Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Battleship Bismark by Kennedy, Ludovic - 1974

BCA, 1974. Hardcover. Good/Good. h/b 239 pages, condition is good, the DJ has half of the spine missing In Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck, Ludovic Kennedy provides a thrilling firsthand account of the sea battle that was one of the greatest not only of World War II but of all time. The drama of the Bismarck, brand-new pride of Germany's High Seas Fleet, was played out on a stage of two million square miles of stormy ocean from the Arctic to the Bay of Biscay. Then the world's largest warship, she escaped into the Atlantic in May 1941 - and instantly became a serious threat to Britain's survival. When on May 24 the Bismarck sank Britain's beloved old battle cruiser HMS Hood with a lucky hit on her magazine, only three of the Hood's complement of fifteen hundred survived; when Bismarck a few days later stood at bay, attacked by destroyer, battleship, and aircraft carrier, more than two thousand German sailors were doomed. The Royal Navy in pursuit of Bismarck, down from Iceland and up from the Mediterranean, dogging her churning wake, losing and refinding her until she was only hours from safety; the chesslike plotting; the horror and heroism on both sides; the final apocalyptic action-all this has never been portrayed more vividly and objectively, and never with the benefit of detailed documentation from both British and German sources, including material unavailable until 1973. Ludovic Kennedy participated in the pursuit as a member of the escorting destroyer force, an experience that inevitably adds fire and immediacy to his already superb account of this famed sea hunt, an action which deserves to stand beside Salamis, Trafalgar, and the Coral Sea.