The Hood was a 42,100-ton Battle Cruiser built at Clydebank, Scotland and was completed in March 1920. For more than two decades, she was the world's largest warship and, with her long, low hull and finely balanced silhouette, was to many the embodiment of "big-gun" era sea power. The Hood served in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Caribbean protecting British interests. In May 1941, in company with the new battleship, Prince of Wales, she was sent out to search for the German battleship Bismarck, which had left Norway for the Atlantic. On the morning of May 24th the two British ships found the enemy to the west of Iceland. In the resulting "Battle of the Denmark Strait", one or more of Bismarck's fifteen-inch shells penetrated Hood's after magazines. They erupted in a massive explosion. The great ship sank in moments with all but three of her large crew.