The Hunt for the Bismarck
Six days, two thousand miles of ocean, and the largest naval pursuit in history — told here through every machine that took part.
On 24 May 1941 the battleship Bismarck met the Royal Navy in the Denmark Strait, and eight minutes later HMS Hood — the most famous warship in the world — was gone with all but three of her crew. What followed was the greatest sea chase ever mounted: the Home Fleet, Force H from Gibraltar and aircraft from two carriers converged on a single wounded ship running for the coast of France.
It ended on the morning of 27 May, when the battleships King George V and Rodney battered Bismarck into a wreck. Between those two dates lie some of the most dramatic hours of the naval war — a lucky bow hit, a lost shadow, a torpedo strike flown through a full Atlantic gale, and a rudder jammed at 12 degrees. Each protagonist below has its own page in the archive.
