Bismark´s endurance, fuel bunker and fuel burn.

[Gudbrandur]

When the Bismarck and Prince Eugen left Norway for Operation Rheinubung they where at blitzkrieg battlespeed from the start. When the two ships where between Iceland and Greenland and 30 minuts prior to engagement with the English, the two ships had used up 50% of there fuel and had no knowledge of the enamy ahead. The Prince Eugen bunkered up at Bergen but the Bismarck did not to be able to be at a speed faster than the fastest enamy ship known to be in the area, the Hood.

The name of the operation is refering to a river ( Rhein) and a target area so when the two ships where at half endurance they where close to the target area and ready to make a fast run out of that place at high speed, outrunning enamy ships.

This river was in Iceland and on it´s bank the airfield using aircraft to find and attack German U-Boats, close by at a mountain rige was a big radio relay station transmitting all radio signals in the North Atlandic are for English and American aircraft and ships around Iceland. THIS WAS THE GERMAN TARGET IN OPERATION RHEINUBUNG.

[RF]

THIS WAS THE GERMAN TARGET IN OPERATION RHEINUBUNG.

On what evidence? Nobody else mentions this, it is not in any documentation in respect of the operation on either side. And certainly not in the German Fleet orders to Admiral Lutjens.

This is quire apart from the fact that any German operation involving an attack on Iceland would require the express approval of Hitler. Again none of the documentation of the Fuhrers military conferences makes any mention of such an operation.

[Gudbrandur]

There are countless shadow clandistine operations performed by the Krigsmarine, Luftwaffe and Army in WWII. The Operation Rhainubung is one of them. This shadow operation is all Hitler and Carl Dönitz with Rader set to the side for dragging his feet in getting the Bismarck into operation. The British got notion of this operation as early as mars the 19th, 1941. How that came to be is a mistery but a warning message was sent to Iceland warning the defence forece of an incoming invation force by sea. Rhainubung had it all, advance Fernaufklaring in mars 1941, with Wilhelm Canaris controlling that part, performed by KG 26. Anyone reading the book The Luftwaffe and the war at sea 1939-45, will see what went on backstage, at the Krigsmarine quarters. I am surprised to see how long now the true Bismarck story has been hidden with all it´s logic like the endurance, fuel burn and bunker capacity facing us today.

[tommy303]

Well, if you can produce operational orders or other primary sources, for certainly even in a clandestine operation such would exist, then perhaps the forum will consider it. There were, however, considerably less valuable and less risky ways to mount a small operation thantwo major warships costing hundreds of millions of Recihsmark. On the whole, the perponderence of evidence, including operational orders, first hand accounts, supports the Rhein exercise as being a commerce raid to keep pressure on the British; Brandenburg units, on the other hand were being detailed for the up coming invasion of Russia and to quell difficulties in the Balkans.

[tommy303]

This shadow operation is all Hitler and Carl Dönitz with Rader set to the side for dragging his feet in getting the Bismarck into operation. The British got notion of this operation as early as mars the 19th, 1941.

What makes you think that? Raeder was still very much in charge during the period of Rheinübung, and being head of OKM Dönitz was still subordinate to him. For that matter, Dönitz was also subordinate to the chief of fleet, Admiral Lütjens, albeit he was permitted a certain autonomy in conducting BdU operations.

A second point to bring out is the landing of a commando force is hardly an invasion. The force would have gone ashore to demolish the base of which you speak, but would not stay as an occupying force since they could be neither supplied nor reinforced in the face of a British counter operation against them. Furthermore, any such raid would have had only a very short lived effect. Any damage a commando raid could have caused would have been made good in a matter of weeks, if not days.

A third point is neither Raeder nor Dönitz saw fit to mention a covert operation connected to Rhein Exercise in their memoirs.

[RF]

And a fourth point is that in the 65 plus years since the end of the Second World War no author or historian anywhere has come up with anything to support the story being offered here.
It is no more credible than the other allegation made by our Icelandic friend - that HMS Hood blew up at DS as a result of being torpedoed by a U-boat.

Conspiracy theories will always abound, but their weakness is exposed when detail is put in to contradict them. For example one Australian attempted to identify the ''Japanese submarine'' that was alleged to have sunk HMAS Sydney instead of the hilfskreuzer Kormoran. It was the same sub that sank the USS Indianapolis in July 1945 - only that sub wasn't laid down until 8 December 1942, more than a year after HMAS Sydney was sunk!

