Two Bradford businessmen have helped to locate the wreck of the famous World War Two battle cruiser HMS Hood.

Electrical engineers Terry Clifford and Tony Cooper, pictured, who run Bradford-based European Engineering Services Ltd, worked on outfitting the search vessel, the Northern Horizon, while it was being prepared in dock in Cork, in the Republic of Ireland.

The former deep sea trawler, which is owned by Hull-based Marr Vessel Management, has worked on many high-profile expeditions in the past, and European Engineering Services previously overhauled its main propulsion generator before it set sail last year to the Black Sea with Dr Bob Ballard, of Titanic fame, to find the remains of Noah's Ark.

Terry and Tony set up the mini-submarine which was used to locate HMS Hood, sunk during the epic battle with the German battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Straits off Iceland in the North Atlantic in May 1941.

Their sub was remote-controlled because no human could survive the pressure of the 3,000m depth where the vessel sits in an underwater desert.

The search was led by David Mearns, a world expert in exploring deep oceans. It set out to discover what happened in the battle between the Bismarck and HMS Hood.

Its mission was to locate the Bismarck, which sunk nine days after HMS Hood after being pursued by British warships, claiming the lives of more than 2,000 sailors.

While they were working on the ship, Mr Clifford and Mr Cooper had the chance to meet Ted Briggs, the last remaining of the three HMS Hood survivors who was there to witness the final preparations of the Northern Horizon before it set sail on its expedition.

And, when the team finally located the Hood on July 23, Mr Briggs, a former signalman on the ship who was thrown from the bridge as the vessel capsized and sank, took part in a special remembrance service to commemorate the lives of the 1,415 men who went down with it.

It was Mr Briggs's wish to mark the place where so many of his shipmates and friends lie in the Denmark Straits.

And, in a moving moment he performed a reading before pressing the button for the search team's ROV to place the bronze commemorative plaque, including a CD-rom bearing all the names of those who died, close to the ship's graceful bow.

When the HMS Hood sank it was the Royal Navy's greatest single ship loss in the Second World War.

A documentary, Hunt for the Hood, which follows the search for the ship, will be screened from 9.30-10.30pm on Channel 4 tonight.

Two 90-minute documentaries, which delve into the history of the battleship and explores why it sank, will be screened in the autumn.