May 24, 1941, Denmark Strait, 05:52,
V. Admiral Holland: FIRE ON VOLLEY!!!
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At approximately 26, 500 yds (24,200 meters), V. Amiral Holland ordered to fire. Hood fired it's turrets on the leading ship who is escorting the Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, KMS Prinz Eugen.
Rear Admiral #98: We are now firing at Prinz Eugen! Any orders Vice Admiral?
V. Admiral Holland: Seperate operation. Send out Prince Of Wales to fire on the Bismarck while we keep on firing Prinz Eugen.
V. Admiral Holland: But we have to be careful, our ship wasn't strong enough against the Bismarck, we have to be wary of her guns. Put both ours and Prince Of Wales close to gain more stronger salvos for the time being.
Rear Admiral #98: Yes Vice Admiral!
Vice Admiral Holland was a gunnery expert; he was well aware of the danger posed by Hood's thin deck armour, which offered weak protection against vertical plunging fire. He therefore wanted to reduce the range as quickly as possible, because of the supposed shorter range the trajectory of Bismarck's shells would be flatter, and the shells would therefore be more likely to hit the armour belt protecting the sides of the ship or glance off the top deck, rather than penetrate vertically though the deck armour.
Vice Admiral Holland closed the range at an angle that placed the German ships too far forward of the beam, which meant that only 10 of the 18 British heavy guns could train and presented the Germans with a bigger target than necessary.
However, one of Prince of Wales' forward guns became unserviceable after the first salvo, leaving only 9 still firing which would be a minor disadvantage.
HMS Norfolk and HMS Suffolk contacted both ships about their efforts to engage Bismarck during the action but both were out of range and had an insufficient speed advantage over Bismarck to rapidly close the range.
HMS Belfast hasn't send a radio transmission, it is unknown if they came with reinforcements, or trying their best to help them, similar to the two cruisers.
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Then, HMS Prince Of Wales has struck her target first. She hit the Bismarck three times, one struck the commander's boat and damaged the seaplane catapult, putting it out of action for the time being. The 2nd shell shot through the bow from one side to the other side without exploding the Bismarck. The 3rd struck the Bismarck's hull underwater, to which it struck inside the ship, flooding the generator room and damaging it's bulkhead to an adjoining boiler room.
The Bismarck, out of the three shells that were fired by Prince Of Wales, 2 of them had caused little to moderate damage to Bismarck's machinery and causing medium flooding to the ship.
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