In 1960, 20th Century Fox released Sync the Bismar, a film inspired by CS Forers’s best-selling novel, The Last Nine Days of the Bismar. Presented in a documentary style, the film delivers a compelling and largely accurate portrayal of the most legendary naval pursuit in history. In an early scene, German fleet Admiral Gunther Luchians addresses the battleship’s crew as they steam toward the Atlantic.

In the kind of fiery rhetoric often seen in American war films, Luchians declares, “Officers and men of the Bismar, this is the fleet commander. I can now tell you that we are going out into the North Atlantic to attack the British convoy system. We are going to sink their ships until they no longer dare to let them sail.

It is true we are only two ships. But the world has never seen such ships. You are sailing in the largest, the most powerful battleship afloat. Superior to anything in the British Navy. You’re faster. You are unsinkable. Unsinkable. Unsinkable. From that moment forward, the audience is given the strong impression of the German warship’s overwhelming might and invulnerability.

But this portrayal is misleading. It’s important to remember the film was produced in 1959, 18 years after the Bismar was destroyed. What emerged is the legend of the Bismar. And like most legends, its truth often extends no further than what people are willing to believe. As with many historical legends, Bismar’s might has been exaggerated and misrepresented.

 Much of what was once accepted as fact is simply myth. In reality, far from being the most powerful battleship afloat, she ranked among the less heavily armed capital ships of 1941. Admittedly, her fire control systems, propulsion, and gunnery were exceptional. Yet these qualities alone did not place her at the top of the battleship hierarchy.

Since the 1906 launch of HMS Dreadnot, the first all big gun battleship, the evolution of heavy warships followed a steady trajectory of increasing size and strength. Yet this progression was usually marked by an ongoing struggle to balance displacement, armor thickness, velocity, and firepower. In World War I, the traditional method of battleships lining up and exchanging salvos reached its climax at the monumental battle of Jutland.

On May 31st, 1916, four separate engagements unfolded between two massive fleets in the North Sea near Denmark’s Jutland coast. By battle’s end, three British battle cruisers had exploded. Yet the core strength of both the German high seas fleet and the British Grand Fleet remained largely intact. Despite the use of the heaviest naval guns, it was armor that ultimately proved decisive.

Still, some naval architects failed to fully understand this critical lesson. All Jutland demonstrated was that the era of deciding wars through massive battleship engagements had come to an end. By the time the Third Reich rose in 1933, Germany had already embarked on an ambitious naval expansion. While destroyers, cruisers, and especially yubot were produced in large quantities, the true pride of the fleet remained the mighty battleships.

High-ranking officers in the marine believed these capital ships would be more useful in targeting and destroying Allied convoys, the United Kingdom’s critical supply route, than in risking direct clashes with enemy warships. Grand Admiral Eric Rder, head of the Marine, began by authorizing the construction of three Deutseland class cruisers, Deutseland, Admiral Shear, and Admiral Grape.

Though classified as heavy cruisers, they were popularly referred to as pocket battleships. These panzer shifa or armored ships each mounted six 11in guns housed in two main turrets. The three 14,500 ton Admiral Hipperclass cruisers, Hipper, Blucer, and Prince Oen, each boasted eight 8-in guns mounted in four turrets.

Though impressive warships in their own right, they were quickly overshadowed by newer developments. The formidable 32,000 ton Charhost and Nisanau were launched in 1936. Each armed with nine 11in guns housed in three turrets. There has always been a somewhat unclear sense of mission surrounding these vessels.

 They were alternately labeled as battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, and even battleships. Traditionally, battle cruisers served as swift reconnaissance units rather than main fleet assets, revealing the marines uncertain intentions for their operational role. This was not the case for Bismar. Laid down in 1936 and launched on Valentine’s Day 1939 at the Blowman Voss shipyard near Hamburgg.

