HMS Hood

Not only that but for those of us navally illiterate it has been extremely informative. Thank you gentlemen.

OFF TOPIC WARNING

Can I just say what a refreshing change this thread has made from the usual content of GD.

Moggy 😀

Not strictly true… HMS Belfast has been mentioned already and HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower class corvette, is a museum vessel in Canada. HMS Alliance is preserved, having been launched in July 1945, the destroyer HMS Cavalier (commissioned 11/1944) is preserved, HMS Wellington, a 1934 sloop, is preserved as the headquarters ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on the Victoria Embankment on the Thames. LCT7074, a landing craft tank, is under restoration in Portsmouth with a target date of 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The 1943 patrol boat HMS Medusa (ML1387) is preserved. The mini subs X24 (1944) and XE8 (1945) are both preserved. The Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida (1942) is preserved in Canada. The River class frigate HMAS Diamantina (1944) is preserved in Australia, as are the Bathurst class corvettes HMAS Castlemaine and HMAS Whyalla (both 1942).

It is not easy to keep a huge hunk of metal like a warship preserved in Britain – we just don’t have the weather for the mass survival of such beasts, nor the enthusiasm or (for that matter) the money.

I suppose I should have specified warships preserved in the United Kingdom; the Australians and Canadians put us to shame with some of the ships they have managed to preserve.

HMS Belfast is not a battleship, she is a cruiser. The other major ships and submarine that you mention, although it is good that they have made it into preservation, are not preserved in their wartime configuration.

We have the money, over £50billion of government money to lavish on sport, media and the arts in 2014, but you are absolutely correct when you say we, or rather the government, lacks the enthusiasm…

…look at the sorry history of the preservation of HMS Cavalier, or the failure by the government to find a measly million pounds to bring HMS Whimbrel back from Egypt, or the failure of a Conservative government (who owe more than most to the sacrifices of the Royal Navy) to save Falklands veteran HMS Plymouth from the breakers-yard in 2014 (or any government to save any surface warship from the Falklands for that matter)…

…still, money can always be found to save another old master ‘for the nation’!

My grandfather was a Royal Marine and for many years all I knew was that he had been aboard HMS Warspite. Then one day he saw me building the old Airfix kit of same. He went upstairs and brought down a little tin box. And I was transfixed. Photos, medals, the odd paper. Turned out he was in several ships, was aboard Warspite when she was hit by a glider bomb and very badly damaged in 1943. Spent time in the States while she was being repaired. Earlier, he had been in the cruiser Southampton at the time of the Spanish Civil War, during which time the British ships worked in conjunction with several foreign vessels in an International Squadron. Some of them were German. Three years later we were at war.
He never spoke of it again and died not too long afterwards, but, as a youth of about fourteen, I had had an insight into something quite extraordinary to me. Never did find out what happened to his ‘ditty box’, but oh, the lost history that generation could have told!

Echoing the theme of inferior equipment and insufficient numbers, I’m reading Dimbleby’s account of the North African campaign. Apart from extremely dodgy leadership at the top, the British struggled for lack of a decent tank, self propelled anti tank artillery and most crucially, an infantry portable anti tank weapon.

The introduction of the American Grant tank helped and later still the Sherman but, it had its deficiencies. Some years later when I joined up we had a rather excellent portable anti tank weapon based on, I think, the American bazooka. We knew it as the 3.5 inch rocket launcher, and what a nice piece of kit. Very accurate.

Wish they had saved a Flower Class Corvette in the UK.

A chap I used to know in Southend, (now sadly deceased) served on a Flower Class Corvette during WWII.
I believe he was a marine. He had some stories to tell.

Snafu,
Agree with you there.
If our intention is to have a Coastal Defence force, then fine and dandy – let’s get ourselves a clutch of Fast Patrol Boats and some effective maritime patrol aircraft, (and not mention the most ludicrous of recent decisions to axe Nimrod without adequate replacement), and call it quits. But if, as British governments are wont to do, we wish to project foreign policy using our military forces as a strong arm, then for goodness sake, we HAVE to resource them properly.
At the risk of being censured for swearing, even Mrs Thatcher (!) came perilously close to messing up. If the Args had invaded the Falklands a few months later, as they intended, we would have been up a very dodgy creek; no aircraft carriers, no assault ships, fewer surface vessels.
Interesting, isn’t it, to note how the current bunch of halfwitted hypocrites……oops, the Government, have forgotten all the lessons learned in 1982…..and 1956……and 1939 – 45, and permitted the Navy and the Air Force, to become the travesty of their former selves we now see?
Sorry….rant over!

Yep….hats off to the Mogster…
Wish they had saved a Flower Class Corvette in the UK.
They Canadians saved one….she is in Halifax I think, HMCS Sackville.
My Dad served on a couple…he joined up in 42.
We took him to Chatham recently, to the historic dockyard. He was based there.I don’t think he was too keen on the idea at first but I
think he really enjoyed it in the end.
The whole family had a great day out ! I’d recommend it to anyone !

