H.M.S. Hood

The German Heavy Cruiser Prinz Eugen escorted the Battleship Bismarck. Upon the fire from Hood, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen countered immediately, with the latter causing a severe fire on Hoods upper deck. High set plunging shots from Bismarck penetrated deep into the Hoods hull, causing an internal explosion that ripped her apart, sinking into the depths of the North Atlantic in an instant.

(Above H.M.S. Hood’s Ships Crest)

There were only three survivors who were rescued from the water. This poignant historical account of HMS Hood was one that had been passed to me many times whilst I served in the Royal Navy. Nevertheless, after my first meeting with the Spiritual Medium, Steve Tomlinson of Nottingham the impact of this great and extremely sad naval wartime tragedy was to be brought home to me personally. The answer to why my Father-in-Law always said: “I never talk about my own time at sea; I lost some many of my friends”. Steve Tomlinson graphically imparted a detailed account about HMS Hood that was unknown to my wife; one that only a small group of his close family knew about. A message from the “World of Light” proof of survival of physical death!

An ironic footnote is that after being taken off HMS Hood and spending a short time in a naval transit camp. Fred joined HMS Rodney, who herself was involved in the sinking of the Bismarck on 27th March 1941. The real tragedy of any conflict of war is that ultimately we are all lose in one way or another. 

Additional Information about H.M.S. Hood

H.M.S. Hood was to be the last ‘Battlecruiser’ to be built for the Royal Navy Hood. She was one of four ‘Admiral Class’ Battlecruiser’s ordered in 1916, her design although drastically revised after the World War 1 Battle of Jutland.

The Battle of Jutland was fought in the North Sea off the Denmark coast between 31^st of May 1916 and the 1^st of June 1916. Hood was improved while she was under construction, yet still had serious limitations. For this reason she was the only ship of her class to be completed. Hood was named after the 18^th Century Admiral Samuel Hood, 1^st Viscount Hood who was born on 12^th December 1724 and died 27^th January 1816, he was a particularly known for his service in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars.  Admiral Hood acted as a mentor to Admiral of the Fleet Horatio Nelson..

HMS Hood was involved in a number of propaganda exercises, carried out between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939. These exercises included training in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923/4. She was attached to the Mediterranean Sea following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. Once the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to England in 1939 for and refit. At this point in her service, Hood’s usefulness had deteriorated because of advances in naval gunnery. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of the Second World War forced the ship into service without the upgrades.

With the declaration of war with Germany in September 1939, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and spent the next several months hunting between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea for German blockade runners. After a small refit and overhaul to her engine plant, she sailed as the flagship of Force H and participated in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Relieved as flagship of Force H, Hood was dispatched to the North of Scotland to Scapa Flow, and operated in the area as a convoy escort and later as a defence against a potential German invasion fleet. In May 1941, she and the Battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German Battleship Bismarck which was en route to attack convoys in the North Atlantic Ocean. On 24^th of May 1941, Hood was struck by several German shells early in the Battle of the Denmark Straits and exploded; the loss had a profound effect on the British.  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to “sink the Bismarck”, and they fulfilled his command on the 26/27^th of May.

The Royal Navy conducted two inquiries into the reasons for the ship’s quick demise. The first, held very quickly after the ship’s loss, concluded that Hood‘s aft magazine had exploded after one of Bismarck‘s shells penetrated the ship’s armour. A second inquiry was held after complaints were received that the first board had failed to consider alternative explanations, such as an explosion of the ship’s torpedoes. While much more thorough than the first board, it concurred with the first board’s conclusion. 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. Other historians have focused on the cause of the magazine explosion. The discovery of the ship’s wreck in 2001 confirmed the conclusion of both boards, although the exact reason why the magazines detonated will forever be a mystery as that area of the ship was thoroughly destroyed in the explosion

Battle of the Denmark Strait

When Bismarck sailed for the Atlantic in May 1941, Hood, together with the newly commissioned battleship Prince of Wales, was sent out in pursuit along with several other groups of British capital ships to intercept the German ships before they could break into the Atlantic and attack Allied convoys. Hood was commanded by Captain Ralph Kerr and was flying the flag of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland. The German ships were spotted by two British heavy cruisers the Norfolk and Suffolk on the 23^rd of May, and Holland’s ships intercepted Bismarck and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in the Denmark Straits between Greenland and Iceland on 24^th of May.

The British squadron spotted the Germans at 05:37, but the Germans were already aware of their presence, Prinz Eugen‘s hydrophones having previously detected the sounds of high-speed propellers to their south-east. The British opened fire at 05:52 with Hood engaging Prinz Eugen, the lead ship in the German formation, and the Germans returned fire at 05:55, both ships concentrating on Hood. 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. 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 meters (18,210 yd). A shell from this salvo appears to have hit the spotting top as the boat deck was showered with body parts and debris.  A huge jet of flame burst out of Hood from the vicinity of the mainmast, followed by a devastating magazine explosion that destroyed the aft part of the ship. This explosion broke the back of HMS Hood and the last sight of the ship, which sank in only three minutes, was her bow, nearly vertical in the water.

Of the 1,418 crew, only three men they were, Ordinary Signalman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Robert Tilburn, and Midshipman William John Dundas–survived; they were rescued about two hours after the sinking by the Destroyer HMS Electra.

HMS Hood – Poem

Many years ago I heard this verse whilst aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. I know the sailor who sang it, has long since entered into light. The song was sung to the tune of the Christmas Carol ‘Silent Night’. The Austrian priest Father Josef Mohr wrote the original lyrics of the song ‘Stille Nacht’ in Germany and Austrian Headmaster Franz Xaver Gruber, composed the melody, that is generally sung today, it differs slightly from Gruber’s original. Today, the lyrics are in the public domain.

The irony for this poem about HMS Hood is to be sung to the tune of “Silent Night”, after you consider, the verse was taken from the German “Stille Nacht”. When one takes into account the conflict of war, which brought this terrible saga of human suffering together, a tragic event that affected so many people, from both countries and around the world.  Perhaps gentle words can unite, where powerful actions divide.

The H.M.S. Hood Naval Song

When H.M.S. Hood went down in the deep
That was the news that made mothers weep
For the sons who had fought for a country so proud
Were down there below with the sea as their shroud
They are sleeping in heavenly peace, sleeping in heavenly peace

Then came George V, the Prince of Wales too
They took in hand what the Hood had to do
The Suffolk, the Norfolk, the Cossack as well,
Along with the Rodney shelled Bismarck to hell

They sank that ship, oh, we are glad; but for our lads we feel sad
So mothers and wives and sweethearts, be proud
Though your dear lads have the sea as their shroud
They were fighting for freedom, let us never forget
The freedom they fought for will be won yet
They are sleeping in heavenly peace, sleeping in heavenly peace.