|
The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a World War II naval engagement fought between the British battleships Prince of Wales and Hood and the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to destroy Allied merchant shipping.
The German ships were intercepted in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland by Prince of Wales and Hood, which initially fired upon Prinz Eugen, believing from its leading position that it was Bismarck. Hood had relatively weak deck armour, and therefore wished to close with the Bismarck as quickly as possible (differences in armour become less significant as range decreases, and at close range the trajectory of the Bismarck's shells would not have been steep enough to hit the Hood's deck armour). However whilst Hood was doing this, both German ships concentrated fire on her, and she exploded after receiving three hits from Bismarck. The most plausible explanation for Hood's destruction is that one of Bismarck's shells penetrated her deck armour and struck a powder magazine. Hood rapidly sank, taking all but three of the 1,418 crewmembers with her.
Prince of Wales had to turn toward the German ships to avoid Hood's wreckage, and came under heavy fire. With all but one of its main guns out of action, she escaped under a smokescreen, but not before hitting the Bismarck three times, one hit causing water to be introduced into fuel storage. Bismarck headed for Brest, France for repairs, and although Prince of Wales and the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk attempted to shadow them, the German ships separated and escaped into the Atlantic. Bismarck was hunted down and sunk three days later; Prinz Eugen avoided pursuit and conducted a separate (and unsuccessful) commerce-raiding mission, and reached Brest, France on June 1, 1941.
|
