It’s interesting, the way stories play off of our emotions. Yesterday, Lohnes wrote up a piece about the D-Day Squadron that is en route to Europe to take part in the 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion on June 6th, 2019. The mixture of Douglas DC-3 and C-47 Skytrains will take a week to make the trip to Normany, France. The small handful of aircraft that are part of the D-Day Squadron pales in comparison to the sheer number of aircraft utilized in D-day…the sheer number of aircraft, ships, and most important of all, manpower that was incorporated into Operation Neptune is almost beyond a scale. Five thousand landing craft, 160,000 men crossing the English Channel, and the horrors that have been represented thousands of times over in television shows and movies to varying degrees of success were all in play on that June day.

But D-day was one day in the all of World War II. The grand scale at which the war was fought was unprecedented in many aspects. Aircraft had been seen in World War I, but the technology had progressed swiftly in the decades thereafter. Shipbuilding technology, weaponry, artillery, and aviation-employed tactics caused the scene of battle to switch from dug-in trench warfare to a very mobile, very much combined effort among all members of a military force. On all sides, there were many seen “firsts”…the largest war front ever between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the atomic bombs from the United States, and from Germany, the Bismarck.

Put into perspective: KMS Bismarck was just a bit shorter than Titanic, wider at the beam, significantly heavier, armed to the teeth with all sorts of different ways to screw someone’s day up, and armored up with plating up to 14-inch-thick plating in sections, including 12.6-inch thick beltline plating. Visually, Bismarck making headway towards your vessel was a good reason to start finding religion…the sight alone would’ve been something to behold back then. But Bismarck‘s career didn’t last a full year…she was commissioned in August 1940 and on May 27, 1941, she was at the bottom of the North Atlantic. After shelling and destroying the battlecruiser HMS Hood and seriously damaging HMS Prince of Wales as part of the Battle of Denmark Strait, the Bismarck, damaged from some shots from Prince of Wales, was attempting to make a break for occupied France for repairs and the Royal Navy was out for blood with red mist in their eyes. With a total of forty-two ships on the trail of Bismarck and it’s companion ship, Prinz Eugen, it was only a matter of time before the wounded battleship was to meet it’s fate. After a torpedo from a Swordfish plane knocked out a rudder and left Bismarck circling in the ocean, the final blows were laid on May 27th by HMS King George V and HMS Rodney. The end result: 2,200 dead, 110 captured.

Sabaton, the band you are about to hear, is new on my radar though they’ve been around since 1999. They are from Sweden and tend to focus on war, battles and acts of valor for the themes of their songs. This particular song was released in April as part of a collaboration for the video game World of Warships, The overall story of the video focuses on a potential survivor of the sinking, and the video tells as much of the story of the Battle of Denmark Strait and the sinking of of the battleship that can be fit into a few minutes. This is history via headbanging.

Thanks to Kevin from Junkyard Digs for the tip!

In addition, the band has a channel that dives deeper into the history of the songs they perform. Here’s their report on the Bismarck: