The departure was a sequence of movements, rather than two ships simply leaving harbour together. Prinz Eugen’s war diary records the cruiser getting under way from Gotenhafen on 18 May and meeting Bismarck and the accompanying vessels on 19 May. Its account of the commanders’ conference describes a preference for the Denmark Strait, using poor visibility near the ice to help the passage. B25
We have that diary through a modern German transcription and English translation. It gives us a shipboard perspective on the outward voyage, but the underlying archival pages remain to be compared.
Passing through watched waters
The ships travelled through the Danish straits towards Norway. On 20 May, Prinz Eugen’s diary noted the Swedish cruiser Gotland moving alongside the formation near the Swedish coast. That entry establishes an encounter recorded aboard the German cruiser; it does not, by itself, trace every step by which intelligence reached Britain. B25
By 21 May, Tovey had received a report of large warships heading north through the Kattegat the previous day. Air photographs then identified a Bismarck-class battleship and a Hipper-class cruiser near Bergen. The German ships had been found, but their intended route beyond Norway remained uncertain. B11
Prinz Eugen’s diary records refuelling from Wollin on 21 May and orders to continue north that evening. Those are the cruiser’s entries: its fuel transfer must not be assigned to Bismarck. The same diary shows that intercepted British instructions had already alerted the Germans to an aircraft search for heavy ships heading north. Concealment was becoming a matter of judgement, rather than something either side could take for granted. B25
An empty anchorage
Weather interrupted British efforts to establish whether the ships were still near Bergen. Fog and low cloud prevented the next reconnaissance from giving a definite answer. Seeing the ships on one day did not guarantee finding them on the next. B11
On 22 May, an aircraft from the naval air station at Hatston broke through the weather and searched the anchorage, then Bergen harbour. Its crew reported that the ships had gone. Tovey accepted the report, but departure left him with another question: where had they gone? B11
His despatch records a gap of 29 hours between the earlier sighting and confirmation that the anchorage was empty. The ships could have covered a great distance during that interval. Patrols had to guard several possible passages, while fuel limited how long the searching forces could remain at sea. Hood and Prince of Wales covered the northern approaches; Tovey’s force sailed to cover farther south. B11
At the edge of the mist
On 23 May, bad weather again reduced the air search. In the Denmark Strait, Suffolk and Norfolk continued their patrols. Conditions were uneven: clear near the ice, misty towards the land. Suffolk kept the mist close enough to provide cover if she encountered the German battleship at short range. B11
Tovey’s report places Suffolk’s sighting at 19:22: Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were on her starboard quarter. The cruiser reported the enemy, increased speed and moved into the mist. She then maintained contact using radar. Norfolk also closed, came under Bismarck’s fire and withdrew behind smoke. These times follow Tovey’s stated zone-minus-two convention, two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time; they have not been merged with the German diary’s clocks. B11
The cruisers’ immediate task was to stay in touch. Their reports could allow heavier ships to intercept, provided the messages arrived and the Germans did not escape observation.
A sighting still had to reach the fleet
Tovey wrote that Norfolk’s report was his first news of the contact: Suffolk’s earlier reports had not reached the battlefleet. The distinction matters. A ship could have found the enemy while a commander elsewhere still lacked the information needed to act. B11
By the evening of 23 May, the attempted breakout had become a shadowing operation. Weather had helped conceal the German movement, obstructed the British search and offered the cruisers shelter when contact finally came. It now remained to bring the forces together. For Hood and Prince of Wales, the next stage would be an encounter in the Denmark Strait.