Battle of the Atlantic · United Kingdom vs Germany
Pursuit and sinking of Bismarck
18 May 1941 – 27 May 1941
Bismarck and Prinz Eugen sailed from Gotenhafen to attack Atlantic convoys. In the Denmark Strait Bismarck sank the battlecruiser Hood, then was hunted across the Atlantic, crippled by a Swordfish torpedo in her steering gear and sunk by King George V, Rodney and the cruiser Dorsetshire 300 miles west of Brest.
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Day by day
— Rheinuebung
Bismarck and Prinz Eugen leave Gotenhafen under Admiral Luetjens to break into the Atlantic and attack the convoys. The Swedish cruiser Gotland sees them in the Kattegat on the 20th and the news reaches London; a Spitfire photographs them in the fjords south of Bergen on the 21st. Hood and Prince of Wales sail from Scapa that night for the Denmark Strait, and Tovey follows with King George V and Victorious on the 22nd.
— Denmark Strait
Luetjens goes north-about round Iceland. At 19:22 Suffolk sights the two ships in the Denmark Strait between the ice and the minefield, and with Norfolk shadows them by radar through the night. Hood and Prince of Wales are 300 miles to the south, steering to meet them at dawn; Tovey with the main fleet is far behind to the south-east.
— Hood
The battlecruiser squadron meets Bismarck at 05:52. At 06:00 a shell from Bismarck's fifth salvo reaches Hood's after magazines and she blows up, leaving three men of 1,418. Prince of Wales, hit seven times with new guns jamming, breaks off; but she has holed Bismarck's bow and cut a fuel tank, and Luetjens decides for St Nazaire. That evening he sends Prinz Eugen away on her own; near midnight nine Swordfish from Victorious put one torpedo into Bismarck's belt without effect.
— Contact lost
At 03:06 Bismarck turns across the shadowers' wake and Suffolk's radar loses her. Luetjens then transmits for half an hour, but the bearings are plotted wrongly at Scapa and Tovey spends seven hours steering north-east for the Iceland passages while Bismarck runs south-east for Biscay. Force H comes north from Gibraltar; Rodney, bound for Boston, is diverted; the Admiralty orders the whole ocean to hunt.
— Swordfish
A Catalina of 209 Squadron finds Bismarck at 10:30, 700 miles from Brest and nearly out of reach. Ark Royal's first strike attacks Sheffield by mistake at 15:50 and the magnetic torpedoes fail; the second, fifteen Swordfish at 21:05 in a full gale, puts one torpedo into Bismarck's stern and jams both rudders. She circles helplessly into the wind. Vian's destroyers close after dark and attack with torpedoes all night.
— The end
King George V and Rodney open fire at 08:47 from 12 miles. Bismarck's guns are silent by 10:00; the two battleships close to 3,000 yards and fire until 10:16, and Dorsetshire's torpedoes and the crew's own scuttling charges sink her at 10:40, 400 miles west of Brest. Dorsetshire and Maori pick up 110 men before a U-boat alarm, and U-74 and the Sachsenwald five more, of 2,200. Prinz Eugen reaches Brest on 1 June.
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