Brest is not far from bases in southern England and during their stay in Brest "Prinz Eugen" and the battleships "Scharnhorst" and were repeatedly attacked by Allied bombers. The Royal Air Force jokingly referred to the three ships as the Brest Bomb Target Flotilla, and between 1 August and 31 December 1941 it dropped some 1200 tons of bombs on the port. On the night of 1 July 1941, "Prinz Eugen" was struck by an armor-piercing bomb that destroyed the control center deep down under the bridge. The attack killed 60 men and wounded more than 40 others. The loss of the control center also made the main guns useless and repairs lasted until the end of 1941.