before she went down in flames on May 27, 1941.
Alberta-born Gaynor Williams, 83, a retired engineer now living in Ottawa, was a 19-year-old navigator aboard a Royal Air Force float plane when he and his fellow crewmen caught sight of the"pride of the German fleet" southwest of Ireland and shadowed it for five nerve-wracking hours.
Mr. Williams' story is little known in this country, chiefly because he was the lone Canadian in an RAF aircraft at the centre of an otherwise wholly British assault on the German super-ship.
Bismarck had already destroyed the flagship of Britain's navy, HMS Hood, in a North Atlantic showdown that sent a wave of grief and pessimism across Britain and Canada. More than 1,400 sailors perished in the sinking, and no event seemed a greater foreshadowing of defeat than the tragic loss of Hood.
German submarines had already been picking off Allied warships and merchant vessels almost at will, and Nazi supremacy over the North America-to-Europe sea lanes seemed irreversible with the arrival of the"unsinkable" Bismarck.
But with the German ship far from port after its successful duel with Hood, Britain launched an all-out pursuit. Waves of aircraft scanned the waters south of Iceland and a pack of British warships sped blindly to sea in search of Bismarck, the deadliest and most technologically advanced vessel of the era.
"The Bismarck had disappeared after it sank the Hood, and they didn't know what it was going to do next," Mr. Williams told CanWest News Service yesterday.
Several convoys -- including 20,000 troops -- were en route to Britain with Bismarck lurking in unknown waters, he said.
Mr. Williams, a rookie navigator on a Catalina"flying boat" assigned to the search, recalls how a sister plane first detected Bismarck's presence, 1,200 kilometres off the Irish coast.
But the ship was soon lost again in stormy seas, and Mr. Williams was ordered to plot a course most likely to bring his plane -- Catalina M-240 -- over top of Bismarck.
He chose a northerly route and passed a note to the pilot, who was struggling to steer the plane through dark clouds, strong winds and heavy rain.
"After about 20 minutes, the pilot motioned for me to come forward," Mr. Williams says in a written account of the incident."'We should have kept flying south', he shouted above the roar of the motors. 'Give me a new course.'
"I had just started to calculate a new heading when I heard
a shout from the rear of the Catalina -- 'The Bismarck! The Bismarck!' Pandemonium broke out. The second pilot slapped me on the back as if I had just scored the winning goal in a hockey game."
For five hours, M-240 kept the German ship in view, dangerously circling within reach of its massive guns and dodging in and out of cloud cover.
"I saw the massive shape of a battleship, with the unmistakable yacht-like bow of the Bismarck," Mr. Williams recalls."As I looked, the ship came alive with red flashes, and the air around us filled with dozens of black puffs of exploding shells."
Eventually, after relaying Bismarck's position to the approaching pack of British battleships, Mr. Williams' plane was forced to return to its base in Northern Ireland, nursing damage from the German ship's attacks.
But by then, Bismarck was doomed. Its rudder was ruined by a torpedo strike from a Swordfish aircraft, and the ship was circling helplessly as the British vessels closed in for the kill.
"We woke up in the morning to the great news that the Bismarck had been sunk," Mr. Williams says. He remembers the"huge uplift" it gave to Britain and her allies, an event still seen by some historians as the turning point of the war.
When the bugle's blast fades and the silence sets in during tomorrow's Remembrance Day ceremony, one Canadian veteran's thoughts are sure to turn to his key role in the dramatic chase and sinking of Bismarck, the mighty German warship that terrorized Allied naval forces before she went down in flames on May 27, 1941.
Alberta-born Gaynor Williams, 83, a retired engineer now living in Ottawa, was a 19-year-old navigator aboard a Royal Air Force float plane when he and his fellow crewmen caught sight of the"pride of the German fleet" southwest of Ireland and shadowed it for five nerve-wracking hours.
Mr. Williams' story is little known in this country, chiefly because he was the lone Canadian in an RAF aircraft at the centre of an otherwise wholly British assault on the German super-ship.
Bismarck had already destroyed the flagship of Britain's navy, HMS Hood, in a North Atlantic showdown that sent a wave of grief and pessimism across Britain and Canada. More than 1,400 sailors perished in the sinking, and no event seemed a greater foreshadowing of defeat than the tragic loss of Hood.
German submarines had already been picking off Allied warships and merchant vessels almost at will, and Nazi supremacy over the North America-to-Europe sea lanes seemed irreversible with the arrival of the"unsinkable" Bismarck.
But with the German ship far from port after its successful duel with Hood, Britain launched an all-out pursuit. Waves of aircraft scanned the waters south of Iceland and a pack of British warships sped blindly to sea in search of Bismarck, the deadliest and most technologically advanced vessel of the era.
"The Bismarck had disappeared after it sank the Hood, and they didn't know what it was going to do next," Mr. Williams told CanWest News Service yesterday.
Several convoys -- including 20,000 troops -- were en route to Britain with Bismarck lurking in unknown waters, he said.
Mr. Williams, a rookie navigator on a Catalina"flying boat" assigned to the search, recalls how a sister plane first detected Bismarck's presence, 1,200 kilometres off the Irish coast.
But the ship was soon lost again in stormy seas, and Mr. Williams was ordered to plot a course most likely to bring his plane -- Catalina M-240 -- over top of Bismarck.
He chose a northerly route and passed a note to the pilot, who was struggling to steer the plane through dark clouds, strong winds and heavy rain.
"After about 20 minutes, the pilot motioned for me to come forward," Mr. Williams says in a written account of the incident."'We should have kept flying south', he shouted above the roar of the motors. 'Give me a new course.'
"I had just started to calculate a new heading when I heard
a shout from the rear of the Catalina -- 'The Bismarck! The Bismarck!' Pandemonium broke out. The second pilot slapped me on the back as if I had just scored the winning goal in a hockey game."
For five hours, M-240 kept the German ship in view, dangerously circling within reach of its massive guns and dodging in and out of cloud cover.
"I saw the massive shape of a battleship, with the unmistakable yacht-like bow of the Bismarck," Mr. Williams recalls."As I looked, the ship came alive with red flashes, and the air around us filled with dozens of black puffs of exploding shells."
Eventually, after relaying Bismarck's position to the approaching pack of British battleships, Mr. Williams' plane was forced to return to its base in Northern Ireland, nursing damage from the German ship's attacks.
But by then, Bismarck was doomed. Its rudder was ruined by a torpedo strike from a Swordfish aircraft, and the ship was circling helplessly as the British vessels closed in for the kill.
"We woke up in the morning to the great news that the Bismarck had been sunk," Mr. Williams says. He remembers the"huge uplift" it gave to Britain and her allies, an event still seen by some historians as the turning point of the war.