The Bell of the Hood which was sunk in 1941 by the German battleship Bismark has been recovered and will be returned to the British Naval Museum.
The Hood was the symbol of British naval domination, and at the time the most powerful battleship ever made. with a armor belt that was over a foot sink and 8 mark 1 guns that could fire a shell over 30 kms the Hood was considered the pride of the British Navy.
The German Battleship Bismark was a similar class of boat with 8 main guns and similar armor and speed.
These boats came together during the Battle of the Denmark Straits where the Hood was protecting convoys from the Germans.
The Bismark and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen engaged the hood in a running battle. The Hood was hit first by a salvo from the Eugo and set a fire but damage control parties put the fire out.
In a running battle that lasted about 20 minutes, the Bismark scored a direct hit from a range of about 18,000 yards on her fifth salvo on the rear deck which penetrated the thin armor and blew the Hoods main magazine, the Hood with her back broken sank in three minutes. Out of a crew of 1400, 3 survived.
The Bismark was engaged in a long running pursuit, and was eventually struck in the rear by a plane launched Torpedo that locked her port rudder and left the ship without maneuvering capabilities. The British Navy then moved in and destroyed the German Battleship after two British Battleships fired over 700 main gun rounds and two torpedoes.
This signaled the beginning of the end of the Naval Dreadnought era, and was considered to be the sunset of the vaunted British Naval dominance in the Atlantic.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...o-founder.html
The Hood
the Bismark