The 3 Days Britain Hunted the Ship That Sank the Hood

WW2, from the records. https://warshelf.com/ May 24, 1941. At 5:52 in the morning, in the Denmark Strait, HMS Hood opens fire on the Bismarck. Eight minutes later she breaks in two, and of 1,415 men three survive. Prince of Wales lands three hits before she turns away, and one of them cuts Bismarck off from a thousand tons of her own fuel. Admiral Lütjens makes for Saint-Nazaire, and Churchill gives one order: sink the Bismarck. The cruisers lose her on radar. Lütjens, believing he is still being watched, breaks radio silence anyway, and the bearings are plotted on the wrong chart, sending the Home Fleet the wrong way for seven hours. An American ensign at the controls of a Catalina finds her again, seven hundred miles west of Brest. Ark Royal's Swordfish attack the wrong ship first. Then, in a gale at dusk, one torpedo jams her rudders, and she can only turn in circles back toward the battleships. On May 27 Rodney and King George V close to almost point-blank range. More than 2,200 men sailed on the Bismarck. 114 came home.