KM BISMARCK

In the mined waters of the Denmark Strait, near the Greenland coast, Vice- Admiral Lancelot Holland of the Royal Navy is hunting the pride of the Kriegsmarine, the brand-new battleship BISMARCK. VAdm Holland’s flagship is the elderly 42 000-ton battlecruiser HMS HOOD, which looks formidable, but has a keel weakened by 20 years of hard work without a thorough refit, and not nearly enough armour on her top deck. HOOD is cruising in company with a powerful new battleship HMS PRINCE OF WALES.

Through intelligence reports and reconnaissance, the British have kept tabs on BISMARCK from the day her keel was laid. When BISMARCK slipped out of a Norwegian fjord to begin a career as a commerce raider, going after convoys of merchant ships, she was followed by Coastal Command aircraft and tracked by ship-borne radar. BISMARCK is accompanied by the heavy cruiser PRINZ EUGEN, and the two ships are operating under Admiral Günther Lütjens.

During the night, the heavy cruisers HMS NORFOLK and HMS SUFFOLK followed BISMARCK and PRINZ EUGEN southwest along the edge of the pack ice, herding them toward HOOD and PRINCE OF WALES. BISMARCK exchanged fire with NORFOLK early in the evening, but nothing definitive happens until 5:07 a.m., when a hydrophone operator in BISMARCK hears turbine engines—HOOD and PRINCE OF WALES, only 32 km away. BISMARCK and PRINZ EUGEN accelerate to confront the new threat.

At 5:47 a.m., when Adm Lütjens orders General Quarters, HOOD and PRINCE OF WALES are charging at top speed in close formation, heading for BISMARCK and PRINZ EUGEN in zig-zags designed to bring their guns to bear at the most advantageous angle. At the very moment HOOD comes into range, VAdm Holland orders a salvo on the "left-hand ship"—PRINZ EUGEN. BISMARCK fires a broadside in response, the shells plunging through HOOD’s thin deck. The third salvo hits a magazine, and HOOD sinks in minutes, taking all but three of her 1 421 men with her.

Three days later, on May 27, a Royal Navy task force sinks BISMARCK off the French coast, and the surface phase of the Battle of the Atlantic is over.

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