[4] To date, it is the only film made that deals directly with the operations, chase and sinking of the battleship Bismarck by the Royal Navy during the Second World War.

was the inspiration for Johnny Horton's highly popular 1960 song, "Sink the Bismarck",[8] credited by Variety with boosting the film's American gross alone by an estimated half a million dollars.

In May 1941, British naval intelligence discovers Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen are about to sail into the North Atlantic to attack Allied convoys.

From an underground war room in London, Captain Jonathan Shepard (Kenneth More) coordinates the hunt for the dreaded Bismarck.

Later, Prinz Eugen breaks away and heads towards the port of Brest, in occupied France, while Bismarck turns and fires at the British cruisers to provide cover as she escapes.

An air assault from the carrier HMS Victorious damages Bismarck's fuel tanks, but the vessel is otherwise largely undamaged.

Back at London's operations headquarters, Captain Shepard gambles that Admiral Gunther Lütjens, the Fleet Commander aboard Bismarck, has ordered a return to friendly waters where U-boats and air cover will make it impossible to attack.

Shepard commits a disproportionately large force to the search, and his wager pays off when Bismarck is located steaming toward the French coast.

British forces have a narrow time window in which to destroy or slow their prey before German support and their own diminishing fuel supplies will preclude further attacks.

The first fails when the pilots misidentify HMS Sheffield as Bismarck, but thankfully their new magnetic torpedo detonators are faulty, with most exploding as soon as they hit the sea.

On board King George V, Admiral John Tovey orders the newly joined cruiser HMS Dorsetshire to finish Bismarck off.

[10] Writer Edmund H. North worked closely with Forester's story, compressing events and time lines to make the plot taut.

Along with the director, he decided to use a documentary-style technique, switching back-and-forth from a fairly insular war room to action taking place on remote battleships.

Producer John Brabourne was able to use his influence as son-in-law of Lord Mountbatten, then Chief of the Defence Staff, to obtain the full co-operation of the Admiralty.

All flying from both carriers was filmed aboard HMS Centaur – clearly marked with her postwar pennant number R06 – and three surviving Fairey Swordfish aircraft were restored, of which two were flown from her flight deck.

[19] The same actor plays the leader of the Swordfish attack from HMS Victorious (in reality, Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde VC, DSO), and also the pilot from HMS Ark Royal who later fired the torpedo which crippled Bismarck's steering gear (in reality Lt John Moffat RNR).

[7] A contemporary The New York Times review by A. H. Weiler, likewise championed its realism in saying "a viewer could not ask for greater authenticity".

[4] Film4 praised its cinematography, noting that it "very realistically re-enacted scenes in the War Room of the Admiralty" as well as "excellently filmed episodes using miniature models".

positively, stating that "this fine film fully captures the tensions, dangers and complexities of battle by concentrating on the unsung back-room planners as much as on the combatants themselves" while also praising More's performance.

[6] Gilbert's continual forays into events that shaped the British war experience mirrored his own background as a wartime filmmaker.

[23] The film replicated the success of other British war-themed productions in the decade that also received healthy box office, including The Cruel Sea (1953), The Dam Busters (1955) and Reach for the Sky (1956).

was made before 1975, when the British code-breaking at Bletchley Park was declassified, so it did not reveal that Shepard's hunches about the movements of the Bismarck were supported by intelligence.

[28] Nonetheless, Shepard's hunch was proved correct when, by good luck, a Luftwaffe Enigma transmission was intercepted and decoded at Bletchley Park, revealing that Bismarck was headed for Brest to repair an oil leak.

The turn presented Hood's deck armour at an angle more vulnerable to shell penetration and has been cited as a possible cause for the explosion and her subsequent destruction, an issue the film does not cover.

[Note 3] The heroic action of the attached Polish destroyer Piorun (ex N-class HMS Nerissa) was not depicted, although she sailed straight for Bismarck, signalling "I am a Pole" as she went, but none of her shots found their mark.

The aircraft that finally located Bismarck after she escaped detection by HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk is correctly shown as a Catalina, but the fact that it was piloted by an American Naval Reserve officer, Ensign Leonard Smith, could not be revealed until long after the war, since the United States was neutral at the time of the engagement.

also does not show controversial events after Bismarck sank, including HMS Dorsetshire's quick departure after rescuing only 110 survivors, because the British suspected that a German U-boat was in the area and withdrew.

[Note 4] Perhaps the most significant historical error is that the film places the British naval intelligence operation in the Admiralty, Whitehall, London.

In reality, Lütjens did not agree with Nazi policies; along with two other navy commanders, he had publicly protested against the brutality of antisemitic crimes during Kristallnacht.

[41][Note 5] When the 1989 expedition by Dr. Robert Ballard to locate and photograph the remains of the battleship proved to be successful, further attention was directed to the story of the Bismarck.