The event was attended by a smiling Adolf Hitler who presided over the celebration. The Bismar was outfitted with eight 15-in guns across four turrets and 12 5.9in rifles in six turrets. Weighing in at 42,000 tons and shielded by 13 in of armor, she was the largest warship Germany had ever constructed. Equipped with radar and sophisticated fire control systems, she could inflict heavy damage on enemy warships and effortlessly obliterate any unarmored merchant vessel.

The Royal Navy followed her development with growing concern. Once war began, the main objective of German warships became the Atlantic convoys that sustained Britain with crucial food and raw materials. These convoys carried everything from munitions and aircraft to tanks, provisions, and soldiers for Britain’s military forces.

If enough of these defenseless cargo ships and tankers were sunk, Britain’s collapse seemed only a matter of time. The Admiral T was deeply concerned about the threat she posed to the convoys, Britain’s vital artery of survival. The Royal Navy understood that she had to be stopped. In the spring of 1941, Bismar was completing her sea trials in the Baltic.

When she and her companion, the prince Yogen, finally slipped through Baltic and Norwegian waters in route to the Atlantic, Britain’s future hung in the balance. Charhorst and Gnisau had already sunk 22 ships totaling 115,000 tons, and neither ship matched Bismar’s destructive power. In May, 16 convoys were crossing the Atlantic, bound for the Mediterranean or the British Isles.

Despite being guarded by Royal Navy destroyers, cruisers, and battleships, they all remained exposed to the devastating reach of Bismar’s massive guns. Bismar became the overriding fixation of the British Admiral T. For six relentless days, through storms and clear skies, fortune and misfortune, two full fleets and nearly a dozen separate warships hunted, battled, and sought to destroy the German Leviathan.

On May 24th, HMS Hood, the Royal Navy’s pride and mightiest battle cruiser, encountered Bismar in the Denmark Strait. Hood was the seasoned veteran with a powerful blow but limited range while Bismar was the agile newcomer faster on the strike. Less than 10 minutes after the battle began, the mighty Hood was struck by a shell that penetrated her main magazines, triggering a catastrophic explosion that left only three survivors out of a crew of 1,400.

In the end, the key wasn’t just the size of the guns. It was range, armor, and precision that decided the outcome. Hood and Bismar both carried nearly identical main batteries. The sinking of Hood dealt a painful blow to British morale, but it only strengthened the nation’s determination. To the watching world, this naval showdown suggested that Bismar was unstoppable.

For Nazi Germany, Hood’s destruction was a propaganda triumph. For Britain, vengeance for Hood became a national rallying cry. Neither side was now willing to retreat. The Royal Navy mustered every ship it could spare. And ultimately, through a mix of grim determination and a stroke of luck, two British battleships managed to reduce Bismar to a burning ruin.

For over 70 years, Bismar’s supremacy has largely gone unquestioned. The 1960 film helped cement the myth which over time came to be accepted as truth. But where did it begin? Who first declared Bismar unmatched? Extensive research through German and British archives, including those of the Imperial War Museum and the Naval Historical Center, uncovers no public claim made before 1941 that Bismar was the most powerful or largest battleship afloat.

 Not even the Nazi war or propaganda ministries made such declarations. Ysef Gerbles, the propaganda mastermind, would have been the obvious one to do so. Yet, he refrained, likely realizing any such claim would be swiftly disputed by naval experts and embarrassed the regime. The nearest thing to such a claim came during her launch in Keel when Hitler proudly proclaimed that Bismar and her sister ship Turpetss were the most powerful warships ever built in Germany.

Even that statement wasn’t entirely accurate. In 1916, at the height of the First World War, SMS Byron was launched, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s new super dreadnot. She was armed with eight 15-in guns, the same main battery Bismar would carry more than two decades later. It appears Hitler overlooked that particular detail.

At best, the most truthful claim the Germans could make. Though honest, was hardly a trade of the propaganda ministry was that Bismar was the world’s newest and most technologically advanced warship. But after a thorough comparison with other major capital ships of the era, it becomes clear that Bismar’s fearsome reputation outweighed her actual combat effectiveness.