Defence doesn’t win votes until the objectionable folk are too close for comfort at which point the untroubled populace become troubled.

It does worry me that politicians (Who generally are about as knowledgeable as dead fish concerning anything that does not involve votes and obtaining them; a wonderful product of the superlative system we employ today where being a political creature is a lifelong employment rather than MP’s serving as a duty after or alongside real employment.) and senior (serving) military folk (Who ought to and I suspect do, know better) plus the MoD are happy to allow patent falsehoods to emerge from their mouths such as our military is fully and well equipped.

Anybody who has the smallest modicum of understanding of military matters can at a glance see that the British military is woefully inadequate for the taskings that our worthless politicians demand of it.

In my view various British politicians since the end of the second world war and the majority post the end of the cold war are guilty of treason in respect of the armed forces.

Barnett is good, no doubt of it.
Two things have occurred as I waste this day off in idle recreation.
Firstly, I found out via the HMS Hood Association website that this bell is even more special than we thought. It was originally fitted to HMS Hood the battleship in Victorian times and so has served two Capital ships in it’s lifetime.
Second, the wisest remark ever made about the loss of the Hood. Writing in the Times, shortly after the loss of the ship, Admiral Chatfield (who was Beatty’s Flag Captain at Jutland), circumvented all the technical arguments that have surrounded Hood’s sinking by stating that, ultimately, Hood was lost because she had to fight a ship twenty five years younger than she was. A cutting comment on Government parsimony in defence. Any application of the principal today, I wonder?

Apart from the Duke of York’s engagement with Scharnhorst the others don’t seem to crop up very much, it always seems to be the ones that were sunk that you hear of the most, the size of that list surprises me. 🙂

The Wikipedia pages for the classes and ships will give you a very quick overview of the engagements. considerably more action than you imagine.

Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War by Correlli Barnett is an excellent read if Royal Navy actions in the Second World War are of interest. (I thoroughly recommend Correlli Barnett’s writing in general actually.)

Spot on.
Captain Edward Kennedy was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches for his unequal fight against both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during which his ship, the Armed Merchant cruiser Rawalpindi was sunk. She mounted the grand total of eight six inch guns against eighteen eleven inch on the German vessels.
Considering that the captain of HMS Jervis Bay got the VC for a similar action I wonder if Kennedy was a little short changed.

Mikemeteor

An excellent summary. Wasn’t Ludovic Kennedy’s father the captain of a British armed merchantman that was involved in a sea battle of some note ? Was it the Rawalpindi ?

By 1941 the Royal Navy was routinely taking to sea better quality Radar, ( they still called it RDF) than the Kreigsmarine. German radar development at sea lagged well behind that of the British. As Moggy mentioned earlier, at Matapan the British battleships sat quite calmly watching the range come down as the Italian cruisers approached, just waiting for the right moment. When they eventually opened fire the Italians were caught completely unawares.
Graf Spee carried an early, experimental form, of Seetakt radar which was of no advantage on the day because visibilty exceeded the range of the radar set. Also, throughout the war, the Kreigsmarine was extremely cautious about using Seetakt, ( which they did not significantly develop), because they feared the possibility that detection equipment on allied warships might pick up radar transmissions and use them to home in on enemy vessels; when Scharnhorst was engaged by the cruiser Norfolk at North Cape she was caught with her guns trained fore and aft and unaware of the presence of British ships. As luck would have it, Norfolk’s first, radar aimed, salvo took out Scharnhorst’s own, switched off radar. Later, Duke of York would engage Scharnhorst almost entirely using her type 284 gunnery radar to spot for her guns. Conversely, the radar operators, as in Hood at Denmark Strait, could call the incoming shells from the opposition as they saw them approach on that same radar.
At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the crews in Bismark and Prinz Eugen were aware for some time of the approach of British ships; they could hear them on their hydrophones, but they didn’t spot them on radar, (switched off for the reason given earlier). The British, on the other hand, detected the Germans earlier on radar but Admiral Holland was forced by circumstance to make a slower approach than he had originally intended because Norfolk and Suffolk temporarily lost contact with Bismark and couldn’t provide homing information.
Holland’s original intention was to close the range fast, then turn to slug it out once Hood was safe from plunging fire which might easily pierce her deck armour. Sadly he was instead forced into a compromise which slowed his rate of approach and exposed Hood for longer than he wished. He had literally just amended his plan and signalled an alteration of course to open up the arcs of fire for his after turrets when Hood received her fatal damage.
Couple of points: many naval tacticians have speculated that a better course of action would have been for Holland to close in fast with Hood and leave the better armoured Prince of Wales to exchange fire at long range, thus splitting the German response. Instead he chose to manoeuvre his ships as a force, a cumbersome move. Also, the British misidentified the German ships and fired upon the leading vessel which was standard practice for them; unfortunately the leading ship was Prinz Eugen and so Bismark was left unchallenged at first; again the mistake was spotted but corrected too late.
The Germans were acutely conscious of the presence, in their rear so to speak, of the cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk and expected them to take a hand; they did not and it’s an interesting thought as to what might have happened if they had. Their job, as far as Admiral Holland was concerned, was to shadow and report and this is what they did and as things turned out, just as well.
Remember too that radar had a detection range very much less than visual under most conditions and both Suffolk and Norfolk were inside Bismark’s gun range for a lot of the time that they were shadowing. Given their almost non existent deck armour that’s a sobering thought.
Finally, one of the British ships, sentiment likes to suggest it was Hood, scored a telling hit on Bismark. The latter’s forward fuel transfer valves were knocked out and so several hundred vital tons of fuel became inaccessible. This dictated Admiral Lutjens future moves and forced him to turn for the French coast. And that, in no small measure, was the reason that Force H with Ark Royal’s swordfish, were able to slow her up for the Home Fleet to finish her off; an interesting study in cause and effect.
Best account of the story? In my humble opinion, ‘Pursuit’ by Ludovic Kennedy. Terrific and unbiased account written by an outstanding journalist who served in one of the destroyers involved in the chase.

