At the end of May 1941, some of the world’s most powerful warships drew together in the middle of the Atlantic.
It was to be one of the last great battles of the era of naval gunnery.
A series of brutal encounters, all revolving around the flagship of the German Kriegsmarine — Bismarck.

Bismarck is a quantum leap for the Germans, no question.
She is as capable as anything the British have got.
A very impressive warship, extremely dangerous.

Bismarck was now loose in the Atlantic.
The Admiralty were trying to find whatever ships they could and throw them at the problem.
The British had one job: to sink Bismarck.
If left unchecked, Bismarck threatened to dominate the Atlantic and starve Britain of the vital food and military supplies that flowed from the rest of the world.
The Admiralty had no choice. Bismarck had to be stopped.

On Valentine’s Day, 1939, at the Blohm & Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, the biggest ship ever built in Europe was launched.
It was a triumphant day for Hitler.
He had swept to power on the promise of overturning the Treaty of Versailles and returning Germany to a position of pride and power, and now he was christening one of the most powerful ships afloat — a stark statement of intent.
He concluded: “May the German soldiers and officers who will have the honor to command this ship one day prove themselves worthy of the name, The Bismarck.”

Bismarck was a large battleship for her era — about 250 meters in length, 30 meters in the beam.
This made her a very steady gun platform.
She could make a respectable 29 knots at full speed, and, importantly, could maintain that speed in all weathers.
Her armament was impressive: eight 15-inch guns in twin turrets, two forward and two aft.

Her armor protection followed traditional German emphasis on what some called “unsinkability.”
She had extensive internal subdivision, making her difficult to flood.
Her belt armor was dense and her command space strongly protected.
She was extremely dangerous, though not necessarily the best of her generation.

Before Bismarck, Germany’s strongest ships were “the twins,” Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
These were relatively small, armed with 11-inch guns, and the British called them battlecruisers.
They were not a match one-on-one for British battleships.
Bismarck, however, was.

Grand Admiral Raeder had designed Bismarck as a commerce raider.
Used in that role, she was probably unstoppable.
Had she broken into the Atlantic like earlier cruisers had done, Britain would have had a real problem: they lacked ships with the firepower to take her on effectively.

It would be two years before Bismarck was ready for operational service.
Two years that saw Western Europe fall almost entirely under Nazi control.
Britain had survived the Luftwaffe and avoided invasion, but was now desperately vulnerable.
Her survival depended on fragile cargo routes crossing the oceans, bringing food and vital supplies.

Raeder had seen the Army and Luftwaffe succeed on land and wanted a naval victory of his own.
But the German Navy was small.
Even so, it had been used effectively, notably in Norway in 1940.
Pocket battleships raided commerce early in the war.
By 1941, the navy was doing what it could with limited resources.

The Royal Navy existed for sea control.
Germany focused on sea denial — limiting enemy fleets and attacking sea lanes.
U-boats were central to German commerce raiding, but surface ships offered a powerful combination: a battleship could destroy convoy escorts and force convoys to scatter, making ships vulnerable to submarines.

A major change came with Germany’s capture of French Atlantic ports, particularly Brest.
These ports had dry docks and facilities suitable for U-boats and large warships.
Now German heavy ships breaking into the Atlantic had bases to use.

Raeder took advantage, basing U-boat wolfpacks there and sending them deep into the Atlantic.
The impact was immediate and devastating — U-boat captains called this “the happy time.”
Still, many believed only surface warships could deliver a decisive blow.

As Bismarck neared completion, Raeder launched Operation Berlin in 1941.
Gneisenau and Scharnhorst swept through the Atlantic, smashing British shipping routes.
The threat of Germany’s surface fleet was now very real.

Raeder wanted to repeat that success with Bismarck.
There were no other operational battleships to accompany her, but she would sail anyway, with smaller escorts and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.
Her commanders were Vice Admiral Günter Lütjens and Captain Ernst Lindemann.
On 19 May 1941, Bismarck sailed on her maiden operation — Operation Rheinübung — accompanied by Prinz Eugen.

Aboard Prinz Eugen was a propaganda company, including a cameraman who would film the mission.

Bismarck wanted to avoid contact with the Royal Navy.
The plan was to reach the open Atlantic and raid, not fight capital ships.
But avoiding detection proved impossible.
A Swedish cruiser spotted the force, and the Admiralty received a vague but alarming report.

As the German ships moved into the North Sea toward Norway, British reconnaissance patrols were searching the coast.
On 21 May, Flying Officer Michael Suckling photographed a huge ship in a Norwegian fjord — it could only be Bismarck.
Admiral John Tovey put the Royal Navy on high alert.
Bismarck was loose.