HMS Hood

HMS Hood, a British battlecruiser, was the flagship of the Royal Navy between the two world wars. Launched in 1918, she was the largest warship in the British fleet and in the world at the time. Although he did not take part in the First World War, he had a symbolic role as an ambassador of British naval power. Its weakness lay in its insufficiently thick armour, but reinforcement projects were abandoned due to financial and time constraints.

At the start of World War II, Hood was based at Scapa Flow, Scotland, and participated in the destruction of the French fleet at Mers el Kébir in 1940. In 1941, when it was spotted that the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen threatened convoys between Britain and the United States, Hood and Prince of Wales set out to confront them. The battle began on May 24, 1941, and despite intense firefights, Hood suffered a deadly explosion from a Bismarck shell, almost killing him. Only three crew members survived of the 1,419.

The loss of the Hood aroused great emotion in the United Kingdom and strengthened the determination to defeat the Bismarck. Under Churchill's order to "sink the Bismarck", efforts were made to track down and eventually sink the Bismarck, accomplished on 27 May 1941 approximately 1,000 km west of Brest.