On May 24, 1941, HMS Hood engaged the German Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleship Bismarck. P.O.TEL Served from 1943 - 1957 Served in HMS Duke Of York. To make room in the shipyard for merchant construction, Hood sailed for Rosyth to complete her fitting-out on 9 January 1920. You can learn more about these men here. HMS Hood: Crew, History, Status. The hit split the ship in two and it sank in three minutes! The terms were rejected and the Royal Navy opened fire on the French ships berthed there. The main waterline belt was 12 inches (305mm) thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 5 to 6 inches (127 to 152mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Crew Lost During the Sinking of Hood, 24th May 1941 Its main conclusion is that the loss was almost certainly precipitated by the explosion of a 4-inch magazine, but that there are several ways this could have been initiated, although he rules out the boat deck fire or the detonation of her torpedoes as probable causes. Two HACS Mark III directors were added to the aft end of the signal platform the following year, and the Mark I director aft was replaced by a Mark III. She was used for harbour service from 1872 and was sold in 1888. The U-boat War in World War Two (Kriegsmarine, 1939-1945) and World War One (Kaiserliche Marine, 1914-1918) and the Allied efforts to counter the threat. She had cost 6,025,000 to build. [11] Two of these guns on the shelter deck were temporarily replaced by QF 4-inch (102mm) Mk V anti-aircraft (AA) guns between 1938 and 1939. The official Admiralty communiqu on the loss, broadcast on the day of the sinking, reported that: "during the action, HMS Hood received an unlucky hit in a magazine and blew up. [3], The Admirals were significantly larger than their predecessors of the Renown class. The middle armour belt had a maximum thickness of 7 inches over the same length as the thickest part of the waterline armour and thinned to five inches abreast 'A' barbette. Dundass survived by kicking out a starboard side window and swimming away. 2016 is also the centenary of the Hood's keel laying. Joseph Steward. The pieces of the propeller were kept by dockyard workers: "Hood" v "Renown" Jan. 23rd. HMS Hood was avenged and it was a gallant end to the German warship. We are particularly grateful to Barry Roberts who has dedicated many hours undertaking this task and has identified several thousand "Hood men" thereby. Despite the appearance of newer and more modern ships, Hood remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years after her commissioning, and her prestige was reflected in her nickname, "The Mighty Hood". H.M.S. Whatever caused the explosion, it proved fatal for the ship and most of her crew. Basil O'Neill. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the bridge. One of these hits contaminated a good portion of the ship's fuel supply and subsequently caused her to steer for safety in occupied France where she could be repaired. HMS Hood (hull number 51) was a battleship of the Royal Navy (RN). This theory was ultimately adopted by the board. Memorials to all those who died while building or serving in Hood, Crew List [53] Captain Pridham was relieved by Captain Harold Walker on 20 May 1938 and he, in turn, was relieved when the ship returned to Portsmouth in January 1939 for an overhaul that lasted until 12 August. Before 27th November 1923 (Empire Cruise), After 28th September 1924 (Empire Cruise). 1935 was stamped on one surviving example, and "Hood V Renown off Arosa 23135" on another. Ratings & officers known to have served in Hood, Crew Complements [30] During her 19291931 refit, the platform was removed from 'X' turret and a rotating, folding catapult was installed on her quarterdeck, along with a crane to recover a seaplane. Photos of many of the men who served in Hood, Navy Lists Hood, Renown and Repulse were deployed to the Bay of Biscay on 5 November to prevent the "pocket battleship" Admiral Scheer from using French ports after she had attacked Convoy HX 84, but the German ship continued into the South Atlantic. [4] The ship's secondary armament consisted of twelve BL 5.5-inch (140mm) Mk I guns, each with 200 rounds. The German ships were spotted by two British heavy cruisers (Norfolk and Suffolk) on 23 May, and Holland's ships intercepted Bismarck and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland on 24 May. The other theories listed above remain valid possibilities. HMS Hood vs Bismarck : 860ft long and weighing over 43,000 tons, HMS Hood was a global star. HMS Hood was 