Yuku free message boards

Craig wrote:

"Bill,

bearing in mind that the photograph WAS taken from Prinz Eugen, and that it is remarkably similar to one which I've seen recently (will hunt through my bookcase)- the caption for which states "time exposure makes day look like night" for the photo. Also, I seem to remember the action occuring at Daft O'clock, so "night time" could be forgiven for being mistaken."

Not to be argumentative, but...

the caption SAYS it was taken from Prinz Eugen -- which makes sense as she was the only ship close enough to Bismarck to have exposed such a photo -- and if that is the case it could not have been taken during the final action with Bismarck as at that time Prinz Eugen was not even present. I am unaware of any other researcher, anywhere, at any time, that has attributed this (really well-known) photo to other than the action of 24 May, and am certainly baffled as to how anyone could have exposed the photo from a German ship, as Bismarck was basically sunk alone. Had such a photo been exposed by the British, it certainly would have been archived somewhere, and correctly attributed. In the absence of solid and previously unknown evidence in support of this new hypothesis, it is much more reasonable to simply assume that the caption writer either did not know or did not care if the caption was actually correct. I suspect the latter. The flash is not from a direct hit; it's from the blast of Bismarck's guns, then firing over the port bow.

As a practicing photographer, the 'time exposure' explanation seems very odd to me; first of all, as the photo shows little movement, the time exposure could not have been that long. Had it been so, the ship would have been heavily blurred. It is possible to concoct the highly improbable idea that that someone exposed such a photo late at night on what was once called 'open shutter', i.e. with the shutter locked open. In that situation, the light from an explosion would have been the main source of illumination and blurring would have been less because no effective exposure would occur prior to and after the blast. The idea that the "time exposure makes day look like night" makes no sense to me at all; a time exposure might make night look like day, but not the other way around, and such exposures, especially given the photographic technology of World War II, would typically take minutes -- basically impossible during a naval action. There was an old movie technique called 'night for day' that makes shots taken in daylight look as though they were (sort of) taken at night, but this requires special film, filters, and processing. Not to be tried at home...

I can also make no sense of the statement "... the action occuring at Daft O'clock..."

The plain fact is that "All Hands" and "Our Navy" are just not very reliable information sources. That's why no serious researcher uses them. Or at least I am not aware of any...

Bill Jurens