"Sink the Bismarck!" It was one of the most fearsome ships afloat. Its mission: force Britain's surrender. London, desperate, put every ship to sea.

• Author: McCollum, Sean
• Position: Time past

"ENEMY IN SIGHT! ENEMY IN SIGHT!" the message rang from the crow's nest of HMS Prince of Wales. It was 5:45 a.m. on May 24, 1941, The British warship, paired with the imposing battle cruiser HMS Hood, plowed. through rough seas on an intercept course: Their prey was the Bismarck, a fearsome new German battleship steaming west of Iceland.

The fight didn't last long--just minutes, in fact. Bismarck, firing its gigantic guns from 15 miles away, scored a direct hit on a huge stockpile of the Hood's explosives. The pride of the British fleet sank fast, taking with it all but three of the 1,400-man crew.

The Bismarck's decisive victory stunned the Royal Navy, the British nation, and the world. If this new war machine were to control the Atlantic, Great Britain feared-and Nazi Germany hoped that German naval power could choke off the convoys of merchant ships from the U.S. that were the lifeline of the British Isles.

Winston Churchill, Britain's Prime Minister, issued a terse order: "Sink the Bismarck!" The Royal Navy put every available ship to sea. The chase and climactic battle ushered in a new era of naval warfare and was one of the early turning points in World War II.

More than half a century later, the sinking of the Bismarck is receiving renewed attention from James Cameron, the director of Titanic, in a Discovery Channel special (James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck, airing Dec. 8). Using the latest undersea filming and salvaging equipment, Cameron explored the wreck of the Bismarck, which was first discovered in 1989 lying three miles deep in the waters off the coast of France.

SINKING SHIPS

In May 1941, Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany controlled nearly all of Europe, and German troops were poised to invade the Soviet Union to the east. In the west, only Great Britain fought on, supplied by a steady stream of food and war material from America. Officially neutral, the U.S.--led by President Franklin Roosevelt--worked all angles to aid the British in their desperate fight.

The key to Britain's survival, according to Churchill, was to win the "Battle of the Atlantic." In his memoirs, he wrote later:

... dominating all our power to carry on the war, or even keep ourselves alive, lay mastery of the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports.

Germany knew this, too. It sent "wolfpacks" of submarines against the lightly armed convoys as they crossed the Atlantic, and bombed shipping routes along Europe's coasts. In 1940 alone...