At 05:45 24th of May, German lookouts spotted smoke in the distance which turned out to be from two of the Royal Navy's ships called HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. At 05:52 "Hood" opened fire at what they thought was "Bismarck" but instead of "Prinz Eugen" while "Prince of Wales" fired on "Bismarck". Both "Prince of Wales" and "Hood" attacked "Bismarck" and "Prinz Eugen" head on only allowing them to use their front guns while "Bismarck" and "Prinz Eugen" could fire with all their weaponry. After several minutes of shelling, "Hood" turned 20° left to use its rear turrets and after a minute of firing, "Prinz Eugen" scored a hit on "Hood" causing an ammunition fire which was quickly extinguished. "Bismarck" fired three salvos which caused it to find the range to "Hood" and the order to rapid-fire was given. "Hood" turned 20° to the left again to make itself parallel with "Bismarck" and "Prinz Eugen. Prinz Eugen" shifted its fire towards "Prince of Wales" to keep both British ships under fire and scored a couple of hits on "Wales." "Prinz Eugen" was ordered to move behind "Bismarck" to keep track of "Norfolk" and "Suffolk." At 06:00 "Hood" was completing her second turn to the left when "Bismarck's" salvo hit. Two of the shells landed short while one of the shells struck "Hood's" thin deck armor and caused 112 t ( 110 long tons ) of ammo to explode causing "Hood" to split in half in only eight minutes and only three out of 1149 crew survived. After the sinking of "Hood, Bismarck" redirected its fire towards "Prince of Wales" and hit "Wales" directly in the bridge killing all but 3 officers and was still being fired upon and guns were malfunctioning on the new battleship and after scoring a bunch of ineffective hits on "Bismarck", the order was given to retreat at 06:13