By spring 1941, naval guns had reached the peak of their development. Since the 12-in guns of HMS Dreadnot in 1906, gun size and range had advanced rapidly, especially leading into World War I. The 13.5 in guns were soon eclipsed by the massive 15-in armament of the Queen Elizabeth class super dreadnots, which set the Royal Navy standard for two decades.

 Still, there were notable exceptions. The sister ships HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney, launched in 1920 and 1922, were equipped with 916in guns, the largest ever produced by Britain, mounted in three triple turrets. These were rivaled only by the powerful American Iowa class battleships. The balance between more guns and larger guns shifted repeatedly, influenced in part by budget constraints and the design limitations of the ships being planned.

So on the eve of the Second World War, the Royal Navy’s newest battleship was King George V, armed with 10 14-in guns arranged across three turrets. Two massive four gun turrets were positioned for and aft, while a final pair sat in a raised twin gun turret. This highlights the unpredictable course of battleship design between the wars and into the early 1940s.

The 14-in gun had become the norm for the US Navy. featured on almost every battleship from USS Nevada up to the debut of USS Iowa in 1942. Nevada mounted 10 14-in guns, while the later USS Arizona carried 12 spread across four turrets. France’s most formidable battleships, Jeanbart and Rishelu, were each armed with eight 15-in guns.

Italy’s flagship battleship Vtorio Venedo boasted nine 15-in guns as well and measured in at 40,000 tons with an overall length of 780 ft. Naturally, any discussion of World War II battleships must consider Japan’s colossal super battleships, Yamato and Mousashi. Although Yamato had been launched before the Bismar hunt, she wouldn’t be commissioned until December 1941.

Displacing 65,000 tons, both ships were equipped with nine massive 18in guns, the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship. They represented the peak of battleship engineering. Yet both ultimately fell victim to carrier-based US aircraft during the war. To clearly show that Bismar’s armament was inferior to many of the world’s leading battleships, we must examine key criteria.

A battleship’s primary weapons, specifically gun caliber, shell weight, and maximum range, are fundamental to its combat value. One straightforward method for comparison is the total gun caliber or TGC calculated by multiplying the number of main guns by their caliber. This gives a basic measure of a ship’s overall firepower.

Another helpful metric is the total weight of broadside or TWWB, which further aids in ranking a vessel’s offensive capability. Several other key elements must also be weighed such as firing range, rate of fire, targeting systems, and accuracy. As a modern, cuttingedge warship crafted with advanced German engineering, Bismar could arguably claim technological superiority over any Royal Navy ship in 1941.

Yet, when examining the TGC and TWWB figures, some unexpected findings emerge. Japan’s Yamato with a TGC of 168 ranks just behind the older Japanese battleship Nagato which scores 198. However, in terms of TWWB, the positions reverse, Nagato fired a heavier broadside than her larger successor. Interestingly, the US battleships Arizona and Tennessee also reach a TGC of 168, though their shell range and broadside weight fall short of Yamato’s.

Overall, Japan’s battleships lead in firepower with American and British ships trailing ahead of France and Italy. Meanwhile, Bismar, the so-called terror of the seas, immortalized in Johnny Horton’s 1959 song, lands at the very bottom. Hood and Bismar were closely matched in firepower. Each had a TGC of 120 and nearly equal TWWB figures.

7,238 tons for Hood and 6,857 tons for Bismar. Hood’s shells were actually heavier at 1,900 lb compared to Bismar’s 1,800 lb rounds. Still, despite her heavier ordinance, Hood’s maximum range of 29,000 m fell 6,000 m short of Bismar’s reach. Bismar only held the edge in range and gunnery. Ultimately, it was Hood’s inadequate armor protection that sealed her fate.

So, how did the myth take hold? The claim that Bismar was the world’s most powerful battleship only gained traction after she was sunk. It became woven into the legend. For the Royal Navy, the narrative worked in their favor. Losing the famed Hood and then taking down Bismar seemed more impressive if the German giant had truly been the mightier ship.

The reality is that for only nine brief days, Bismar held the title of the world’s most modern and advanced battleship. Inevitably, she was destined to face a foe strong enough to bring her down.