The HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the British Royal Navy that was sunk in a battle with the German battleship Bismarck on May 24, 1941. The ship split in half and of the 1,418 lives onboard, only 3 survived. The loss of the Hood had a profound effect on the British people and invigorated the determination or Prime Minister Winston Churchill to have the Royal Navy sink the Bismarck, which did occur 3 days later.
Thanks for posting this.
“Sink the Bismarck”
Best order ever given by the civilian leadership to its military.
War is hell. And those boys dished it out on each other in fine fashion.
is it true the Hood blew in half because of the proper british attitude of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ had ALL the ammunition stored in the same place which was hit by the Bismark’s artillery shell?
“is it true the Hood blew in half because of the proper british attitude of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ had ALL the ammunition stored in the same place which was hit by the Bismark’s artillery shell?”
no.
We don’t know exactly, because the damn thing blew up and sank, but British ships of that epoch had some design flaws with regard to the magazines and compartmentalization/damage control.
The theory I read was a direct german hit either in the turret assembly or the tunnel from that to the magazines flashed over. Good design should have never allowed flash over. There should always have been multiple redundant airlock style doors isolating everything.
In WWI Battle of Jutland the Brits had some very serious problems, German ships would take poundings that when you look at the after action reports you wonder why they are still floating – much less keeping up with the line of battle – (to attract fire, per Kriegsmarine policy) while British ships were blowing up and suffering heinous “soft-kill” damage under much fewer hits.
youtube accompaning vid’s are pretty amazing too.
Fred2, I believe that part of the design problem in the Hood was that it was a cross over from the “Dreadnought” period. The heavy armour plating on the waist of the ships at that time had not been extended to the decking armour and the trajectory of the shells from the Bismark penetrated the thinner armour of the Hood’s deck. Later battleships (built in the Thirties) were designed to withstand the possibility of aerial bombardment(not considered when the Hood was laid down) with thicker decking armour.
Fred2: Correct about the thinner deck armour. My understanding is that the aft deck armour of Hood was only about 3″ thick, not enough to stop a shell like Bismark’s when coming in at an appreciable angle.
Adm Holland (aboard Hood) had wanted to get ahead of Bismark to cross the Germans’ “T”, but found himself approaching the Germans from their port side. Knowing of the weak aft armour, he tried to keep Hood nose-on toward Bismark until they were close enough that the arc of the Germans’ shells would be shallower and thus less of a threat. He ended up turning parallel to the German ships a bit too soon, exposing Hood’s aft quarter to incoming fire, and Bismark ended up scoring the luckiest hit in the history of naval warfare.
(And don’t forget that the German gunners were DAMN good – they had Hood’s range on the second salvo.)
The real tragedy is that this weakness in Hood’s armour had been recognized for years, and it was always intended to be upgraded. But Hood was the Navy’s flagship, and thus spent most of the 1930s sailing the world “showing the flag”, and the refit was never done. Again, politics and diplomacy trumped military preparedness.
The HMS Hood Association website is very informative.
http://www.hmshood.com/
The accounts of the two enlisted survivors are moving. The Midshipman who survived, and who kept his shipmates alive while they awaited rescue, never talked about the sinking, except to the Court of Inquiry. The website includes a great shot of HMS Hood visiting Quebec during her World Cruise in the late ’20s.
The sinking of the hood was a severe blow to the RN that fortunately was avenged with the sinking of the Bismarck just three days later. Had the bismarck survived the hoods loss would have likely had a much more negative impact on the allies morale. As it was it was the last major battleship to battleship encounter ever and the Brits won it.
The RN suffered its very worst losses of the battleship era just a few months later the pride of the fleet HMS prince of wales and the repulse battleships were sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers. They had no air cover. From that point on battleships were less important than aircraft carriers.
One of the most haunting pictures from the war for me is Of churchill and roosevelt participating in a church service on the deck of the PoW with her crew off argentia Nfld. (I’ve seen video of it as well). Just a few months later many of those same sailors would perish on the other side of the planet.
Sink The Bismarck – Johnny Horton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Ufc2hI4FM
I have a photo of my dad when he was on the Hood. Fortunately for both of us it was when he was about 4 years old, when it visited Vancouver.
Yes, “the trajectory of the shells from the Bismarck penetrated the thinner armour of the Hood’s deck.” A fact known by the Admiralty.
Thanks, Robert
“Sink the Bismark” is well worth watching – and not just for Dana Wynter.
The Hood wasn’t a battleship it was a battle cruiser built for speed at the expense of armour. As such it had thinner deck protection than a battleship. It was susceptable to plunging shellfire as spoken of earlier. There were refits, that never occured, to strengthen the deck and instead belting was added to protect from the biggest menace U-boats. The fleet was over committed and at the time of the Bismark breakout Hood and the still under construction Prince of Wales were the only capital ships within interception range.
The Hood, proudly painted white, visited far flung ports of call as a symbol of a strong, mighty and progressive England during the inter-war years and it’s loss was a reflection on the pride of England.
The sinking was no one’s fault, simply a product of the belief of the time for every man to do their duty.
