HMS Hood

“can slide into relative forgetfulness”

And shortly to be followed by knowledge of the Battle of Britain unless we address the shortcomings in many State schools where it is claimed around 40% of schoolchildren no nothing of the Battle.

Not deriding or taking away any thing for those who fought and died in protecting us in the utterly black days of 1940 and probably saving us from an invasion. Brave men to a man. But 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 by most

Bismark was a battleship and absolutely was designed to engage enemy battleships; when launched she was the most powerful battleship in service with any European power. Admittedly her orders directed her to seek-out and destroy merchant convoys and to avoid engagements with Royal Navy capital ships but that was not because of her design.

The Graf Spee on the other hand could have been specifically designed as a commerce-raider; she could out-gun anything that she couldn’t out-run and out-run anything that she couldn’t out-gun.

The Bismark was not designed to engage naval ships, she was a surface raider. Perhaps her downfall was she never really wanted to
engage the Royal Navy in Battle.
Having said that she did take hits and was heavily damaged before the Swordfish engaged.
Ironically if the Swordfish had not attacked Sheffield by mistake and if she (Bismark) had stopped engines and had done nothing to defend herself against the Swordfish she probably would have survived.

My father served on HMS Anson during WW2. Those German sailors were brave men.

Nor did I. I just assumed the shadowing cruisers were the only ones equipped.

But Mr Google is my ally, as always.

Moggy

I didn’t know HMS Prince of Wales carried radar at the Battle of the Denmark Strait.

Naval warfare contained a large element of luck in the ‘big gun’ era; when Bismark was finally cornered she failed to score a single hit on any of the Royal Navy warships present.

.. I was campng on the beach at Marazion, Cornwall when to seaward of Mounts Bay came a sea going tug towing the Warspite on her last voyage to the knackers yard

Of course she never got to the breakers yard. Fighting to the last she grounded herself off Mounts Bay, where she was partially dismantled, once lighter she was moved to Marazion beach were her breaking was completed.

Tragic. She had served in both conflicts. But we were broke and that was a lot of valuable scrap.

Moggy

As a schoolboy during the summer holidays, I was campng on the beach at Marazion, Cornwall when to seaward of Mounts Bay came a sea going tug towing the Warspite on her last voyage to the knackers yard and five million razor blades.

Don’t forget we still have HMS Belfast and memories of her disagreement with Scharnhorst.

Both Bismark and Prinz Eugen had gun-ranging radar, something that HMS Hood and (probably?) HMS Prince of Wales lacked

April 1941: The PRINCE OF WALES went to sea with HACS IVGB, with full radar ranging systems, and no less than nine AA fire control radars: four Type 285 Radars, one on each High Angle Director Tower and four Type 282 Radars, one on each Mk IV pom-pom director, and a long range Type 281 Radar which also had precision ranging panels for aerial and surface targets.

Moggy

Warspite contributed so much, she should have been saved.

Along with a Flower Class here in the UK

Moggy

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).

From FAA archives an image of the inglorious end of the two Nelson class, and one Queen Elizabeth class.

Loss of life apart I think the ones that succumbed in battle had a more fitting fate.

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Moggy

!,415 RN sailors lost their lives in the Hood and only 3 survivors. I met the last one Ted Briggs at a meeting a very nice unassuming man. The meeting was not about the Hood and it was only after that I found out who he was.

CD

A good summary. That is much as I understand. The shock of the sinking of Hood wasn’t restricted to the navy but was felt nationwide and much more, even extending to the Commonwealth.

I recall from one of the many accounts of the period that Hitler was incensed that so much manpower and expense was locked up in the Tirpitz for so little return apart that is, from the threat against allied shipping levied by its continuing presence.

I get a distinct impression that German naval gunnery, in both world wars, tended to be more accurate than our navy. Such encounters as Jutland, the Graf Spee…

The sinking of Hood was a serious body blow to the prestige of the navy and the nation. The Hood was famous around the world as a visible instrument of Britain’s power and her sinking was grievous.

The Germans have a well-earned reputation for the quality of their optical instruments; I’m sure that quality also extends to their naval rangefinders. Plus, as I was saying in the thread above, German capital ships carried range-finding radar in many engagements that their Royal Navy opponents didn’t (Graf Spee / Battle-of-the-River-Plate).

Jutland was different; it wasn’t so much a matter that Royal Navy ships were being hit more it was just that they were blowing-up when they were being hit (due to deliberate removal of safety features and poor safety drill).

The loss of HMS Hood was a body-blow for the Royal Navy but it has to be taken in context; some recent documentaries on Bismark, even those by such luminaries as Dr Robert Ballard, are shocking in their eulogising about Bismark as an ‘unsinkable super-ship’! Yes, Bismark was a very powerful battleship built with typical Teutonic thoroughness but warships should not really be judged like ‘top trumps’ but by how successful they are in their assigned missions; on that score Bismark was little short of a disaster for the Nazi regime and probably represented a much worse investment than HMS Hood.

I still think that Hood and the Prince of Wales, were A) Only able to fire with their forward facing guns, and B) were head on to the German ships. The range of these 15″ guns was roughly the same, 28.000 yds, but I think Bismark had better gun rangefinders.

Yes, HMS Hood was about to make her turn broadside-on to bring all her guns to bear when she was hit with catastrophic consequences.

Both Bismark and Prinz Eugen had gun-ranging radar, something that HMS Hood and (probably?) HMS Prince of Wales lacked and the German optical range-finders were probably better (and newer); remember, Hood was effectively a First World War battle-cruiser, a type of warship outdated after Jutland. And as you say Prince of Wales wasn’t fully worked-up.

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

That reminds me of when I was working in an empty house in Southend a few years ago.
I had to take the old lino up, and underneath were lots of old newspapers, mostly Daily Heralds.
They were mostly dated around 1939. I picked up one and it had a picture of a sailor home on leave, with his wife
and newborn baby. He was serving on HMS Hood. I saved some of the papers, but not unfortunately that one.

In truth it wasn’t really a surface ship war.

The Kriegsmarine heavies rarely came out to play, and the Italian Navy had quite enough with the Battle at Cape Matapan (Where they met Barham, Valiant and Warspite) and spent most of the rest of the war in harbour.

Well worth reading up on Matapan if you have never done so.

Moggy

Most of them I think.

Queen Elizabeth
Warspite
Valiant
Malaya
Royal Sovereign
Ramilles
Revenge
Resolution
KGV
Duke of York
Anson
Howe
Nelson
Rodney
Renown

Moggy

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. 🙂

I get a distinct impression that German naval gunnery, in both world wars, tended to be more accurate than our navy. Such encounters as Jutland, the Graf Spee epic, and individual single ship battles such as those involving the armed merchantman Rawalpindi and HMS Gloworm altho’ onesided in terms of firepower, ended predictably.

The sinking of Hood was a serious body blow to the prestige of the navy and the nation. The Hood was famous around the world as a visible instrument of Britain’s power and her sinking was grievous.