NAGORSKI: First, the Titanic, now the ?Bismarck. Why your fascination with “indestructible” ships that went down? CAMERON: If you think of the classic shipwreck stories of the 20th century, the Titanic and the Bismarck are at the top of the list. I was always fascinated by wrecks. I was a scuba diver and a wreck diver before I was a filmmaker. Having done two expeditions to the Titanic, it was natural to look for other stories to tell with the same technique.
Was the Bismarck more difficult since it was about 3,000 feet lower than the Titanic? The difficulty consists of working from within a submersible, regardless of the depth. Everything outside of that submersible must be done through robotics. So once you’ve passed the threshold where you can get your hands on the subject, which for human beings is about 500 feet, it’s really about the same. There is the knowledge that you are deeper and that the pressure is greater. And that your technology is that much more likely to fail.
Did you feel a sense of danger operating that far down? The primary danger of submersible operations is asphyxiation due to an electrical fire. That could happen at any depth. There’s always the danger of implosion of one of your devices, whether it be the lighting or camera housing outside the sub, which may disable the sub or might even cause the implosion of the manned sphere. So doing the engineering correctly is absolutely critical. The Russian team does a very good job. But we also watchdog them and we have to supply our own equipment that will operate inside the Mir at a standard of safety that they approve. For me, it’s a little bit like saying that there’s the danger of the cable breaking when you step into an elevator. Which is true. You’re putting your faith in the engineering.
There’s a lot more practice with elevators than with what you were doing. The Mirs have a pretty good track record over 15 years. Is it riskier than driving a car? Yes. Are the rewards worth it? Absolutely. In space or underwater exploration, it’s always a risk-versus-reward equation.
How hard was it to get the ROVs into the Bismarck? The wreck is so battle-damaged that a lot of the access points we had counted on were blocked by wreckage. Ironically, we wound up going in with the ROV through shell holes. It’s an amazing wreck because frozen in the steel is the story of the battle. You can really see what happened.
What did you learn about the battle? When the Bismarck sank the Hood, the Prince of Wales [another British ship] managed to land a couple of hits before it ran for its life. The hits were significant. We found the one through the bow, which left a hole about six feet across. Even though it was above the waterline, the storm swells were such that it allowed about 4,000 tons of water to enter the ship. That caused them to back off of top speed, and three days later they were caught by a carrier-based attack by Swordfish torpedo bombers. These slow, open-cockpit biplanes launched 13 torpedoes and scored one hit. The one hit was the turning point. It was a hit aft that affected the rudders and the ship became unsteerable. The British fleet closed in and finished it off the next morning.
No one had ever seen the damage inflicted by that torpedo. Historians thought that the steering-gear room had been damaged. That turns out not to be the case. We got down there with the ROV. The torpedo hit the starboard rudder, and the explosion forced it into the central propeller where it was locked in place. The port rudder was blown completely off by the explosion. Even the Germans didn’t understand the nature of the damage. Their fate was sealed once that torpedo went off.
If the Brits hadn’t scored those two lucky hits, could the Bismarck have gotten away? Yes, they wouldn’t have been able to catch her. It was two quirks of fate. Except that they were quirks of fate that were the product of tenacious, heroic activity on the part of the British fleet. They were absolutely furious as a result of the sinking of the Hood.
What brought the Bismarck down? We never found damage sufficient to sink the ship in the amount of time it took. It would have had to flood quickly, catastrophically, to sink an 822-foot ship in 15 minutes. The British were definitely damaging the ship, and very likely it would have sunk in three or five hours. But for the time it took, there must have been scuttling.
Why would the German crew scuttle the Bismarck? They had explicit orders not to scuttle the ship. But because they were not allowed to abandon the ship, they had to get the ship to abandon them in a situation where they were being punished beyond imagination. They were just being shelled and killed, and the ship was on fire, but it wasn’t sinking. They wanted it over.
Why did you bring along the two survivors from the crew? The objective here is not just to solve this riddle; it’s to bring history to life so we don’t forget it. These guys were there. Their direct experience helped us bring the wreck to life so that it’s not a dry, didactic history lesson. I relate to shipwrecks as human stories.
You clearly felt empathy for the crew. The average age of the crew was 20. I think of what I knew about life at the age of 20. These guys were the products of this psychotic regime that was able to very successfully seduce them, brainwash them and get them into this situation. I was able to hang out with them. They were a couple of the finest guys I ever knew. They had had 61 years to think about the colossal mistake they made. It was a mistake made by everyone around them. They were just going with the flow. It felt right, but it was so wrong and they know now how wrong it was. I like that we have this tangible link to history that isn’t just a bunch of black-and-white archival footage. It’s living memory.
