The quoted account describes the Admiralty Operations Room in the Citadel beside the old Admiralty building in Whitehall. Wall maps tracked British warships and convoys alongside enemy surface ships and U-boats reported by aircraft, intelligence, and radio direction finding. Information arrived from ships, shore establishments, embassies, monitoring posts, and agents around the world, while operational instructions and situation reports went back to ships at sea. A staff of fifteen or twenty had been working at full stretch since the signal reporting Bismarck’s departure. Maritime pursuit depended on this centralised exchange of information and orders as much as it did on individual warships at sea.
Notable Point · 2:21-3:29
Inside the Admiralty Operations Room
Kennedy’s account describes how the Admiralty Operations Room combined plots, reports, intelligence, and radio direction finding into the command picture for the pursuit of Bismarck.