Reading Comprehension

Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions below.

The report came to the British on May 21, 1941. The German battleship Bismarck, the most powerful warship in the world, was moving out into the Atlantic Ocean. Her task: to destroy the ships carrying supplies from the United States to war-torn England.

The British had feared such a task. No warship they had could match the Bismarck in speed or firepower. The Bismarck had eight 15-inch guns and 81 smaller guns. She could move at 30 nautical miles an hour and was believed to be unsinkable.

However, the British had to sink her. They sent out a task force headed by their best battleship, Hood, to hunt down the Bismarck. On May 24, the Hood found the Bismarck.

It was a meeting that the German commander Luetjens did not want to see. His orders were to destroy the British ships carrying supplies but to stay away from a fight with British warships.

The battle didn’t last long. The Bismarck’s first torpedo hit the Hood, which went down, taking all but three of her 1419 men with her.

But in the fight, the Bismarck was slightly damaged. Her commander decided to run for repairs to France, which the Germans had at that time taken. The British force followed her. However, because of Bismarck’s speed and the heavy fog, they lost sight of her.

Every British ship in the Atlantic tried to find the Bismarck for two days, but with no success. Finally, she was sighted by a plane from Ireland. Trying to slow the Bismarck down so that their ships could catch up with her, the British fired at her from the air. The Bismarck was hit.

On the morning of May 27, the last battle was fought. Four British ships fired on the Bismarck, and she was finally sunk.