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High-altitude reconnaissance Spitfire has spotted German "pocket battleship" Bismarck in the North Sea- Royal Navy now scrambling all available warships to find & sink her.
Two of the British warships hunting German battleship Bismarck has spotted their target off the coast of Iceland. HMS Hood & HMS Prince of Wales are moving in to attack.
Battlecruiser HMS Hood is the largest, heaviest warship in the world, & HMS Prince George is newly-commissioned battleship- so new she still has shipyard crew working below decks.
HMS Hood opens fire- at the wrong ship, Bismarck's escort "Prince Eugen"; Bismarck retaliates: huge broadside at HMS Hood, smashing into British ship's weak deck armour.
Hood- pride of the Navy- is being torn apart by her "prey", the Bismarck; seaman Ted Briggs, onboard: "Screams of dying emit from the voice-pipes to the lower decks."
HMS Hood's ammunition is on fire; Ted Briggs: "shrapnel has made the upper decks a charnel-house; screams of the maimed are a strident chorus."
Vast explosion: HMS Hood has been blown in two. Of 1,418 crew, there are just 3 survivors, Ted Briggs one of them. Battleship Bismarck has her first kill.
Battleship Bismarck hasn't escaped unscathed from sinking HMS Hood yesterday: she took 3 shell hits, now leaking oil & fleeing for safe port.
Damage has slowed Bismarck: she can no longer, as Germans once boasted: "outgun any ship that outruns her & outrun anything that outguns her."
A British Catalina reconnaissance plane has spotted slowed battleship Bismarck 700 miles west of Land's End; flight of torpedo bombers has been dispatched to attack her.
Royal Navy have finally caught battleship Bismarck- she's been torpedoed by swarm of Swordfish bombers, crippling her rudder so Germans can only steer in a wide circle.
Bismarck sends a plaintive final message: "Ship unable to manoeuvre. We will fight to last shell. Long live the Führer." Pursuing Royal Navy battleships HMS Rodney & King George V matching course to destroy her.
Bismarck is being wracked by British broadsides. Bismarck's erratic course makes both fleeing & fighting back impossible.
A shell has hit Bismarck's forward control- post Captain & most senior German officers killed. No-one is alive to order surrender as the battleship is smashed to bits by British guns at close range.
Bismarck has finally sunk. First Officer Hans Oels ordered ship scuttled to avoid capture by British, running through decks to alert crew before dying in huge final explosion.
British warships stay briefly to pick up survivors from the sunken Bismarck. From her crew of 2,200, British have rescued 111- then fled, due to reports of approaching U-boats. Over 1000 men left in freezing Atlantic.
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