KMBISMARK Zeiss Binoculars

[RF]

This account by Headband sounds unlikely to me.

Only Dorsetshire or the Maori could have sent a boarding party to Bismarck. Even if they did what would the orders to the boarding party be?
How do you capture a 42,000 ton sinking battleship with a handful of men?

If the boarding party went down with the ship then how would the RN losses in life be explained, as neither Dorsetshire or Maori had any casualties?

There are two possibilities here:

1) The Zeiss item is genuine but nothing to do with the battleship Bismarck,

2) The item is post WW2 with false description or misunderstood account.

[Headband]

To my knowledge, nothing I wrote mentioned an attempt to capture the Bismarck. If I wasn't clear, allow me to respond. The F/V owner told me the purpose of the boarding was to gather, from the bridge/pilothouse/ chartroom/radioroom, etc., anything of intelligence-value; while she was still afloat.

I remember this because he was quite specific on the matter. The RN Yeoman of Signals broke-off the right-half of the set, as it was all he could collect, the order to return to the boarding-vessel having just been given.

How, or why, would someone go to the trouble and the expense, of manufacturing an optical instrument that was so well-made, with acid-etching on a lense, (The Snow-flake-pattern); that was either cast, or molded, and that had: 1. adjustments for interpupillary-distance; 2. changes in magnification; 3. the matte-black-coated finish, and a raised circle containing an eagle, a swastika, and the ships name and date of launching?

If it were fake, why would he punch me in the head? He told me he thought I was going to steal it. That was the farthest thing from my mind.
I went to this website because;

1) I thought that I had probably out-lived the man; and 2) the level of expertise, the circles of interest and influence of the sites members, might possibly result in research via the builders and materials vendors who equipped the Bismarck. Possibly actual pictures, or tech manuals on the optics.

I did not expect groundless conjecture and aspersions regarding my poor memory.

Sincerely,

CWO3(Boatswain3) Wayne H. Farnum, USCG, Retired

[Abram Joslin]

As the Bismarck was the pride and joy of the fleet, is it in anyway possible that they Germans had specially made optics just for the Bismarck?

[Bgile]

Or that someone on board did so out of pride? Or someone at Zeiss? It's an intriging story, and I don't discount it like some others do.

To Headband,

Some of the skepticism is probably due to the fact that we have a Bismarck survivor's story explaining the route he took from Fire control, up through the Bridge, eventually entering the water on the port side near the forward port 5.9" mount, where the list put the water lapping at the deck. He was in the water when the ship sank. There were many hundreds of people in the water and some of them survived. Noone mentions a British boat approaching, and they watched their ship sink. I'd have thought that would be a remarkable event.

I'm not saying you didn't hear what you heard, it's just kind of hard to explain in light of survivor testimony. I'm wondering if there is some other explanation. Maybe the guy got the device from someone else who mislead him and he told you what he thought to be true, only put himself in the event.

I can't explain it. As far as I know, noone here can. Maybe he actually did go aboard Bismarck, but you surely can understand the skepticism.

[Ulrich Rudofsky]

Had the RN actually boarded, ie, seized, the Bismarck, it would have been news of immense magnitude with no reason whatsoever to keep it secret, quite the opposite. Would the ship wreck belong to Great Britain now???

[RF]

Under prize law it would.

I still find the idea of a boarding party simply to gather intelligence unlikely for two reasons:

1) The size of the ship and the distances from bridge, charthouse, wireless rooms, officers cabins etc. on a severely burning/damaged ship on which presumably the boarding party would have no map or plan of the ship to enable them to find their way round, and also in the knowledge the ship could founder at any time?

2) There were still several hundred crew on board - the possibility of serious armed resistance would have to be catered for.


It was not my intention to denigrate Headband's account I merely think the explanation given is unlikely.

[Ulrich Rudofsky]

Rob Winklareth has expressed the idea that the binoculars could have been from another ship called Bismarck (private letter). Could be. But I have had many messages over the years about "Bismarck items", eg., towels, cups, beer glasses. A lot of these are from the former art deco "Bismarck Hotel", now the "Allegera Hotel" on Randolph Street in Chicago. It was still called "Bismarck" in the 1950-60 era and some waiters were still German/Austrian. I believe that my previous observation about the Zeiss "Bismark" [sic] binocs is perhaps correct. "bmk" was a maker's mark of a Czech firm that made instruments for Zeiss Wehrmacht contracts. I have doubts that the KM would have ever put a ship's name on a set of binocs.
http://www.usmbooks.com/zeiss_jena_binoculars.html

http://bunkersite.com/bunkeroptik/archive/manuf.html