Bismarck in action against HMS Hood and Prince of Wales on May 24th 1941 viewed from Prinz Eugen

The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a naval engagement which took place on May 24th 1941 between ships of the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine. Battleship HMS Prince of Wales and battlecruiser HMS Hood engaged battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as the latter pair of vessels was attempting to break out into the North Atlantic through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland. Their mission was to attack Allied merchant shipping as part of Operation Rheinübung. This is the only known footage of the battle and was shot by Fritz Otto Busch on board Prinz Eugen.

Less than 10 minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her aft ammunition magazines. Soon afterwards, Hood exploded and sank with virtually all of her crew. Prince of Wales continued to exchange fire with Bismarck but suffered serious malfunctions in her main armament. The British battleship had only been completed in late March 1941, and used new quadruple gun turrets that were unreliable, and she soon broke off the engagement.

The battle was a tactical victory for the Germans, but its impact was short-lived. The damage done to Bismarck's forward fuel tanks forced the abandonment of the breakout and an attempt to escape to dry dock facilities in occupied France, producing an operational victory for the British. Incensed by the loss of Hood, a large British force pursued Bismarck and succeeded in sinking her three days later.

Around eight minutes after the shooting started, a salvo from Bismarck fired from a range of around 14 kilometers was seen by men aboard Prince of Wales to accurately straddle Hood abreast her mainmast. It is likely that one 38cm shell struck somewhere between Hood's mainmast and "X" turret aft of the mast, resulting in an enormous pillar of flame rising from this area.

This was followed by an explosion that destroyed a large portion of the ship from amidships clear to the rear of "Y" turret, blowing both aft turrets into the sea. At 1:01 the aftermath of the explosion can be discerned on the horizon. The ship broke in two and the stern fell away and sank. Ted Briggs, one of the survivors, claimed Hood heeled to 30 degrees at which point 'we knew she just wasn't coming back'. The bow rose clear of the water, pointed upward, pivoted about and sank shortly after the stern. "A" turret fired a salvo while in this upright position, possibly from the doomed gun crew, just before the bow section sank.

Hood sank in about three minutes, taking 1,415 members of her crew with her. Only Ted Briggs, Bob Tilburn and Bill Dundas survived to be rescued two hours later by the destroyer HMS Electra.

Return fire from the British warships can be seen at 0:18 and 0:34, Bismarck would be hit three times by fire from Prince of Wales during the engagement. One shell struck the commander's boat and put the seaplane catapult amidships out of action while a second shell passed through the bow from one side to the other without exploding, severing access to the forward fuel tanks. The third and last impact struck the hull underwater and burst inside the ship, flooding a generator room and damaging the bulkhead to an adjoining boiler room, partially flooding it. The last two hits caused damage to Bismarck's machinery and medium flooding, as well as severing a steam line and wounding five of Bismarck's crew as a result.

If you would like to support the channel consider visiting https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hw97karbine