Customer Reviews

Last Nine Days of the Bismarck

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CS Forester has proven with his Master and Commander series that he is no slouch when it comes to providing literary suspense on the high seas. In THE LAST NINE DAYS OF THE BISMARCK, he's turned that talent to a true-life history of the British hunt in the north Atlantic for the German battleship, Bismarck, during World War II.

Just as the catastrophic US defeat at Pearl Harbor in 1941 seemed to result from a concatenation of small events, so too was the British sinking of the Bismarck a series of tiny twists and turns that, to give destiny its due, in many cases seemed to result more from good luck than good management - the serendipitous discovery of the Bismarck's location by a Swordfish torpedo bomber when the weather was so dismal and the skies so overcast that, by all good sense, the bombers should probably not have even been in the air; a chance shot that jammed the Bismarck's rudder and forced her to steam away from the coast of France when she was probably less than an hour away from Luftwaffe air protection; and, finally, Britain's preternatural good luck in being able to stay in battle against the Bismarck when they were literally within minutes of running out of fuel.

The history is all well known, of course, and the ending will come as no surprise to anyone. But the joy and excitement is in Forester's ability to tell the story and relate the history with all the bated breath and suspense of the very best thrillers. If you enjoy history, then you'll certainly enjoy this brief re-telling of one of the decisive turning points of the WW II.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

In his brief historical novel about the Bismarck's last days, CS Forester omits most of the usual philosophical reflections that are a hallmark of his most famous novels--the Horatio Hornblower series. Here, the compelling story of the hunt for and sinking of the great German battleship is descriptive rather than analytic, but I don't mean by this that the book is not readable and enjoyable: it is. I started it one evening, thinking I'd get a few pages into it before turning in; I ended up finishing the book in a couple of hours (and I'm no speed reader). Moreover, I'd recently seen the very good 1960 movie 'Sink the Bismarck', which is based on this Forester book--and it still excited me. Not great as strictly history--Forester intended instead to portray events as they probably happened, and the result is persuasive, entertaining, and highly satisfactory.

This was a very good book and I enjoyed reading it. This book makes you fell like you where really on one of the battle ships of WW2. It is about england trying to stop the greatest ship of its time the bismarck.

This story is as it may have happened. Suspenseful even though we already know the historical finish. Very good reading.