The Bismarck, the flagship of the German Navy, was next to the Tirpitz the largest German warship and had 50,900 tons of water displacement and a crew of 2,092 men. Commissioned on 08/24/1940, it left for Operation Rhine Exercise on 05/18/1941. However, together with the Prinz Eugen she was discovered early by the British aerial reconnaissance. When it met the Hood, it was sunk by the Bismarck on May 24th, 1941. After a long pursuit, she received an aircraft torpedo hit on May 26, 1941 and was killed by the British battleships King George V and H.M.S. Rodney posed. On May 27th his own team sank the Bismarck 490 km off the French coast.