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Battle of the Denmark Strait
Part of World War II
Date May 24 1941 Location Denmark Strait Result Draw
Belligerents
Kriegsmarine	Royal Navy
Commanders and leaders
Günther Lütjens	Lancelot Holland†
Strength
1 battleship 1 heavy cruiser	1 battleship 1 battlecruiser
Casualties and losses
1 battleship damaged	1 battlecruiser sunk 1 battleship heavily damaged 1428 killed, 9 wounded

The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a World War II naval conflict between ships of the British Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine.

The British battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood fought the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, both of which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to destroy Allied merchant shipping.

Less than ten minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her ammunition magazines. Hood blew up, and sank within 3 minutes with the loss of nearly all her crew.

Prince of Wales continued to exchange fire with Bismarck but suffered serious malfunctions in her main armament. This, combined with the effects of the battle, left most of her main guns unusable and she broke off the engagement.

Bismarck, damaged but still very much operational, declined to chase Prince of Wales and instead headed for the Atlantic along with Prinz Eugen.

Background

On May 18, 1941 the new Bismarck was prepared, after extensive trials, for her first voyage against enemy shipping. She was accompanied by Prinz Eugen, a new cruiser also on her first mission of the war; "Operation Rheinübung". Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz, each heavier than any battleship in the British fleet, were perhaps the strongest battleships in service at this time.

Admiral Lütjens, the German fleet commander, intended to break out into the Atlantic through the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland and attack Allied convoy traffic in the North Atlantic.

Earlier raids by German capital ships such as the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had done enough damage to cause the British to use some of their older battleships such as the Revenge class as convoy escorts. Although old and slow, these ships were well armed with 15-inch guns, more powerful than most of the guns of the German heavy cruisers and pocket battleships. The Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, though, could risk attacking a convoy escorted by one of these battleships: the Bismarck could engage and attempt to destroy the escorting battleship, leaving the Prinz Eugen to chase down and sink the fleeing merchant ships.

The two ships were expected to try to break westward through the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. Royal Navy ships and aircraft were watching their likely route. On the evening of May 23, 1941 they were spotted by the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, patrolling the Denmark Strait under the command of Rear-Admiral Wake-Walker.

With the help of the Suffolk's newly-installed radar set, the cruisers shadowed the German ships through the night, reporting on their movements. The next morning the German ships were intercepted in the Strait between Iceland and Greenland by a force of British ships. These were the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood, along with a destroyer screen under the command of Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland on the Hood.

Prince of Wales was a newly commissioned King George V class battleship, of much the same size and power as Bismarck. She had not yet been properly "shaken down," and her crew was green. She still had mechanical problems, especially with her main armament, and had sailed with shipyard workers still aboard working on her. When Bismarck and Prinz Eugen first sighted her in the Denmark Strait, they identified her as King George V, as they believed Prince of Wales could not yet have put to sea.

Hood, from her commissioning in 1918, for 20 years had been the largest warship afloat. Between the wars, more than any other ship she had represented British naval power in the eyes of Britain and the world. But her armour was less comprehensive than a battleship's. She had been designed in 1916, and then hastily and incompletely redesigned while still under construction, after three similarly designed British battlecruisers exploded in the Battle of Jutland that same year. Even so, Hood's firepower, 15 inch guns, were the equivalent of any battleship afloat, and she had been partially modernised in many areas over the years. She was a much more powerful cruiser than Prinz Eugen.

Admiral Holland ordered his squadron into action at approximately 0537. The rough seas in the Strait kept the destroyers' role to a minimum. The cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk would be too far behind the German force to reach the battle.

The Battle Begins

Hood opened fire at 0552 at a distance of approximately 26,500 yards, about 13 nautical miles. Holland had ordered firing on the lead ship, Prinz Eugen, believing from its position that she was Bismarck. Holland soon amended his order and directed both ships to engage the rear ship, Bismarck. Prince of Wales had already correctly targeted Bismarck, whereas Hood is believed to have continued to target Prinz Eugen for some time.

Holland ordered his ships to close with the enemy. Since Hood's deck armour was weak in places, Holland wanted to reduce the range as quickly as possible, since at a shorter range the trajectory of Bismarck's shells would be flatter and they would be more likely to hit the sides of the ship rather than the decking, or to glance off the top deck.

Prince of Wales struck her target first. She would ultimately hit Bismarck three times. One shot struck the commander's boat and put the seaplane catapult amidships out of action. The second shell passed through the bow from one side to another. The third struck the hull underwater. These last two caused minor damage and flooding. More importantly, the damage to the bow cut access to the forward fuel tanks' 1,000 tons of fuel oil. It also caused Bismarck to trail a visible oil slick.

Lutjens held fire until 0555, when both German ships targeted Hood. A shell hit Hood's boat deck, starting a sizable fire in the ready-use 4 inch ammunition stored there, but this fire did not spread to other areas of the ship or cause the later explosion. Although unconfirmed, it is possible that Hood was struck again at the base of her bridge and in her foretop radar director.

Sinking of the Hood

At 0600, Vice-Admiral Holland ordered his force to turn once again to port to ensure that the main guns on both Hood and Prince of Wales could bear on the enemy. During the execution of that turn, a salvo from Bismarck was seen by men from Prince of Wales to straddle Hood abreast her mainmast. It is believed that at least one 380 mm (15 inch) shell struck somewhere between the mainmast and "X" turret astern of it. Hood was hit amidships by at least one shell from Bismarck at a distance of about 9 miles.

