The Battle of Hood and Bismarck

The voyage to find history's two greatest battleships. It was the greatest sea battle of World War Two. It ended in the destruction of the two finest warships the world has ever seen and claimed the lives of almost 3,500 men.
In July 2001, PBS, Channel4 UK and ITN launched an expedition to find the wreck of the Hood - a British warship sunk during WW2. Read what happened during this extraordinary voyage into the past.

May 1941: Britain had no allies in mainland Europe. It would be another six months before the USA joined the forces fighting Hitler's Germany. America was however sending vital supplies, without which, the war would be lost. All those supplies came by ship across the Atlantic.

launch_eugen

The launch of German Heavy Cruiser - Prinz Eugen
Hitler's plan was to cut that lifeline by scattering and destoying the convoys. Submarine warfare was already planning successful for the Nazis, but the destructive power of a battlecruiser against a convoy was even greater. Unlike subs, surface vessels could wipe out a convoy ship in one blow. The Nazi navy, the Kriegsmarine, sent the battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen to cut Britain's transatlantic supply line.

But before the Bismarck could achieve her mission she had to break through the Naval blockades obstructing her path into the Atlantic. Leading the blockade was the pride of the British fleet - HMS Hood.