44,600 tons, had a crew of 1,419 and was faster than the Bismarck with a maximum speed of 32 knots. The complement of "The Mighty Hood", as. [95], In 2002, the site was officially designated a war grave by the British government. King George V and Smaller Vessels of RDF279", "Memorials in Southsea Portsmouth Naval Memorial", "The July 2001 Channel 4 Expedition to Locate and Film the Wrecks of, "Statutory Instrument 2006 No. Below are just some of our members who have served at HMS Royal Arthur. [72] This investigation was "much more thorough than was the first, taking evidence from a total of 176 eyewitnesses to the disaster",[73] and examined both Goodall's theory and others (see below). [19], During Hood's last refit in 1941, a Type 279 early-warning radar for aircraft and surface vessels and a Type 284 gunnery radar were installed,[20] although the Type 279 radar lacked its receiving aerial and was inoperable according to Roberts. In May 1941, Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleshipBismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which were en route to the Atlantic, where they were to attack convoys. The Royal Navy were fully aware that the ship's protection flaws still remained, even in her revised design, so Hood was intended for the duties of a battlecruiser and she served in the battlecruiser squadrons through most of her career. [42], With her conspicuous twin funnels and lean profile, Hood was widely regarded as one of the finest-looking warships ever built. [86], In their study of the battleship Bismarck's operational history released in 2019, including its engagement with Hood, Jurens, William Garzke, and Robert O. Dulin Jr. concluded that Hood's destruction was most likely caused by a 380-mm shell from Bismarck that penetrated the deck armour and exploded in the aft 4-inch magazine, igniting its cordite propellant, which in turn ignited the cordite in the adjacent aft 15-inch magazine. To save construction time, this was accomplished by thickening the existing armour, rather than redesigning the entire ship. Commissioned in 1920, she was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood. [89] Mearns had spent the previous six years privately researching the fate of Hood with the goal of finding the battlecruiser, and had acquired the support of the Royal Navy, the HMS Hood Association and other veterans groups, and the last living survivor, Ted Briggs. Over 40.000 pages on the officers, the boats, technology and the Allied efforts to counter the U-boat threat. [11], During the 19291931 refit, a high-angle control system (HACS) Mark I director was added on the rear searchlight platform and two positions for 2-pounder "pom-pom" antiaircraft directors were added at the rear of the spotting top, although only one director was initially fitted. The memorials were assembled by blending official records with public casualty listings. H.M.S. Two years later, the "pom-pom" directors were moved to the rear corners of the bridge to get them out of the funnel gases. . Notes: (1) Casualty information in order - Surname, First name, Initial(s), Rank and part of the Service other than RN (RNR, RNVR, RFR etc), Service Number (ratings only, also . They were supplemented by two additional control positions in the fore-top, which were provided with 9-foot (2.7m) rangefinders, fitted in 19241925. Hood, H.M.S. The fleet was spotted by the Germans and attacked by aircraft from the KG 26 and KG 30 bomber wings. . HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V -class battleship of the Royal Navy that was built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England. On the other hand, the 12-inch belt could have been penetrated if Hood had progressed sufficiently far into her final turn.[84]. For officers, the situation is easier as The Navy Lists do list all Commissioned and Warrant officers serving in Hood at any given time. In Jurens's opinion, the popular image of plunging shells penetrating Hood's deck armour is inaccurate, as by his estimation the angle of fall of Bismarck's 15-inch shells at the moment of the loss would not have exceeded about 14, an angle so unfavourable to penetration of horizontal armour that it is actually off the scale of contemporaneous German penetration charts. HMS Hood, HMS Repulse, HMS Furious, HMS Somali, HMS Eskimo, HMS Mashona, HMS Punjabi and . Captain Arthur Pridham assumed command on 1 February 1936 and Hood returned to Portsmouth for a brief refit between 26 June and 10 October 1936. We are using the few, fragmentary crew lists known to exist, Navy Lists, various