Battles of the two world wars will be remembered purely historically like Waterloo was for all of us a few weeks ago.

I think there is a significant difference in that moving images exist of WW1 and WW2 which will always make them at least a little ‘more real’ to those viewing them from the future.

Moggy

All quite true, Paul but with a teenage grandson who has grown up fully aware of both the world wars of the last century, I realise that he and his peers are the future and WW2 is twice as remote to them as WW1 was to me at the same age. The reality of the horror of the Nazi jackboot has the same relevance as the misery of 45 years of communist hegemony in half the world.

The realities are entirely different now, the dangers are totally different and the fears if any quite different. In ten years time there will be practically no one living born during the war and none living who has any experience or memory of the war. Battles of the two world wars will be remembered purely historically like Waterloo was for all of us a few weeks ago.

Moggy,Yes I know about Bomber command losses. My point probably not put to well is that WW2 is sliding away in peoples memories. The last couple of generations seem to have very little knowledge of it and the freedom it gives them today.Ask most people about Jutland and you will get a blank stare.
Still lets see what is remembered on July 1st 2016.

Did any Royal navy Capital Ships survive the Second World War, I can’t think of one 🙂

Much easier to list those that sunk.

Seriously? On this forum?

More likely he meant the world in general.

Guess there is always someone who wants to muddy the water.

Not muddying the water, raising a point. Thank you for your informative post; my information was that sites became war graves when it was known that members of the crew had died on board and the bodies were unable to be recovered or that their recovery was inviable due to, for example, being aboard a sunken vessel.

It is an utter disgrace that not a single Royal Navy battleship (as opposed to warship) was preserved from that era; no battleship, no destroyer, no frigate, no corvette, no submarine that saw service in the Second World War has been preserved (in wartime configuration).

Not strictly true… HMS Belfast has been mentioned already and HMCS Sackville, the last surviving Flower class corvette, is a museum vessel in Canada. HMS Alliance is preserved, having been launched in July 1945, the destroyer HMS Cavalier (commissioned 11/1944) is preserved, HMS Wellington, a 1934 sloop, is preserved as the headquarters ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners on the Victoria Embankment on the Thames. LCT7074, a landing craft tank, is under restoration in Portsmouth with a target date of 2019, the 75th anniversary of D-Day. The 1943 patrol boat HMS Medusa (ML1387) is preserved. The mini subs X24 (1944) and XE8 (1945) are both preserved. The Tribal class destroyer HMCS Haida (1942) is preserved in Canada. The River class frigate HMAS Diamantina (1944) is preserved in Australia, as are the Bathurst class corvettes HMAS Castlemaine and HMAS Whyalla (both 1942).

It is not easy to keep a huge hunk of metal like a warship preserved in Britain – we just don’t have the weather for the mass survival of such beasts, nor the enthusiasm or (for that matter) the money.

Apart from the Duke of York’s engagement with Scharnhorst the others don’t seem to crop up very much, it always seems to be the ones that were sunk that you hear of the most, the size of that list surprises me. 🙂

But they were there, chasing around the Atlantic and Mediterranean, bombarding beach heads, you get the picture.

Some years ago (1986) I met a Hood sailor who was (lucky) posted dreckly before the ship sailed for Bismark..

Like a great uncle of mine and Jon Pertwee – both taken off at the last moment. A couple of other relatives were not so lucky.

… it still rankles slightly that the RN and this country can commemorate battle of britain day where 544 aircrew died but let HMS Hood that lost almost three time as many men in one action can slide into relative forgetfulness …

And Bomber Command lost about three times as many men in the Battle of Berlin as the RN lost in the Hood.

I don’t think the commemoration of the BoB is about the number of British / Commonwealth and other allied casualties

Moggy

Don’t forget we could have lost one of the best Dr Whos as Jon Pertwee was an HMS Hood crew member.