Overview

Published with new material in time for the 80th Anniversary of the sinking of the Bismarck, Iain Ballantyne's Bismarck: 24 Hours to Doom is the harrowing account of the epic mission to destroy the flagship of Hitler's navy. 'No ship is invincible or so perfectly constructed it is invulnerable to sinking - not the Titanic, nor the Hood, and certainly not the Bismarck.' May 1941: the world watches as the Royal Navy seeks retribution on the ship that sank the beloved HMS Hood. After a bloody chase lasting more than 1,700 miles, Britain's Home Fleet is finally closing in on the world's most powerful battleship. There will be a fight to the finish between more than 5,000 men of the Royal Navy and 2,600 servicemen of Hitler's Kriegsmarine. From tactical hits to shadowing ships, the mission to destroy the Bismarck was one of strategy and perseverance. In this tense and compelling narrative of the Action, we hear from the Royal Navy sailors who saw the combat up close. The product of his interviews with surviving veterans, as well as transcripts, war diaries, and wireless signals, Ballantyne's Bismarck places the reader into the nail-biting naval combat of one of the Second World War's most dramatic events. Eighty years on from that epic mission, the testimonies of the brave men who fought on both sides provide fresh and heartwrenching insight into the real cost of naval warfare.

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9781913099930

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A powerful and moving cinematic study devoted to what has to be the most dramatic event of the Second World War at sea. -- Julian Stockwin, author of the Thomas Kydd Series of naval adventures in the Age of Fighting Sail By drawing on the first-hand experiences of veterans in the thick of the action, Iain Ballantyne has produced a deeply researched and unputdownable account of the hunt for the Bismarck that is at once authoritative, insightful and highly readable. -- Rowland White, author of Harrier 809 and Vulcan 607

Author Information

Iain Ballantyne has written extensively about navies past and present. A former newspaper defence reporter and current editor of the global naval news magazine Warships: International Fleet Review, Iain has sailed in minefields off war-torn Kuwait, witnessed embargo enforcement in the Adriatic, and reported on naval operations in the Arctic and counter-terrorism sweeps in the Mediterranean. He has contributed to national and regional newspapers, international magazines, as well as to television news, documentary programmes, and radio shows. While working for a London-based multi-media production company, Iain played a pivotal role in creating training films and corporate communication projects for the Royal Navy. In 2017, Iain was presented with a prestigious Fellowship Award by the UK's Maritime Foundation for making 'a truly outstanding contribution to stimulating public engagement in maritime issues'. Iain's other books include The Deadly Trade (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), a history of submarine warfare; Arnhem: Ten Days in the Cauldron (also for Agora), a telling of the famous Second World War battle from the point of view of both British soldiers and Dutch civilians; and Hunter Killers (Orion), covering the Cold War undersea confrontation.

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