official reports, public records, and most importantly of all, inputs from the families of former crew. HMS Hood destroyer out at sea during World War II Loaded Progress 0:00 / 0:25 Video Quality 576p 540p 360p 270p more videos Watch video Moment hockey fan gets socked in the face at game after. Published by at June 13, 2022. [87], In 2001, British broadcaster Channel 4 commissioned shipwreck hunter David Mearns and his company, Blue Water Recoveries, to locate the wreck of Hood, and if possible, produce underwater footage of both the battlecruiser and her attacker, Bismarck. In the afternoon two more Swordfish conducted an A/S patrol around the carrier force. [21] An Admiralty document indicates however that, following the 1941 refit at Rosyth, Hood's Type 279 radar was indeed functional. The probability is that the 4-inch magazines exploded first. Victor Noel White HMS Copra . All crew were off the ship at 0430 on 14 Nov as the list increased to 35 degrees. He joined HMS Copra on the 7th of November 1943 and was lent three times to HMS Dundonald. These were joined in early 1939 by four twin mounts for the QF 4-inch Mark XVI dual-purpose gun. [48], Hood was given a major refit from 1 May 1929 to 10 March 1931, and afterwards resumed her role as flagship of the battlecruiser squadron under the command of Captain Julian Patterson. Sea. Other historians have concentrated on the cause of the magazine explosion. Hood Crew List The other was fitted in the spotting top above the tripod foremast and equipped with a 15-foot (4.6m) rangefinder. Hood was involved in many showing-the-flag exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. Ted Briggs was the last survivor of the battle cruiser HMS Hood, sunk by the German warship Bismarck in the North Atlantic during the Second World War. Force H took part in the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kbir in July 1940. The Prince of Wales was joined by HMS Hood in a battle of mythical and historical proportions. The RN conducted two inquiries into the reasons for the ship's quick demise. Despite the official explanation, some historians continued to believe that the torpedoes caused the ship's loss, while others proposed an accidental explosion inside one of the ship's gun turrets that reached down into the magazine. Unsuccessful, she was ordered to patrol the Bay of Biscay against any breakout attempt by the German ships from Brest, France. The turrets were designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from bow to stern,[10] and 120 shells were carried for each gun. Prinz Eugen was probably the first ship to score when a shell hit Hood's boat deck, between her funnels, and started a large fire among the ready-use ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns and rockets of the UP mounts. THE only three British sailors to have survived the sinking of HMS Hood after an attack by the Nazis have spoken about their terrifying ordeal the day after the 75th anniversary of D-Day. John Woodcock. During the 1932 West Indies cruise, the catapult proved to be difficult to operate in anything but a calm sea, as it was frequently awash in bad weather. [4] They were shipped on shielded single-pivot mounts fitted along the upper deck and the forward shelter deck. [88], The search team and equipment had to be organised within four months, to take advantage of a narrow window of calm conditions in the North Atlantic. Updated 01-Jan-2020. Harold Thorpe. HMS Repulse was one of two Renown -class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. At 0925 hours, when the Ohio, . While Type 279 used two aerials, a transmitter and a receiver, the Type 279M used only a single transceiver aerial. Aboard HMS Lapwing (U 62) when hit on 20 Mar 1945 [32], She was launched on 22 August 1918 by the widow of Rear Admiral Sir Horace Hood, a great-great-grandson of Admiral Samuel Hood, after whom the ship was named. For almost 2 decades, she was the largest and most powerful warship afloat. However, the additional armour was never fitted pending further trials. Hood was well known as a top sporting ship. Her 5-inch upper-armour strake would have been removed and her deck armour reinforced. [102], Some relics from the time of Hood's sinking still exist. