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The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a naval engagement in the Second World War, which took place on 24 May 1941 between ships of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine.The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Hood fought the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to attack Allied ...
The two ships destroyed the British battlecruiser Hood and moderately damaged the battleship Prince of Wales in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Prinz Eugen was detached from Bismarck during the operation to raid Allied merchant shipping, but this was cut short due to engine troubles.
Its best-known constituent ship was HMS Hood, "The Mighty Hood", which was lost in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941. Following the loss of HMS Repulse on 10 December 1941, Battlecruiser Squadron was disbanded. Its last surviving member, HMS Renown, survived World War II and was removed from service and scrapped in 1948.
The battle-cruiser encountered Bismarck and engaged her at long range. Bismarck returned fire and destroyed Hood, killing all aboard except for Briggs and two others. [4] The Battle of the Denmark Strait and the loss of Hood were regarded by the British public as one of the greatest disasters to befall the Royal Navy during the war.
The attack on Denmark was a breach of the non-aggression pact Denmark had signed with Germany less than a year earlier. The initial plan was to push Denmark to accept that German land, naval and air forces could use Danish bases, but Adolf Hitler subsequently demanded that both Norway and Denmark be invaded.
He was commander of Hood for just three months, when he was killed at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, along with most of his crew, when Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. He was posthumously mentioned in dispatches. [1] Kerr is commemorated on Portsmouth Naval Memorial. [2]
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At about 05:35, the German forces were sighted by the Hood and, shortly afterwards, the Germans sighted the British ships. In the ensuing Battle of the Denmark Strait the Hood suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion at 06:01 that broke the ship in half; the admiral and all but three of the crew of 1,418 were lost. [2]