RN Battlecruisers: Admiral Class; HMS Hood

[designeraccd]

Was launched 100 years ago today: 22 Aug, 1918! Still a handsome, if flawed, beauty! DFO

The Admiral-class battlecruisers were to have been a class of four British Royal Navy battlecruisers designed near the end of World War I. Their design began as an improved version of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, but it was recast as a battlecruiser after Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, pointed out that there was no real need for more battleships, but that a number of German battlecruisers had been laid down that were superior to the bulk of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers and the design was revised to counter these. The class was to have consisted of HMS Hood, Anson, Howe, and Rodney — all names of famous admirals — but the latter three ships were suspended as the material and labour required to complete them was needed for higher-priority merchantmen and escort vessels. Their designs were updated to incorporate the lessons from the Battle of Jutland, but the Admiralty eventually decided that it was better to begin again with a clean-slate design so they were cancelled in 1919.

[ivorthediver]

No Argument from me Dennis,another lessen learnt the hard way it seems

[Pelican]

One of the best reliable sources of information about the ship that I have found is:
http://www.hmshood.com/
A very good book - HMS HOOD, Pride of the Royal Navy, by Andrew Norman, ISBN 1 86227 - 152 - 6
A bit of research I did some time ago is attached.

[Brian James]

HMS Hood pictured at Princes Pier, Port Melbourne in 1924.

[timlewin]

one of my old chaps still going, 96, was posted to Hood just before her fatal meeting with Bismarck, the doctor kept him back for a chest inspection so the ship sailed without him, never to return. :Later he was posted to the destroyer Mahratta as gunnery officer, the captain, newly posted from command of a Hunt, asked to take his former gunnery officer with him so my chap was re-posted to Scorpion. On her next convoy Mahratta was lost with only 15 survivors, the gunnery officer not being among them. Meanwhile Scorpion went on to torpedo Scharnhorst and sail into history.

You can read all this in his bio "A Home on the Rolling Main" ADG "Tony" Ditchman.

[Brian James]

The ill fated Admiral Class Battlecruiser HMS Hood pictured as she passes improvement work underway at La Pita Point,close the entrance to the Pedro Miguel Locks,Panama Canal,July 24th 1924.

[Brian James]

An aerial view of Admiral Class Battlecruiser HMS Hood pictured off Honolulu....*Note with a partially disassembled air craft flying off platform atop B turret,June 12th 1924.

[Brian James]

Admiral Class Battlecruiser HMS Hood pictured off Vancouver,BC in 1923.

[Brian James]

A closeup of Admiral Class Battlecruiser HMS Hood,April 13th 1924.

[Pelican]

H.M.S. HOOD

Worshippers in the small New Forest village of Boldre remembered 1,415 sailors lost in the Royal Navy’s greatest tragedy of World War 2: the sinking of HMS Hood.

For the 70th year running the quintessential English church of St John’s the Baptist hosted a service of remembrance to the battle-cruiser loss with veterans – led by 101-year-old former crewman Alec Kellaway – joining families and serving personnel to remember an event which sent shockwaves through the navy and nation at the time.

The Mighty Hood was the symbol of the Royal Navy between the wars, the biggest battle-cruiser ever built – possessing the punch of a battleship, but the speed of a cruiser thanks to lighter armour.

In mid-May 1941 she and brand-new battleship HMS Prince of Wales were dispatched to intercept Hitler’s flagship Bismarck, making its maiden voyage with cruiser Prinz Eugen, hoping to strike at convoys in the Atlantic.

They met shortly after 5.30am on May 24 in the middle of the Denmark Strait. With his fifth salvo Bismarck – the captain determined a ship so powerful should be male, not female – hit Hood at a range of more than nine miles. The shell penetrated the ship’s armour and exploded in an aft magazine.

The resulting explosion – or explosions – ripped the ship apart. She had been in battle little no more than 25 minutes.

She sank in seconds, taking all but three of her crew – signalman Ted Briggs, anti-aircraft gunner Bob Tilburn and 17-year-old Midshipman William Dundas – with her. It remains the biggest single loss of life in RN history.

Those 1,415 souls are honoured in an illustrated book of remembrance in Boldre church, where there is a comprehensive memorial area devoted to the battle-cruiser and her men, including a stained glass window, benches, a painting of the Hood plus a model of her and her adversary, and the original moulding of the plaque laid on the wreck when it was discovered in 2001.

The reason why? Boldre was the home of Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland, the senior officer lost when the Hood sank; he worshipped with his family in St John’s, and his widow Phyllis established a memorial in the church after the war.

Hood was the first Royal Navy warship constructed with a purpose-built chapel, said the Rev Martin Evans, the RN chaplain leading the memorial service.

"I think about the chapel as a part of this tragic story," he said.

"For a war grave to include a chapel brings a very special dimension into play and serves to underline that God was with these men."

The service was attended by Hood veteran 101-year-old Alec Kellaway, who served in her before the battle with Bismarck.

A packed chapel saw the memorial book carried into the church ceremonially, heard local MP the Rt Hon Julian Lewis read a lesson, Hood Association President Rear Admiral Philip Wilcocks read the act of remembrance (his uncle, AB Eric Wilcocks was among the 1,415 dead) and Russell Hay and Titch Blachford, grandson and great neice of Hood’s Captain Ralph Kerr laid a wreath. The Naval Prayer was read by Cdr Tony Pearce.

During the service, a collection was taken for Seafarers UK. Mission to Seafarers and Boldre Church Trust. The choir sang Parry's Crossing the Bar and the service ended with the National Anthem.
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