Fact is, the sinking of the Hood would never have happened without the idiocy of Sir John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet. Knowing that the Bismarck was about to sortie, he divided the fleet into two parts would couldn’t support each other. The Bismarck should have been confronted by four capital ships, not two.
The Hood may have had defective armour, but it still offered a bigger threat than the rest of the British battleships. Admiral Holland knew the risks with the Hood’s deck armour, which is why he closed the range so rapidly, so as to get to a shorter range where hits would be against the belt armour and not the deck armour. He was just spectacularly unlucky.
The new KGVs all had highly defective turrets prone to breakdowns, as happened to most of those on the Prince of Wales during the Denmark Straits battle. Their quad turrets gave the British the same trouble as the French had with their Richelieus. As for the Nelson and Rodney, not only were they far too slow, but the power of their 16 inch guns did enormous internal damage. All of the toilets on the Rodney exploded at the first salvo in the final battle.
Gord, there’s one further large consequence. The British were being pressured by the US to increase their fleet strength in the Pacific. The sinking of the Bismarck allowed this to happen in the summer and fall of 1941. Had the Bismarck not been sunk or had the Reichsmarine not been staffed by idiots and waited another two months until Tirpitz was ready, the results would have been quite different.
Chilling to think of that event even today, such an explosion to blow a battleship in half.
The fate of battleships in WWII should be a wake-up call to the Yanks with their gigantic aircraft carriers. What lovely targets! Admirals (and generals) always arm for the last war.
Fred2: Then Vice-Admiral Beatty, commander of the RN’s battle cruisers at Jutland, said:
“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.”
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_beatty_david.html
My dad oft told the tale of his small part in the sinking of the Bismark. He was working a shift in the control tower at the air base in Rivers, Manitoba, when they picked up a radio transmission from the Bismark, and got a D/F bearing on her.
Hey Zog, you do realize those ‘gigantic aircraft carriers don’t travel alone ?
Cheers !
Did a short blog post with a picture of her entering Vancouver harbour in 1924
http://denofzeus.blogspot.com/2011/02/hms-hood-enters-vancouver.html
It helped a lot that the Graf Spee had been defeated off the River Plate a year and a half earlier (approx).
I need to recommend the Michael Powell flick, “The Battle of the River Plate”, an unjustly obscure film. If you rent the DVD, be sure you watch the extra features. What ship doubled for the Graf Spee in the movie? I won’t tell you.
My Great-Uncle served on The Hood and was one of the survivors.
By the luck of the draw I picked up a history of the Hood at our local old book store a week or so ago. I left it in our RV at the camp where we spend a lot of time over the summer, but as I recall:
a. the weakness in her armour was well known, but she was not able to be upgraded for a variety of reasons,some of which have been mentioned above.
b. Napoleon identifed good luck as one of the most important attributes of a commander. Unfortuanately VAdm Holland was not lucky.
c. A communications error caused him to alter course away from the Bismarck’s route well before they closed. He then was forced to intercept the German ships from an unfortunate angle.
d. Prinz Eugen was leading when the British intercepted the Germans. Because of the similarities in their silhouettes,Hood engaged her while Prince of Wales opened fired on Bismarck. This was quickly spotted and Hood was in the process of shifting to the trailing ship.
e. Bismarck engaged Hood from the start of the battle. The first salvo was over, the second salvo was short, the third salvo hit Hood and started a small fire amidships in a ready use anti-aircraft ammunition locker, the fourth salvo was unobserved and then came the fifth salvo. It apparently penetrated the deck and started a fire in the 6-in magazine which spread to the aft 15-in magazine. (This conclusion was based on observations of hits anda reconstruction of what was below decks in that area.) This contained many tons of propellant for the rear main guns, which was ignited. Flames shot a thousand feet in the air, heavy objects including one 15-in turret were blown up in greats looping arcs into the sky, and Hood broke in two pieces and quickly plunged to the bottom.
Her loss was a combination of bad luck, design defects and the inability of the RN to fix Hood before the war.
Atric, may I ask, what was your Great Uncle’s name?
The photo montage of HMS Hood is a very nice tribute to the men who were lost in one of the most gripping aspects of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Although generally romanticized, the destruction of HMS Hood in 1941 was more or less a predictable culmination of events which had been put into motion even before she was laid down in 1916. Hood and her three sisters were originally conceived and designed as a British response to the 15 inch gunned battlecruisers being built in Germany during World War I. They were to be the ultimate evolution of the battlecruiser class which in it’s turn had been conceived in the late 1890’s by First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher. At the beginning of the Anglo German naval race, a lot of the strategy and tactics were mired deep in the age of sail. In the years before radar and scout planes, Fisher’s thinking was that squadrons of ships with dimensions and armament of battleships but with the high speed and armour protection of cruisers would be excellent for scouting but a liability against battleships with similar calibre guns. He coined the phrase “speed is armour” to justify the creation of this new breed of warship.