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935. [64], Just before 06:00, while Hood was turning 20 to port to unmask her rear turrets, she was hit again on the boat deck by one or more shells from Bismarck's fifth salvo, fired from a range of approximately 16,650 metres (18,210yd). [46], While in Australia in April 1924, the squadron escorted the battlecruiser HMASAustralia out to sea, where she was scuttled in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty. May 24th marks the loss of the battlecruiser HMS Hood and 1415 of her crew. 19 rare photos of HMS Hood - the Royal Navy's final battlecruiser First launched more than 100 years ago, HMS Hood was one of the greatest warships ever built by the Royal Navy. Captain Thomas Binney assumed command on 15 August 1932 and the ship resumed her previous practice of a winter cruise in the Mediterranean the next year. The database remains a "work in progress" and records are added to it at regular intervals. Patrick Drennan. Information about men who served in Hood, NAAFI Men The upper belt was 5 inches thick amidships and extended forward to 'A' barbette, with a short 4-inch extension aft. HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. HMS Challenger: a trailblazer for modern ocean science 150 years ago, HMS Challenger departed England on a quest to explore the world's oceans. The Special Service Squadron are on a tour around the world. [45], Captain John Im Thurn was in command when Hood, accompanied by the battlecruiser Repulse and Danae-class cruisers of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, set out on a world cruise from west to east via the Panama Canal in November 1923. Hood in 2001", "Relics of HMS Hood Ledger Container Lid", "HMS Hood v HMS Renown propeller fragment", Battle of the Denmark Strait Documentation Resource, Imperial War Museum Interview with survivor Robert Tilburn, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Hood&oldid=1142099804, A direct hit from a shell penetrated to a magazine aft. It is held by a private collector and stamped HMS HOOD v HMS RENOWN 23 1 35. The Royal Navy's HMS Hood will forever be linked with the German Kriegsmarine battleship KMS Bismarck, as the former vessel was sunk on May 24, 1941 during the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Updated 06-Jun-2022. When the Battle of Jutland broke out in mid-1916, that battle revealed serious flaws in its design, before it ended four years later. Contained here are 1,415 individual memorial pages - one for each man confirmed lost when Hood sank during combat with the German battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Strait on 24th May 1941. Organisation of the search was complicated by the presence on board of a documentary team and their film equipment, along with a television journalist who made live news reports via satellite during the search. Select the period (starting by the reporting year): precomm - 1971 | 1972 - 1973 | 1974 - 1976 | 1977 - 1979 | 1980 - 1981 | 1982 - 1983 | 1984 - 1986 | 1987 - 1988 | 1989 | 1990 - 1991 | 1992 | 1993 - 1994 | 1995 - 1997 | 1998 - now [85], The evidence of the wreck refutes Goodall's theory of a torpedo explosion, while the eyewitness evidence of venting from the 4-inch magazine prior to the main explosion conflicts with the theory that the Hood was blown up by her own guns. [62], The British squadron spotted the Germans at 05:37 (ship's clocks were set four hours ahead of local timethe engagement commenced shortly after dawn),[63] but the Germans were already aware of their presence, Prinz Eugen's hydrophones having previously detected the sounds of high-speed propellers to their southeast. If you have information about a man who served in the ship please contact William Sutherland by e-mail at crewsubs@hmshood.org.uk In the first instance if would help if you include in your e-mail the following information relating to the crew man: When he is able, William will reply to your e-mail so that we can draw it together into a page for the man concerned. The exact cause of the loss of Hood remains a subject of debate. Admiral Tom Phillips and others criticised the conduct of the inquiry, largely because no verbatim record of witnesses' testimony had been kept. Rapid expansion of the resulting combustion gases from the conflagration then caused structural failure, passing out through the sides of the ship as well as forward and upwards via the engine room vents, expelling the aft main battery turrets and causing the stern to be detached from the rest of the hull at the aft armoured bulkhead. Beam: 104 ft. 2 in. She had an extensive battle history, first seeing action in August 1940 while still being outfitted in her drydock when she was attacked and damaged by German aircraft. The explosion was initiated by 4-inch ammunition stored outside the magazines. May 2016 is the 75th anniversary of Hood's sinking. In addition