The closing thought experiment keeps HMS Hood's loss but imagines Prince of Wales's ten 14-inch guns sinking Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait. In the interpretation offered here, the real battleship's presence represented Britain's willingness to fight and continue fighting. The hypothetical victory would give her a different symbolic role at the conference. The question is how that image would affect the negotiations, their political context, or Roosevelt's presentation of the meeting. The counterfactual remains open for viewers to consider.
Notable Point · 1:08:37-1:09:54
Would a victory over Bismarck have changed the summit?
The closing question asks how the conference imagery might have changed if HMS Prince of Wales had sunk Bismarck at the Denmark Strait.