In the 10 years prior to the outbreak of World War I, battlecruisers, like their battleship brethern, under went a substantial number of evolutions. At the beginning of the war there were several battlecruiser skirmishes that enabled the huge battleship fleets to remain safely in harbour. However, the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 saw the insertion of battlecruisers and their big guns into the line of battle with the battleships. The predictable result was the devastating loss of 3 British battlecruisers and the very near loss of a fourth. These disasters caused the demise of the battlecruiser and a substantial amount of post design modification to the Hood and her sisters. Indeed, with their proven 8-15 inch guns, the Admiralty decided to modify them into super battleships of the day although subsequently all the ships in the class except Hood were cancelled and she went on to be completed in 1920. The many changes to her design resulted in her being perennially overloaded and 3 feet deeper in draught than her original design.
Various Naval Conferences held during the 1920’s saw the scrapping of much of the Great War naval tonnage and tight restrictions were placed on new capital ship construction. Britain retained her allotment of capital ships and as time went by, many of them were modernized, however Hood was not. By 1939, Hood and some of her Great War contemporaries were approaching the end of their operational usefulness. Plans were submitted to have Hood put into dockyard hands for a two year re-construction which would have provided for about 4,000 tons of additional armour. Unfortunately, the exigencies of World War II prevented this and caused her to go into battle much as she was built; for the exigencies of World War I. As a result she was left vulnerable to plunging shell fire which ultimately detonated one of her secondary magazines and then most likely one of the main magazines. It was Jutland all over again.
When it comes to luck the Bismark did not fare much better than the Hood. The torpedo that jammed her rudder and sealed her fate was also a one in a million shot. The big difference of course was in the loss of life. If that torpedo would have hit anywhere anywhere else below the waterline it would have done little damage and she would have outrun her pursuers. Fate is a fickle mistress.
That “lost photo” in the montaget hat purports to show the Hood’s last moment, doesn’t.
It’s a photo of an attack on the Hood when it was deployed with the carrier HMS Ark Royal, and it’s being attacked (and missed) by dive bombers in the Med.
The power of those 16″ guns was incredible. I knew a security guard years ago who was in Beirut Lebanon when Pres. Reagan ordered the USS New Jersey to pound Beirut in retaliation for the terrorist bombing of the Marine Barracks. The security guard said each shell that hit the city, shook everything. That nobody left their basements until the New Jersey left. He grew up during the fighting in Beirut and was used to war, but he said he was never so scared in his life. He said just the sound of the incoming rounds was something he could never forget. I also knew a US sailor who was on the New Jersey during the Vietnam War. He said they lay off the coast, and could take out a bridge on the side of a mountain with the 16″ guns from about 30 miles away. As a sailor he said it was incredible onboard when the Jersey unleashed her full firepower.
The big battleships were amazing. When the USS Missourie was stationed in Bremerton in the mid 80s the wife and I took a tour on it while it was still in mothballs. When you stood on the bow and looked down at the people on the docks they looked so very tiny. Then you go inside and it shows pictures of her plowing through stormy weather in the Pacific and the whole bow is buried in a wave. A real eye opener as to the conditions these monster ships had to deal with and the life and death struggle that came with every sunrise during the war. The sheer size of these ships never gave anyone as sense of safety as all sailors knew they, along with aircraft carriers were the premium target for the enemy. Nothing but the highest respect for the men that served on them.
@Gord Tulk at May 24, 2011 2:33 PM
I suppose if you mean a single Battleship that might be correct but there were battleship to battleship ( plural) encounters in the Pacific theatre afterwards.
Following the German surrender in 1945, The Priz Eugen surrendered at Copenhagen.
The Priz Eugen was the Bismarck’s consort/escort during the encounter with Hood.
German Kreigsmarine sailors from the Priz Eugen disclosed that they had achieved hits on the Hoods shelter deck with their 8″ shells. Fire was observed inthe vicinity of ready use ammo lockers near the UNARMOURED TORPEDO TUBES.
These German Kreigsmarine sailors logically were the only ones looking at Hood as all RN survivors, such as personel on the Prince of Wales, were logically looking at the Bismarck.
The detonation of those torpedo warheads were more than capable of breaking the Hoods massively overstressed/overloaded hull.
This top secret conclusion was basically the Hood’s loss was structural failure and kept secret until any one liable had died….politicians…..
BTW the Priz Eugen was taken as a Prize of War by the US and expended as a target in the Pacific “Able”…”Baker” atomic tests. Apparently it survived both. It was deemed to be much too hot to keep and was sank by torpedoes later.
Richards in Vancouver
The Graf Spee (Deutzland class cruiser) was a paper tiger. Fast, with 11″ guns, it was the ideal conmerce raider…faster than anything as powerful and more powerful than anything as fast.
One problem it’s light armour and that it’s guns were concentrated in 2, 3 gun turrets,
meant it should engage anything that could fight back.
Then Landsdorf made the error of engaging the Ajax, Achiles and Exeter simulaneously.
These RN cruisers positioned to divide his fire.
Following the encounter, he had fired off most of his ammo and had sustained damage. The Ajax, heavy damaged and in danger of sinking, had to retire to the Falklands.
Lansdorf was unaware of the Ajax withdrawl, was duped into believing more RN units were close….and on leaving Montevedeo harbour scuttled.
Sunk by a whisper…..