to the above, submissions by individuals remains a valuable contribution to the database. But, even in the case of those for whom records are available, relatives often hold far more information about individuals than can be gleaned from the necessarily impersonal nature of their official records. Although these give the date on which any man joined the ship, they do not give the date on which he left. When war with Germany was declared, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and she spent the next several months hunting for German commerce raiders and blockade runners between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea. A look at the often overlooked members of Hood's crew, Miscellaneous Crew Photos The battlecruiser squadron made a Caribbean cruise in early 1932, and Hood was given another brief refit between 31 March and 10 May at Portsmouth. This is a database on the people who perished or survived attacks by German U-boats during WWII. 444 Flight of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The starboard side of the amidships section is missing down to the inner wall of the fuel tanks and the plates of the hull are curling outward; this has been interpreted as indicating the path of the explosion through the starboard fuel tanks. [8], The Admirals were powered by four Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by 24 Yarrow boilers. The Admiral-class battlecruisers were designed in response to the German Mackensen-class battlecruisers, which were reported to be more heavily armed and armoured than the latest British battlecruisers of the Renown and the Courageous classes. This work is still very much in development but we have about one-third of the people who died already listed. List of crew killed in action aboard HMS Prince of Wales on December 10, 1941. The outbreak of the Second World War made removing her from service near impossible, and as a consequence, she never received the scheduled modernisation afforded to other capital ships such as Renown and several of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. She would have received new, lighter turbines and boilers, a secondary armament of eight twin 5.25-inch (133mm) gun turrets, and six octuple 2-pounder "pom-poms". It is further supposed that the small debris fields are the fragments from the aft hull where the magazines and turrets were located, since that section of the hull was totally destroyed in the explosion. H.M.S. Their sacrifices were not in vain: Though they were lost, the action in the Denmark Strait did end Bismarck's sortie. [12], The ship's original anti-aircraft armament consisted of four QF 4-inch Mk V guns on single mounts. It is estimated that as many as 15,000 men may have served in her from 19201941. [103] A third piece was found in Glasgow, where Hood was built. Hood Association-Battle Cruiser Hood: Crew Information - H.M.S. We therefore welcome and encourage anyone with information on the men who served in Hood to contact us to submit new or supplementary information or photos. HMS Hood, battlecruiser, lost two men in 1935 - one drowned, one to illness (Maritime Quest, click to enlarge) on to 1936 or return to inter-war casualties, 1918-1939 . [21], For protection against torpedoes, she was given a 7.5-foot (2.3m)[27] deep torpedo bulge that ran the length of the ship between the fore and aft barbettes. HMS Hood Walk-Around HMS Hood was something of a majestic design in terms of warships. The Admiral-class, HMS Hood, 1941 is a rank V British battlecruiser with a battle rating of 7.0 (AB/RB/SB). [60], In January 1941, the ship began a refit that lasted until March; even after the refit she was still in poor condition, but the threat from the German capital ships was such that she could not be taken into dock for a major overhaul until more of the King George V-class battleships came into service. H.M.S. The men lost in the sinking are not the only ones who died whilst serving in Hood: It is known that nearly 40 men, possibly more, died whilst building or assigned to Hood between 1916 and her loss in May 1941. Before being installed on the battlecruiser, the bell was inscribed around its base with the words: "This bell was preserved from HMS Hood battleship 18911914 by the late Rear Admiral, The Honourable Sir Horace Hood KCB, DSO, MVO killed at Jutland on 31st May 1916. "[101] There is a second inscription on the side of the bell that reads "In accordance with the wishes of Lady Hood it was presented in memory of her husband to HMS Hood battle cruiser the ship she launched 22nd August 1918."