Naval War College Review Volume 72 Article 6 Number 1 Winter 2019 2019 Naval History: Operation RHINE EXERCISE, May 18–27, 1941 Milan Vego Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Vego, Milan (2019) "Naval History: Operation RHINE EXERCISE, May 18–27, 1941," Naval War College Review: Vol. 72 : No. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol72/iss1/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Vego: Naval History: Operation RHINE EXERCISE, May 18–27, 1941 OPERATION RHINE EXERCISE, MAY 18–27, 1941 Milan Vego he pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 constituted one of the largest fleet-versus-fleet operations in European wa- Tters during World War II� Between May 24 and 27, 1941, the British used five battleships, two battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, four heavy and seven light cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, eight submarines, and fifty aircraft to hunt the Bismarck combat group�1 The Bismarck combat group’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to attack Brit- ish convoys in the northern Atlantic—Unternehmen RHEINÜBUNG (Operation RHINE EXERCISE)—was, for the Germans, an operation; in U�S� terms, a major operation� Although the main German forces Milan Vego has been a professor in the Joint Military Operations Department at the Naval War College consisted of only one battleship and one heavy since August 1991 and in 2017 was named a Naval cruiser, planning for the operation was conducted War College University Professor.