This was immediately followed by a huge pillar of flame that shot upward like a giant blowtorch, in the vicinity of the mainmast. This was followed by an explosion that destroyed a large portion of the ship from amidships clear to the rear of "Y" turret. The ship broke into two. The stern broke away and sank. The bow, pointed upward and pivoting about, followed shortly thereafter. Splinters rained down on the Prince of Wales half a mile away. The Hood sank in about three minutes, taking 1,415 men, including Vice-Admiral Holland, with her. Only three of her crew (Ted Briggs, Bob Tilburn and Bill Dundas) survived to be rescued two hours later by the destroyer Electra.

The British Admiralty later concluded that the most likely explanation for the loss of the Hood was a penetration of her magazines by a single 380 mm shell from Bismarck, causing the subsequent catastrophic explosion. Recent research by submersible craft suggests that the initial explosion was in the after 4-inch magazine and that it spread to the 15-inch magazines via the ammunition trunks.

It has been suggested from examination of the wreckage, found in 2001, that the magazine explosion in the the 4-inch armament near the mainmast caused the vertical blast of flame seen there, and this in turn ignited the magazines of the aft 15-inch guns that caused the explosion that wrecked the stern. This explosion might have traveled through the starboard fuel tanks, igniting the fuel oil there, setting off the forward magazines and completing the destruction of the ship. While this is possible, it is also possible that the forward magazines did not blow up. The forward part of the ship might have been damaged by hydrodynamic forces during the sinking.

Prince of Wales alone

Prince of Wales found herself steering towards the sinking Hood. Her commanding officer, Captain John C. Leach, ordered an emergency avoidance turn away from Hood's wreckage. This violent change of course disrupted her aim and put her in a position that made it easier for the Germans to target her. She resumed her previous course, but was now under the concentrated fire of both German ships.

Prince of Wales was struck four times by Bismarck and three times by Prinz Eugen. One of these shells passed through her upper superstructure, killing or wounding several crewmen in the Compass Platform and Air Defence Platform. Pieces of another shell struck her radar office aft killing crewmen within. An 203 mm shell from Prinz Eugen found its way to the propelling charge/round manipulation chamber below the aft 5.25" gun turrets, and a 380 mm shell from Bismarck hit underwater below the armour belt. It penetrated several compartments and came close to the aft 14" magazine. Fortunately for Prince of Wales, neither shell exploded.

By this time, with serious gunnery malfunctions that had put most of the main guns out of action, Captain Leach ordered the ship to make smoke and withdraw from the battle. Prince of Wales turned away just after 0604, firing from her rear turret under local control. The salvos were ragged and are believed to have fallen short. She retired from the battle around 0610. 13 of her crew were killed and 9 wounded as a result of the battle.

Aftermath

Prince of Wales and the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk continued to shadow the German ships, but they slipped away from their pursuers. Shortly afterwards, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen separated and escaped into the Atlantic.

The damage to Bismarck's forward fuel tanks, combined with a missed opportunity to refuel at Bergen earlier in the voyage, left less than 3,000 tons of fuel remaining, not enough to operate effectively against the Atlantic convoys. Bismarck headed for Saint-Nazaire for repairs.

Prinz Eugen, undamaged, went further south into the Atlantic where she refueled from a tanker at sea. She suffered engine troubles, abandoned her commerce raiding mission without having sunk any merchant ships, and returned to Brest.

The British public were shocked that their most emblematic warship and more than 1,400 of her crew had been destroyed so suddenly. The Admiralty mobilised every available warship in the Atlantic to hunt down and destroy the Bismarck. The Royal Navy forces pursued and brought Bismarck to battle and the German battleship sank on the morning of the 27 May.

Later, moves were made to court-martial Prince of Wales's captain, John Leach, and Frederick Wake-Walker, the Admiral commanding Suffolk and Norfolk. The view was taken that they were wrong not to have continued the battle with Bismarck after Hood had sunk. John Tovey, Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, was appalled at this criticism. A row ensued between Tovey and his superior, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound. Tovey stated that the two officers had acted correctly, not endangering their ships needlessly and ensuring that the German ships were tracked. Furthermore, Prince of Wales's main guns had repeatedly malfunctioned and she could not have matched the Bismarck. Tovey threatened to resign his position and appear at any court-martial as 'defendant's friend' and defense witness. No more was heard of the proposal.

A British board of enquiry quickly investigated the cause of Hood's explosion and produced a report. After criticism that the initial enquiry did not record all the available evidence, a second board of enquiry more extensively investigated Hood's loss, and examined the vulnerabilities of other large British warships still in service in light of the probable causes of the explosion. It, like the first enquiry, concluded that a 380 mm shell from Bismarck caused the explosion of Hood's aft ammunition magazines. This led to refitting some older British warships with increased protection for their ammunition magazines and some other related improvements.

Bibliography

• Storia Militare, La battaglia dello Stretto di Danimarca, 2005
• B.B. Schofield Loss of the Bismarck, Ian Allen Ltd. 1972.
• Ludovic Kennedy Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the "Bismarck", Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2004. ISBN 0-30435-526-7.
• Simon Adams, World War II. Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-78946-990-1
• VE Tarrant, King George V Class Battleships, Arms and Armour Press, 1991. ISBN 1-85409-524-2.

References

1. Tarrant, p.58

See also

• Rheinübung Sortie of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen

External links

• HMS Hood Association: Battle of the Denmark Strait Documentation Resource

• The Battleship Bismarck

• The Heavy Cruiser Prinz Eugen

• Operation Rheinübung