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The Battle of the Denmark Strait was a Second World War naval battle between ships of the Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine, fought on 24 May 1941. The British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser HMS Hood fought the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, both of which were attempting to break out into the North Atlantic to attack Allied merchant shipping.
Less than 10 minutes after the British opened fire, a shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her aft ammunition magazines. Soon afterward, Hood exploded, and sank within three minutes with the loss of all but three of her crew. Prince of Wales continued to exchange fire with Bismarck but suffered serious malfunctions in her main armament as the British battleship had not fully worked up after only being completed in late March 1941 and soon broke off the engagement.
The battle was considered a tactical victory for the Germans; however, Bismarck was forced to abort her Atlantic mission due to damage suffered to her forward fuel tanks, and was sunk herself three days later.
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Some historians think that this naval strategic blunder by the germans changed ww2, if the Bismarck hadn't drawn attention to herself by sinking the Hood, she would have made it to the shipping lanes of the Atlantic and shut down supply lines.