[Gudbrandur]

The name of the operation can fool anybody, ubung, Rhinubung, or in english, schooling or training mission. This was a very good word for a clandistine shadow mission given to the tradegy once the Bismarck was on the bottom of the ocean. This is all Carl Dönitz doing and he has been fooling all of us for 65 years. I am a professional aircraft and a ship captain an it does not fool me any more. This forum has done all the homework needed to reveal this falsification by a war crimminal. Carl Dönitz and his co worker Gerhard Wagner and the rest of the team translating documents in German over to English as POW´s for the Americans. How inocent and dum can you get, beliving these war crimminals.

[RF]

The name of the operation can fool anybody, ubung, Rhinubung, or in english, schooling or training mission. This was a very good word for a clandistine shadow mission given to the tradegy once the Bismarck was on the bottom of the ocean. This is all Carl Dönitz doing and he has been fooling all of us for 65 years. I am a professional aircraft and a ship captain an it does not fool me any more. This forum has done all the homework needed to reveal this falsification by a war crimminal. Carl Dönitz and his co worker Gerhard Wagner and the rest of the team translating documents in German over to English as POW´s for the Americans. How inocent and dum can you get, beliving these war crimminals.

Evidence?

Now I think that if you believe this you are fooling yourself.

Alternatively I might think you are a Troll simply trying to wind people up.

Otherwise you would produce the documentary and factual evidence to support your claims - only there isn't any is there?

[tommy303]

In heaven's name, why would it even matter now to cover up a covert mission, or for that matter anytime after the war was over. The original documents translated by German POWs still exist and can easily be matched against the translations, so even if Doenitz, et al., attempted a deception, it would fool no one then and certainly not now. There was a German plan called Unternehmen Ikarus to send an occupying force to Iceland, but it was never proceeded with due to the logistical impossibility of supplying and maintaining such a force in the face of allied superiority in numbers on land, sea and air.

[Gudbrandur]

Operation Ikarus was the name given by the Germans for the invation of Iceland in June 1940. Operation Weserubung must have felt easy to perform, rolling over Denmark and Norway but to continue over to Iceland caused some hesitation by German war expert like Rader of the Krigsmarine. Göring of the Luftwaffe had some other opinions. Reading about the war between the two of them in the book," The Luftwaffe and the War at Sea 1939-45", makes me wonder how close to the gallow Rader came in the spring of 1941. At this point the Bismarck was handed over to Carl Dönitz by Adolf Hitler.

The first Bismarck order came in marz 19th 1941 but was post poned when the KG26 Fernaufklarungsaircraft made a forced landing in Iceland with four German secret service operators on the run in Iceland sent by the Krigsmarine U-Boat admiral Carl Döntiz.

The second Bismarck order sent of 2092 crewmembers on the ship out of Germany, surrvivors where 115 but 2106 perished to the ocean, that is all together 2221 people. The difference is the Brandenburgers in all 129 picked up in Bergen, Norway prior to the mission.

The Carl Dönitz story is not fooling me any more.

[tommy303]

Quatsch!

[Herr Nilsson]

Agreed: totaler Quatsch!

[Gudbrandur]

There are always disbelivers in all communities, against all and everything. That is the funny part of communications. By the way, 5 of the surrvivors died later in captivity.

[RF]

Operation Ikarus was the name given by the Germans for the invation of Iceland in June 1940.

Operation Ikarus was identified as a follow up operation to Operation Sea Lion.

At the time it was concieved there were 4,000 British troops based in Iceland, which had been under British occupation since 10 May 1940 when Operation Fork was executed.
The British and Canadian garrison in Iceland was progressively expanded to around 25,000 men at the time of Rheinubung. Any German attempt in those circumstances to invade Iceland would have been suicidal and certainly not worth risking Bismarck.

As Operation Sea Lion was postponed then abandoned, so Ikarus was redundant from the moment of its inception.

[Gudbrandur]

Ikarus was an Island in the Atlantic according to the Mercador map of 1569. This was a mystical bird or a bird Island, according to the Greeks. Birds, Bird Island and aeroplanes. A good name for a clandistine operation to attack British on the Island of Ikarus.