Bismarck: 24 Hours to Doom

''No ship is invincible or so perfectly constructed it is invulnerable to sinking - not the Titanic, nor the Hood, and certainly not the Bismarck.''

May 1941: the world watches as the Royal Navy seeks retribution on the ship that sank the beloved HMS Hood. After a bloody chase lasting more than 1,700 miles, Britain''s Home Fleet is finally closing in on the world''s most powerful battleship. There will be a fight to the finish between more than 5,000 men of the Royal Navy and 2,600 servicemen of Hitler''s Kriegsmarine.

From tactical hits to shadowing ships, the mission to destroy the Bismarck was one of strategy and perseverance. In this tense and compelling narrative of the Action, we hear from the Royal Navy sailors who saw the combat up close.

The product of his interviews with surviving veterans, as well as transcripts, war diaries, and wireless signals, Ballantyne''s Bismarck places the reader into the nail-biting naval combat of one of the Second World War''s most dramatic events.

Eighty years on from that epic mission, the testimonies of the brave men who fought on both sides provide fresh and heartwrenching insight into the real cost of naval warfare.