The Keep Military Museum in Dorchester will be hosting a special evening on the 29th May 2025 from 18:30 – 21:00.

The event will be held at the Dorchester Army Reserve Centre and will include a drinks reception followed by a special talk on the HMS Dorsetshire and the sinking of Bismark. It will be hosted and presented by military historian Lt Col James Porter.

The subject of this talk is the County Class heavy cruiser HMS DORSETSHIRE, and will follow her career from the laying of her keel on 21 September 1927 to her loss in the Indian Ocean on 05 April 1942. However, the talk’s main focus will be on DORSETSHIRE’s role in the hunt for and the eventual sinking of the German battleship BISMARCK. The story of the BISMARCK’s breakout into the North Atlantic is an epic tale: her sinking the battlecruiser HMS HOOD, and then her hunt by the Royal Navy culminating in her being cornered and battered into a floating wreck, before sinking, assisted on her way by torpedoes from HMS DORSERSHIRE. In telling this epic tale, the talk will look at the situations of the British and German navies after WW1, and how this led to the construction of the County Class heavy cruisers in Britain in the 1920s, and also – a year later – to the construction of the battleships BISMARCK and TIRPITZ in Germany. The talk explores the design of the ships, their machinery and armament. Next, workup training is covered followed by the daring breakout of the BISMARCK and heavy cruiser PRINZ EUGEN into the North Atlantic. Then there is the spotting of the German ships by sister ships of the DORSETSHIRE as they pass between Iceland and Greenland, and their interception by HMS HOOD and the battleship HMS PRINCE OF WALES. The talk examines in detail the ensuing Battle of the Denmark Strait in which HOOD is sunk. The reasons for the catastrophic explosion on board the battlecruiser is examined in detail. There follow the British efforts to locate BISMARCK after contact with her is lost, and the desperate pursuit once contact was regained. The talk covers the attacks by Swordfish aircraft which render the BISMARCK manoeuvrable and allow several British warships (including two battleships) to converge on the German ship and devastate her in over an hour’s bombardment in which it is estimated that the Bismarck was hit by thousands of shells of all calibres, including at least 100 heavy battleship shells. With BISMARCK wallowing helplessly and beginning to flood from scuttling charges, it fell to DORSETSHIRE to move in close and administer the coup de grace by firing 3 torpedoes into her. DORSETSHIRE then rescued 85 out of 110 German crewmembers from the cold, oily waters. After the BISMARCK action the talk covers DORSETSHIRE’s subsequent operations in the Atlantic and her deployment to the Pacific in late 1941. Here, in April 1942, while steaming towards Ceylon (Sri Lanka) with her sister ship CORNWALL, both ships were attacked by more than 50 Japanese dive bombers. Hit 7 or 8 times each by heavy bombs, both ships sank with the loss of 424 men from a total crew of 1,122 from both ships.

Places for this event will be strictly limited, so all tickets are sold on a first come, first served basis. All proceeds from the evening will go to support The Keep Military Museum, a registered charity devoted to the military history of the counties of Devon and Dorset.

The venue – the Dorchester Army Reserve Centre – is in Poundbury Road, Dorchester DT1 1TA. The Top O’Town car park is a couple of minutes’ walk away and free of charge from 6pm. The drinks reception will start at 6.30pm, followed by the talk at 7pm.

Our Speaker

James Porter was commissioned into The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, commanded 5 RRF and served for a total of 41 years, the last 8 as Commander Defence Training Estates South West. He delivers a large range of talks on military history subjects, is the founder of the Wessex Military History group and is a battlefield guide. The son of a distinguished Devon officer, Roly, who served in Malta and Sicily and won the Military Cross in Italy. James played a major part in producing Roy’s Boys, Christopher Jary’s book on Sicily.

Tickets cost £15 per person and includes the following:

· Admission to the talk on the HMS Dorsetshire and the sinking of Bismark.

· Complimentary drink

Ther are available HERE

Keep Friends and current museum volunteers enjoy a 10% discount on the ticket price.