Ballantyne, Iain

This is the story of Bismarck’s fateful final 24 hours on 26/27 May 1941: the finale of the hunt and the culminating brutal close-quarters battle as Bismarck makes a desperate bid to escape the enemy. Using eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors, Royal Marines and Swordfish torpedo-bomber aviators – including searing testimony gleaned by the author during unique interviews with a ‘band of brothers’ who were in the thick of the action – Ballantyne brings one of the Second World War’s most dramatic events thundering to life. He also draws on new research in museum archives and other accounts from both the British and German side, to present a multi-dimensional, cinematic telling of a legendary episode in naval combat history.