What is presented below is therefore necessarily incomplete in respect of Royal Navy ratings and Royal Marines. The men who commanded the ship & the squadrons she served in, Crew Stories & Anecdotes Roster entries: 90,827 (for 89,120 people) Service Persons; Merchant Navy: 43,355: RN: 13,428 . In addition to the two inscriptions, the bell still wears vivid royal blue paint work on its crown as well as its interior. The Prince of Wales was joined by HMS Hood in a battle of mythical and historical proportions. [106], As a result of a collision off the coast of Spain on 23 January 1935, one of Hood's propellers struck the bow of Renown. This position shows the rudder locked into a 20 port turn, confirming that orders had been given (just prior to the aft magazines detonating) to change the ship's heading and bring the aft turrets 'X' and 'Y' to bear on the German ships. [12], The Ascension Island guns saw action only once, on 9 December 1941, when they fired on the German submarineU-124,[105] as it approached Georgetown on the surface to shell the cable station or sink any ships at anchor. It remains possible that a door or trunk could have been opened up by an enemy shell, admitting flames to the magazine. We work with our members around the world in remembering the Mighty Hood and all those who sailed in her. After conservation work, Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, unveiled the bell at the museum on 24 May 2016 the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Denmark Strait. It endorsed this opinion, stating that: (c) (The) probable cause of the loss of HMS Hood was direct penetration of the protection by one or more 15-inch shells at a range of 16,500 yards [15,100m], resulting in the explosion of one or more of the aft magazines.[71]. PETTY OFFICER Served from 1942 - 1946 Served in HMS Rodney. Transferred to the Home Fleet shortly afterwards, Hood was dispatched to Scapa Flow, and operated in the area as a convoy escort and later as a defence against a potential German invasion fleet. The results of Hood's fire are not known exactly, but she damaged the French battleshipDunkerque, which was hit by four fifteen-inch shells and was forced to beach herself. H.M.S. Hood Roll of Honour List (24th May 1941), You can also try searching our database for a particular name It was divided into an empty outer compartment and an inner compartment filled with five rows of water-tight "crushing tubes" intended to absorb and distribute the force of an explosion. Information about men who served in Hood, NAAFI Men Aboard HMS Lapwing (U 62) when hit on 20 Mar 1945 All crew were off the ship at 0430 on 14 Nov as the list increased to 35 degrees. The Hood was a truly mighty warship and if you yourself served in any of the Royal Navy's battleships (Hood was a battlecruiser) you will know what 40-odd thousand tons of grey coloured steel looks like, but if you didn't, you can still see that spectacle in the U.S.A., where several of her battleships of around this tonnage are parked as museums. H.M.S. Unfortunately, there is no surviving official single listing of ALL men who served in her. Also one Swordfish carried out a photographic reconnaissance of the east east of Bogen and the Herjangsfjord. For this reason, she was the only ship of her class to be completed, as the Admiralty decided it would be better to start with a clean design on succeeding battlecruisers, leading to the never-built G-3 class. As such, it remains a protected place under the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986. HMS Hood was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy - and was lost while chasing the most infamous battleship of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine - the Bismarck. This was 66 feet (20.1m) longer and 14 feet (4.3m) wider than the older ships. A look at the animal sailors who made up a special part of Hood's crew, Sport & Athletics Through their deaths, the resolve of the British Empire was restored with a vengeance. Hood Crew List -H.M.S. She formally transferred to the Mediterranean fleet on 20 October, shortly after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Despite these problems, she had hit Bismarck three times. It ended peacefully and Hood returned to her home port afterwards. It is held by a private collector and stamped HMS HOOD v HMS RENOWN 23 1 35. 19 rare photos of HMS Hood - the Royal Navy's final battlecruiser First launched more than 100 years ago, HMS Hood was one of the greatest warships ever built by the Royal Navy. Roll of Honour & Crew Memorials All the 5.5-inch guns were removed during another refit in 1940. At full speed, or in heavy seas, water would flow over the ship's quarterdeck and often entered the messdecks and living quarters through ventilation shafts. To request a crew list to view in the reading room, please . [91] Other researchers have claimed that the final salvo fired by Hood was not a salvo at all, but flame from the forward magazine explosion, which gave the illusion of Hood firing for the last time. The decks were made of high-tensile steel. They returned home 10 months later in September 1924, having visited South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and some smaller colonies and dependencies, and the United States. . The Admiral-class battlecruisers were designed in response to the German Mackensen-class battlecruisers, which were