Operation Rheinübung
During both World Wars, Britain relied heavily on merchant ships to import food, fuel, and raw materials, such things were crucial both for civilian survival and the military effort.
Germany's naval leadership (under Admiral Erich Johann Albert Raeder) at the time firmly believed that defeat by blockade was achievable.
However, they also believed that the primary method to achieve this objective was to use traditional commerce raiding tactics, founded upon surface combatants (cruisers, battle-cruisers, fast battleships) that were only supported by submarines.
Regardless of the method or manner, Raeder convinced the High Command (OKW) and Hitler that if this lifeline were severed, Britain would be defeated, regardless of any other factors.
By May 1941, the Kriegsmarine battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were at Brest, on the western coast of France, posing a serious threat to the Atlantic convoys, and were heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force.
The original plan was to have both ships involved in the operation, but Scharnhorst was undergoing major repairs to her engines, and Gneisenau had just suffered a damaging torpedo hit days before, which put her out of action for 6 months.
Raeder's principal reason for going ahead was his knowledge of the upcoming Operation Barbarossa, where the Kriegsmarine was going to play only a small, supporting role.
Raeder's desire was to score a major success with a battleship before Barbarossa, an act that might impress upon Hitler the need not to cut the budget for capital ships.
[2] To meet the threat from German surface ships, the British had stationed at Scapa Flow the new battleships King George V and Prince of Wales as well as the battlecruiser Hood and the newly commissioned aircraft carrier Victorious.
Both ships proceeded under escort, separately and rendezvoused off Cape Arkona on Rügen Island in the western Baltic,[4] where the destroyers Z23 and Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt joined them.
[7] By this time, Hood and Prince of Wales, with escorting destroyers, were en route to the Denmark Strait, where two cruisers, Norfolk and Suffolk were already patrolling.
Once the departure of the German ships was discovered, Admiral Sir John Tovey, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Home Fleet, sailed with King George V, Victorious and their escorts to support those already at sea.
After the German ships were sighted, British naval groups were redirected to either intercept Lütjens' force or to cover a troop convoy.
Hood and Prince of Wales made contact with the German force early on the morning of 24 May, and the action started at 5:52 a.m., with the combatants about 25,000 yards (23,000 m) apart.
One of the hits had penetrated the German battleship's hull near the bow, rupturing some of her fuel tanks, causing her to leak oil continuously and at a serious rate.
This was to be a critical factor as the pursuit continued, forcing Bismarck to make for Brest instead of escaping into the great expanse of the Atlantic.
Norfolk and Suffolk and the damaged Prince of Wales continued to shadow the Germans, reporting their position to draw British forces to the scene.
The attacking aircraft were all safely recovered by Victorious, despite poor weather, darkness, aircrew inexperience and the failure of the carrier's homing beacon.
From the south, however, Somerville's Force H with the carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Renown, and the light cruiser HMS Sheffield were approaching to intercept.
This carrier now launched an airstrike, but her aircrew were unaware of Sheffield's proximity to Bismarck, mistook the British cruiser for the German battleship and therefore immediately attacked her.
Ark Royal now launched, in almost impossibly bad weather conditions for air operations, and from a distance of less than 40 miles upwind of Bismarck, a second strike consisting of 15 Swordfish.
Her gunners achieved near misses on Rodney, but the British ships had silenced Bismarck's main guns within half an hour.
She abandoned her commerce raiding mission without sinking any merchant ships, and made her way to Brest, arriving on 1 June where she remained under repair until the end of 1941.
On 4 June the tanker Gedania was found in mid-Atlantic by Marsdale, while 100 miles (160 km) east the supply ship Gonzenheim was caught by the armed merchant cruiser Esperance Bay, and aircraft from Victorious.
Operation Rheinübung was a failure, and although the Germans scored a success by sinking "The Mighty Hood", this was offset with the loss of the modern battleship Bismarck, which represented one-quarter of the Kriegsmarine's capital ships.
The Kriegsmarine was never again able to mount a major surface operation against Allied supply routes in the North Atlantic; henceforth its only weapon was the U-boat campaign.
