In May 1941 Norfolk and her sister ship Suffolk detected the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen whilst on patrol in Denmark Strait.

In the evening of 26 may, torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal rendered Bismarck steerless, allowing her persuers to catch up.

In the morning of 27 May, the battleships Rodney and King George V, Norfolk and the heavy cruisers Devonshire destroyed the Bismarck with gunfire and torpedoes.

[8] The ship later served with the Home Fleet until 1932 and was then Flagship of the 8th Cruiser Squadron on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, between 1932 and 1934.

[9] From 1935 to 1939, Norfolk served with the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, before coming home to refit in 1939, being still in dockyard hands when war was declared.

On 23 November the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst attacked the Northern Patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands and sank the AMC HMS Rawalpindi.

Norfolk was involved in the chase for the two German battleships, but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau retreated at high speed and managed to return to Germany in bad weather.

[11] In anticipation of a British reaction on the sortie of the two battleships, the OKM had organised a submarine trap East of the Shetland isles.

In very bad weather, Norfolk was sighted on 28 November by U-35 which signalled a contact report and alerted the nearby U-47 under the command of the famous Günther Prien.

[13][14] Norfolk received a bomb hit on the quarterdeck which blew a hole in the hull and flooded the aft shell magazines.

Trying to anticipate every possible next move of the German raider, the Admiralty sent out ships to block a possible return to Germany, allocated battleships to convoy escort and organized hunting groups in the North Atlantic.

Norfolk was sent out from Freetown northwards together with her sister ship Berwick and the aircraft carrier Formidable to block the raider from going to port in occupied France.

[16] When in December the Admiral Scheer appeared in the South Atlantic, Norfolk was ordered to Freetown as part of Force K on trade protection duties.

When the British received news of an impeding attempt of the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen to breakout into the Atlantic, the Denmark Strait patrol was reinforced with Norfolk's sister ship Suffolk, which was refuelling at Iceland.

Norfolk and Suffolk continued to shadow Bismarck and Prinz Eugen with their radar and sent regularly contact reports, in order to guide a British force consisting of the battleship Prince of Wales, the battlecruiser Hood and six destroyers under the command of admiral Lancelot Holland to the scene.

[20] Both cruisers and the damaged Prince Of Wales continued to shadow the German ships in order to guide the Home Fleet to them.

With these diversions, Prinz Eugen was able to slip away to continue merchant raiding independently whilst the damaged Bismarck wanted to head to the french port of Brest for repairs.

[a] In bad visibility the aircraft detected Bismarck at 23:30 and the shadowing British ships with their radar, and made contact with Norfolk to get a proper heading towards the enemy.

The Norfolk, Suffolk, Prince Of Wales and the approaching Home Fleet fanned out to regain contact but the Bismarck had escaped.

Between 17 and 30 October she escorted the six merchant ships of Convoy PQ 2 to Arkhangelsk, in company of the destroyers Icarus and Eclipse and three minesweepers.

On 3 November the cruiser and the two destroyers escorted the twelve ships of the empty return convoy QP 2 back to the UK.

[29] From then on she was attached to the Home Fleet as part of a force guarding a possible breakout attempt of the German battleship Tirpitz into the Atlantic.

Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, insisted that these convoys were given protection against an attack by the German surface fleet stationed in Norway, by giving them cover of a cruiser force all the way to North Russia.

Norfolk fired six salvoes and scored two hits on Scharnhorst in a brief gun duel, disabling the aft radar of the German ship.

[b] On 11 January 1945 a British force consisting of the cruisers Norfolk and Bellona and four destroyers, executed a raid on Norwegian coastal shipping.

Norfolk was the flagship of Vice Admiral Rhoderick McGrigor off North Norway during Operation Judgement, an attack by the Fleet Air Arm on a U-boat base which destroyed two ships and U-711 on 4 May 1945, in the last air-raid of the war in Europe.

[42] Norfolk left Plymouth for a much needed refit at Malta, after transporting on 7 June the Norwegian Royal family back to Oslo after their five-year exile in London.