Editing Battle of the Atlantic (section)

==Great surface raiders==
[[File:HOOD023.jpg|right|thumb|upright|The battlecruiser {{HMS|Hood|51|6}} (in the distance) steaming into battle minutes before [[Battle of the Denmark Strait|being sunk by the German battleship ''Bismarck'' on 24 May 1941]]]]

Despite their success, U-boats were still not recognised as the foremost threat to the North Atlantic convoys. With the exception of men like Dönitz, most naval officers on both sides regarded surface warships as the ultimate commerce destroyers.

For the first half of 1940, there were no German surface raiders in the Atlantic because the German Fleet had been concentrated for the invasion of Norway. The sole pocket battleship raider, ''Admiral Graf Spee'', had been stopped at the Battle of the River Plate by an inferior and outgunned British squadron. From mid-1940 a small but steady stream of warships and [[Merchant raider|armed merchant raiders]] set sail from Germany for the Atlantic.

The power of a raider against a convoy was demonstrated by the fate of [[convoy HX 84]], attacked by the pocket battleship {{ship|German cruiser|Admiral Scheer||2}} on 5 November 1940. ''Admiral Scheer'' quickly sank five ships and damaged several others as the convoy scattered. Only the sacrifice of the escorting armed merchant cruiser {{HMS|Jervis Bay}} (whose commander, [[Edward Fegen]], was awarded a posthumous [[Victoria Cross]]) and failing light allowed the other merchantmen to escape. The British now suspended North Atlantic convoys, and the [[Home Fleet]] put to sea to try to intercept ''Admiral Scheer''. The search failed and ''Admiral Scheer'' disappeared into the South Atlantic. She reappeared in the [[Indian Ocean]] the following month.

Other German surface raiders now began to make their presence felt. On Christmas Day 1940, the cruiser {{ship|German cruiser|Admiral Hipper||2}} attacked the troop convoy WS&nbsp;5A, but was driven off by the escorting cruisers.{{sfn|Roskill|1957|pp=291–292}} ''Admiral Hipper'' had more success two months later, on 12 February 1941, when she found the unescorted [[convoy SLS 64]] of 19&nbsp;ships and sank seven of them.{{sfn|Roskill|1957|p=372}} In January 1941, the battleships {{ship|German battleship|Scharnhorst||2}} and {{ship|German battleship|Gneisenau||2}} put to sea from Germany to raid the shipping lanes in [[Operation Berlin (Atlantic)|Operation Berlin]]. With so many German raiders at large in the Atlantic, the British were forced to provide battleship escorts to as many convoys as possible. This twice saved convoys from slaughter by the German battleships. In February, the old battleship {{HMS|Ramillies|07|6}} deterred an attack on [[Convoy HX 106|HX 106]]. A month later, [[Convoy SL 67|SL 67]] was saved by the presence of {{HMS|Malaya}}.

In May, the Germans mounted the most ambitious raid of all: [[Operation Rheinübung]]. The new battleship {{ship|German battleship|Bismarck||2}} and the cruiser {{ship|German cruiser|Prinz Eugen||2}} put to sea to attack convoys. A British fleet intercepted the raiders off Iceland. In the [[Battle of the Denmark Strait]], the battlecruiser {{HMS|Hood|51|6}} was blown up and sunk, but ''Bismarck'' was damaged and had to run to France.<ref>[http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3921 HMS Hood 1920] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081218044431/http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/server/show/nav.3921 |date=18 December 2008 }}, Royal Navy</ref> ''Bismarck'' nearly reached her destination, but was disabled by an airstrike from the carrier ''Ark Royal'', and then sunk by the Home Fleet the next day.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010124094400/http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/germany/gersh-b/bismarck.htm Bismarck (1940–1941)], Naval Historical Center</ref> Her sinking marked the end of the warship raids. The advent of long-range search aircraft, notably the unglamorous but versatile [[PBY Catalina]], largely neutralised surface raiders.{{citation needed|reason=Surely it was the mopping up of the network of German supply ships and the entry of the USA into the war that made surface ship raids unfeasible. And why pick just the Catalina as a long-range maritime patrol aircraft?|date=October 2024}}

In February 1942, ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'' and ''Prinz Eugen'' moved from Brest back to Germany in the "[[Channel Dash]]". While this was an embarrassment for the British, it was the end of the German surface threat in the Atlantic. The loss of ''Bismarck'', the destruction of the network of supply ships that supported surface raiders, the repeated damage to the three ships by air raids,{{efn|For a significant part of 1941, the ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'' and ''Prinz Eugen'' were all out of service whilst bomb damage was being repaired in the Brest naval dockyard. ''Scharnhorst'' was successfully attacked by the RAF at La Pallice on 24 July 1941 and repairs took 4 months. ''Gneisenau'' was hit by a torpedo on 6 April 1941 then bombed again whilst in dry dock, necessitating lengthy repairs, then received minor bomb damage on 18 December. ''Prinz Eugen'' was seriously damaged by a bomb on 1 July 1941 and was under repair for the rest of the year. The resulting demands on the dockyard at Brest caused delays in the servicing of U-boats as there was a shortage of workers with the right skills.}} the entry of the United States into the war, [[Arctic convoys]], and the perceived invasion threat to Norway had persuaded Hitler and the naval staff to withdraw.{{Sfn|Hellwinkel|2014|loc=Kindle location 731–738 of 4855}}{{Sfn|Garzke|Dulin|1985|pp=145-146}}{{Sfn|Koop|Schmolke|2014|pp=52-53,111}}