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HMS Ark Royal
Famous early wartime aircraft carrier which German propaganda repeatedly reported sunk, she was
eventually torpedoed by an U-boat in November 1941 whilst on escort in the Mediterranean. Habitual
aircraft carried by her were the Fairey Fulmar fighters and the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers.
HMS Iron Duke
One of the most famous battleships of the First World War, the Iron Duke was a super-dreadnought
completed in 1914. She served at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and in the post-war Royal Navy, finishing
her days as a depot ship at Scapa Flow in the Second World War.
HMS Nelson
Launched in 1925, she served throughout the pre-war and wartime years. The Nelson and her twin Rodney
were an unorthodox battleship design, with their main armament placed entirely in the fore part.
HMS Warspite
After thirty year's service and two world wars, the famous and gallant Warspite was finally scrapped in
1947. She participated in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and in various war theaters during the Second
World War in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean and in the Indian, suffering many incidents through her
career.
Bismarck
The sea chase and battle which finally sank the Bismarck was one of the most famous naval actions of the
Second world War. The Bismarck was navigating in the North Sea as a corsair ship in his first
operational offensive, escorted by the Prinz Eugen, with the purpose to attack Allied shipping between
North America and Britain.
Tirpitz
For three years of the war, the Tirpitz, twin of the Bismarck, was a menace to British shipping. For
such reason she was constantly under attack until she was finally destroyed by RAF Lancasters at the end
of 1944.
HMS Hood
Largest of the British battlecruisers, she was designed in the years of the First World War and entered
service in 1920, to serve until she was eventually sunk early in the Second World War by the German
battleship Bismarck.
Scharnhorst
The name was always in the news during the Second World War when she was continually being sought out
and attacked by the RAF. She was finally sank during the Battle of the North Cape by the battleship
HMS Duke of York and her escorts, after being intercepted in a mission to interdict Allied convoys
travelling to the Soviet Union.
HMS Suffolk
The Suffolk was a heavy cruiser in service from 1926 until the end of the Second World War. She
participated in the chase of the battleship Bismarck in 1941.
Admiral Graf Spee
The heavy cruisers of the Deutschland class, to which the Admiral Graf Spee belonged, were the first
German warships that surpassed the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles to Germany after
the First World War. The Graf Spee was sunk in 1939 in the Battle of the River Plate by a British naval
force, after being prosecuted across the Indian and the Atlantic, where she served as a corsair ship,
accompanied by the Altmark, an oil tanker used as prison ship.
Prinz Eugen
The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, launched in 1938, took part in the sinking of the HMS Hood and in the
Channel dash with the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. She survived the war to be damaged and finally sunk
following the atomic test at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
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