Secrets of The Bismarck.(director James Cameron)(Interview)

In May 1941, Germany sent its mammoth new battleship Bismarck into the North Atlantic. In its first action, it sank the Hood, the flagship of the British fleet, killing all but three of its 1,418-man crew. But in one of the decisive naval battles of World War II, the British launched an all-out assault on the Bismarck, and it went down to its three-mile- deep grave. Only 115 of its 2,221-man crew survived. Director James Cameron, best known for his megahit "Titanic," led an expedition to the Bismarck last May. Descending in Russian Mir minisubs, his team used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to explore the wreck. Cameron's two- hour special about what they learned will air Sunday, Dec. 8, on the Discovery Channel. He discussed the expedition with NEWSWEEK's Andrew Nagorski. Excerpts:

NAGORSKI: First, the Titanic, now the Bismarck. Why your fascination with "indestructible" ships that went down?

CAMERON: If you think of the classic shipwreck stories of the 20th century, the Titanic and the Bismarck are at the top of the list. I was always fascinated by wrecks. I was a scuba diver and a wreck diver before I was a filmmaker.

Was the Bismarck more difficult since it was about 3,000 feet lower than the Titanic?

The difficulty consists of working from within a submersible, regardless of the depth. Everything outside of that submersible must be done through robotics. Is it riskier than driving a car? Yes. Are the rewards worth it? Absolutely.

Despite the sinking of the Kursk submarine, you have a very high opinion of Russian technology.

The Kursk was military technology, and we don't know exactly what happened. There's some speculation that it may have been an experimental torpedo. When you're testing an experimental system, that's very different than a proven system like the Mir. Their space program is a better model. If you look at the Mir space station, it had a lot of user-serviceable parts inside. The Russian thinking is, we don't provide three or four times redundancy like NASA would; we just make it with a panel you can open and fix yourself. I've seen the Mir pilots open up the electronic bays inside the submersible, start yanking out cards and soldering at 16,000 feet down.