reported to be more heavily armed and armoured than the latest British battlecruisers of the Renown and the Courageous classes. The ship was laid down on 1st September 1916 and was launched on 22nd August 1918 as the 3rd RN ship to carry this, introduced in 1859 and previously used in 1891 for a battleship sunk as a blockship in 1918. P.O.TEL Served from 1943 - 1957 Served in HMS Duke Of York. Positions authorised to be filled aboard Hood, Crew Biographies 1935 was stamped on one surviving example, and "Hood V Renown off Arosa 23135" on another. They both had on board 5 million in gold bullion. A meeting place for Association members and Hood enthusiasts. The Royal Navy kept no lists of ratings serving in individual ships and, therefore, for ratings any crew list can only be assembled from information relating to individuals. Although this can be ascertained by tracing his next ship, this is a prohibitively time consuming process. The database remains a "work in progress" and records are added to it at regular intervals. 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. To these were added five unrotated projectile (UP) launchers in 1940, each launcher carrying 20 seven-inch (178mm) rockets. Only Hood was completed, because the ships were very expensive and required labour and material that could be put to better use building merchant ships needed to replace those lost to the German U-boat campaign. 20th May 2021, 5:19pm. The forecastle deck ranged from 1.75 to 2 inches (44 to 51 millimetres) in thickness, while the upper deck was 2 inches (51mm) thick over the magazines and 0.75 inches (19mm) elsewhere. Hood was the first of the planned four Admiral-class battlecruisers to be built during the First World War.Already under construction when the Battle of Jutland occurred in mid-1916, that battle revealed serious flaws in her design despite drastic revisions before she was completed four years later. -H.M.S. [99][98][100], The recovered bell was originally carried on the pre-dreadnought battleship Hood. When war with Germany was declared, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and she spent the next several months hunting for German commerce raiders and blockade runners between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea. 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. At 2002, a message from cruiser HMS Suffolk reported the enemy as one battleship and one cruiser, course 240 degrees, in a position that translated to some 560 kilometers distant and almost directly north of the battlecruiser force. August 4, 2020. PO. After a cruise to Scandinavian waters that year, Captain Geoffrey Mackworth assumed command. As a result, for the Midshipmen and junior officers who served in Hood in the later years of the 1930s little information in addition to the date on which they joined the ship is available without charge. [3], The Admirals were significantly larger than their predecessors of the Renown class. 24-03-2018. A large fragment of the wooden transom from one of Hood's boats was washed up in Norway after her loss and is preserved in the National Maritime Museum in London. In March Janus was involved in the battle of Cape Matapan, whilst a unit of the 14th DD Flotilla, under Captain Mack aboard . The stern of the Hood was located, with the rudder still in place, and it was found that this was set to port at the time of the explosion. They served as tragic reminders as to why the war was being fought and why it had to be won. She was also the largest warship afloat when she was commissioned, and retained that distinction for the next 20 years. [28] As completed, Hood remained susceptible to plunging shells and bombs. [25], The armoured belt consisted of face-hardened Krupp cemented armour (KC), arranged in three strakes. Unsuccessful, she was ordered to patrol the Bay of Biscay against any breakout attempt by the German ships from Brest, France. William was born in Jarrow 1929, the son of Thomas and Catherine Ramshaw (nee Gibson) of Jarrow. This theory was ultimately adopted by the board. On May 24, 1941, HMS Hood engaged the German Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleship Bismarck. Propulsion: 4 shafts, Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, 24 Yarrow water-tube boilers Speed: 31 knots (1920), 28 knots (1940) Range: 5,332 miles at 20 knots Complement: 1,169-1,418 men HMS Hood - Armament (1941): Guns HMS Hood was avenged and it was a gallant end to the German warship. The 4-inch fire-control director lies in the western debris field. By early 1940, Hood's machinery was in dire shape and limited her best speed to 26.5 knots (49.1km/h; 30.5mph); she was refitted between 4 April and 12 June. HMS Hood - Specifications: Displacement: 47,430 tons Length: 860 ft., 7 in. AB Served from 1946 - 1955 Served in HMS Duke Of York. The discovery of the ship's wreck in 2001 confirmed the conclusion of both boards, although the exact reason the magazines detonated is likely to remain unknown since that portion of the ship was obliterated in the explosion. [53] Captain Pridham was relieved by Captain Harold Walker on 20 May 1938 and he, in turn, was relieved when the ship returned to Portsmouth in January 1939 for an overhaul that lasted until 12 August. H.M.S. [57], Captain Irvine Glennie assumed command in May 1939 and Hood was assigned to the Home Fleet's Battlecruiser Squadron while still refitting.