Sink the Bismarck!

Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the 1959 book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. To date, it is the only film made that deals directly with the operations, chase and sinking of the battleship by the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Although war films were common in the 1960s, Sink the Bismarck! was seen as something of an anomaly, with much of its time devoted to the "unsung back-room planners as much as on the combatants themselves". Its historical accuracy, in particular, met with much praise despite a number of inconsistencies. Sink the Bismarck! was the inspiration for Johnny Horton's popular 1960 song, "Sink the Bismarck". The film had its Royal World Premiere in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh at the Odeon Leicester Square on 11 February 1960. Plot In February 1939, Nazi Germany's most powerful battleship, , is launched, beginning a new era of German sea power. In May 1941, British naval intelligence discovers Bismarck and the heavy cruiser are about to sail into the North Atlantic to attack Allied convoys. From an underground war room in London, Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More) coordinates the hunt for the dreaded Bismarck. The two German warships encounter and in the Denmark Strait, and the four warships engage in a deadly gun duel. The battle results in the annihilation and violent disintegration of the Hood, shocking combatants on both sides. Prince of Wales is alone and is fired on by the two German ships. It manages to inflict damage on the Bismarck's bow, but Bismarck returns fire, destroying the Prince of Wales''' bridge. Prince of Wales emits a smoke screen behind which to retreat. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen also retreat, but they are shadowed by the cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk using radar. Later, Prinz Eugen breaks away and heads toward the port of Brest, in occupied France, while Bismarck turns and fires at the British cruisers to provide cover as it escapes. The attack forces the cruisers to retreat. An air assault from the carrier damages Bismarck's fuel tanks, but the vessel is otherwise largely undamaged.