The Bismarck escaped, but because it was leaking fuel it fled for occupied France. In a ferocious battle, the Hood exploded and sank, and all but three of the 1,421 crewmen were killed.
On May 24, the British battle cruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales intercepted it near Iceland. Learning of its movement, Britain sent almost the entire British Home Fleet in pursuit.
Once in the safety of the open ocean, the battleship would be almost impossible to track down, all the while wreaking havoc on Allied convoys to Britain. In May 1941, the order was given for the Bismarck to break out into the Atlantic. However, after the outbreak of war, Britain closely guarded ocean routes from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, and only U-boats moved freely through the war zone. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hoped that the state-of-the-art battleship would herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet. On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg.
The German death toll was more than 2,000. On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France.
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