Stand to be corrected on this point; I noted that the senior man on board was a Wing Commander, also listed as a pilot. Presumably then, the squadron commander? And wasn’t it practice for a pilot to perform the role of navigator on Hampdens early in the war?
I’ve always been a bit hazy about Hampden crewing practice but from my thoughts our Sergeant Herd would be a qualified pilot acting as nav on his CO’s aircraft. Please feel free to comment on this; as I say, Hampden arrangements are a black hole to me!

Hi, Linc.
No sweat, good to think there will be a nice outcome, well done.

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=15846

Hope the link works, Linc!

OK, so the historical side was a teeny bit suspect, but I saw enough to suggest that it might be mildly diverting. Seemed to be a genuine respect for the old actors and their characterizations. Still, the old ones are the best!

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!

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!

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?

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.