In 1900, the role of the Royal Navy was to defend the Empire which spanned the globe. It had the largest and most powerful navy in the world and her fleet of 36 Battleships was more than all her potential enemies put together. The development and launch of the super-ship named the Dreadnought in 1906, made all other battleships obsolete. Her superior speed and armament was unprecedented and, under the first Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, sparked a naval arms race with Germany culminating with the gigantic showdown at Jutland during WWI. The early part of the century also saw the development of the craft carrier and the introduction of naval aviation. Germany chose to ignore its potential but, by 1939, the carrier was an essential arm to the Royal Navy's fleet. Hitler's bombarded of Danzig in 1939 was the start of six years of Naval conflict. The scuttling of the Sraff Spee off Montivideo was a dramatic coo for the Allies and, at the Norway Campaign in 1940, many lessons were learnt about the need for specialist landing vehicles. The miraculous evacuation of the British Expeditionary at Dunkirk in1940 was a carefully planned operation where the Navy turned a tactical defeat into a strategic victory. By the end of the operation a staggering 338,000 men were rescued. When the battlecruiser, HMS Hood, was sunk in May 1941, Churchill's subsequent order was to "Sink the Bismarck". After a relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy lasting three days, Germany's flagship was sunk. It was a great victory to the Royal Navy.