Three weeks after the Battle off the Channel Islands, the battleships Bismarck, Tirpitz, and the Heavy Cruiser Blucher set out from Kiel on Operation ZėrstorenKonvoi, which literally translates to Destroy Convoys. A week later, this would come true when a convoy near the Shetland Islands was intercepted. However it is escorted by the battleship Queen Elizabeth and destroyer HMS Onslow. Yet Lutjens decides to take it on.
Bismarcks first salvo just misses the Queen Elizabeth.
Bismarck fires again.
Bismarck's gunners zero in with deadly efficiency. 3 lethal seventeen hundred pound 15" shells hit home. It seems the Royal Battleship may succumb to the German's withering firepower.
Now Tirpitz opens up. 2 lethal 15" shells hit the bridge, killing everybody but the captain himself.
Blucher's 8" 900lb shells now are just 14 miles away - striking distance for her 8 inch guns. Blucher fires a whole broadside, and all hit home. One 8" she'll hits her aft radar, knocking it out.
2 hit C turret, also knocking that out and killing most everybody in it. Another 2 disable D turret, but do not knock it out. The other 3 hit the armor belt and don't cause much damage.
Finally a huge explosion shakes the ship, possibly from a Blucher, hits ready use ammo, destroying most of her superstructure and deck platforms, and sending it to the bottom.
The only escort left is the battered HMS Onslow. Onslow did a good job at escorting by moderately damaging the Blucher with 4.7 and 3" shells. The shells hit weak deck areas, also killing a few sailors. But at 10:35 AM, 15 minutes after the fight began, Blucher strikes back. A broadside of 900lb shells hits the Onslow, killing almost everybody on board. It too, wipes out the bridge, and levels the entire deck. With the escorts gone, Bismarck, Tirpitz and Blucher turn their attention to the freighters. The freighters, doddling away at just 18 knots, frantically send distress signals and fire their weak 3/50" deck guns. Amazed at the "fight" they were putting up, Lutjens orders his 5.9" secondary weapons to open fire. Almost every gun on the 3 ships blasts away, and in 5 minutes, all 12 merchants are sunk. One of those, the SS Pan Pennslyvania, was carrying 116.000 barrels of aviation petrol, along with 2 LCI (L) landing craft of about 290 tons as deck cargo. All but one of the landing craft and other cargo survive, the LCI floating free before a U-Boat spotted and torpedoed it. Britain's lifelines are being strangled.
