A crucial piece of world history is represented in a large model warship at the USS Batfish museum.

A German ship called the Bismarck was the largest warship at the time of World War II, according to Rick Dennis, Batfish park manager.

“It was built about mid-war to attack Allied convoy ships in the Atlantic,” he said. “At the time, England was living on a thread, being an island nation.”

The British were determined to prevent the Bismarck and its escort from getting out into the Atlantic.

Gail Parnell, a member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Military Order of the Purple Heart, sent an e-mail describing the battle.

“The British Royal Navy HMS Hood and Prince of Wales engaged the Bismarck and Prince Eugene,” she said. “The Prince of Wales struck her target first, ultimately hitting Bismarck three times. Both German ships targeted the Hood, with the Bismarck landing a shell from a distance of about 9 miles. The Hood sank, taking 1,415 men — only three of her crew survived.”

Parnell said the German battleships turned their guns on the Prince of Wales. The ship was struck four times by the Bismarck and three times by Prince Eugene. With serious malfunctions, the Prince of Wales withdrew from the battle, and the German ships slipped away. The Allies lost sight of the ship. British Prime Minister Churchill sent out an order to “Sink the Bismarck.”

On May 26, 1941, a U.S. Navy pilot was on a search mission for the Bismarck. Upon breaking out of a cloud formation, the aircraft encountered the Bismarck with an anti-aircraft barrage.

“During the course of this encounter, the British Admiralty was advised of the Bismarck’s position,” she said. “British battleships caught the Bismarck and sank her on May 27, 1941, with the loss of almost 1,900 of her crew.”

Parnell played a role in the large replica of the Bismarck being in Muskogee. Outside a restaurant, wearing her LAMOPH uniform, she met a man named Kent Carter, who knew about the replica.

“Kent related that his brother-in-law, Robert ‘Bob’ Kolander, recently deceased, had built the replica in great detail and that Bob’s widow, Donna Kolander, wished to donate the ship and plane to a museum that, if not located within the State of Oklahoma, would be close by for the family to visit,” she said.

Dennis said that Muskogee was fortunate to be the location finally selected to house the large replica.

“There are a lot of lessons to be learned from that battle with the Bismarck,” he said. “We were the underdogs fighting against a heavily armed enemy.”

Donna Kolander, whose late husband Bob Kolander built the replica of the ship and the PBY-5 Catalina aircraft that spotted it, said he worked on the ship until four weeks before his death Sept. 21, 2006.

“There were so many parts he couldn’t find in catalogues and other sources that he handmade them himself,” she said. “Bob was such a wonderful man.”