The German battleship sunk in May 1941 after a famous naval hunt was Bismarck. The Royal Navy pursued and destroyed the ship in the North Atlantic during the final battle of Bismarck from 26 to 27 May 1941.
Bismarck had entered the Atlantic with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen during Operation Rheinübung, a German attempt to attack Allied merchant shipping. On 24 May, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen fought the British battlecruiser HMS Hood and battleship HMS Prince of Wales in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Hood exploded and sank, making Bismarck a major target for the British fleet.
The pursuit intensified after Bismarck was damaged and slowed by a British torpedo strike from aircraft launched by HMS Ark Royal. Unable to maneuver effectively, Bismarck was surrounded and heavily shelled by British warships. Its crew scuttled the vessel after the damage made continued fighting impossible. Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau were also German capital ships, but none was the battleship lost in this celebrated 1941 chase.