Dundass survived by kicking out a starboard side window and swimming away. 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. [51] On 23 April 1937, the ship escorted three British merchantmen into Bilbao harbour despite the presence of the Nationalist cruiser Almirante Cervera that attempted to blockade the port. [21], For protection against torpedoes, she was given a 7.5-foot (2.3m)[27] deep torpedo bulge that ran the length of the ship between the fore and aft barbettes. It is held by a private collector and stamped HMS HOOD v HMS RENOWN 23 1 35. The database remains a "work in progress" and records are added to it at regular intervals. Colin Kitchen. Retained after World War I, it moved between postings in . She formally transferred to the Mediterranean fleet on 20 October, shortly after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Hood was involved in many showing-the-flag exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. It ended peacefully and Hood returned to her home port afterwards. Hood Crew List Updated 06-Jun-2022 It is estimated that as many as 18,000 men, perhaps more, served aboard the "Mighty Hood" during the operational portion of her 21 year career. HMS Hood was the pride of the Royal Navy. Hood. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935. RN men were needed to fully crew ships such as HMS Hood, HMS Prince Of Wales etc. Their sacrifices were not in vain: Though they were lost, the action in the Denmark Strait did end Bismarck's sortie. This was to be used for a major event documentary to be aired on the 60th anniversary of the ships' battle. Moreover, computer-generated profiles of Hood show that a shell falling at this angle could not have reached an aft magazine without first passing through some part of the belt armour. [55] The ship's near-constant active service, resulting from her status as the Royal Navy's most battle-worthy fast capital ship, meant that her material condition gradually deteriorated, and by the mid-1930s, she was in need of a lengthy overhaul. The HMS Hood, originally launched in 1918, . [45], Captain John Im Thurn was in command when Hood, accompanied by the battlecruiser Repulse and Danae-class cruisers of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron, set out on a world cruise from west to east via the Panama Canal in November 1923. For almost 2 decades, she was the largest and most powerful warship afloat. According to Goodall's theory, the ship's torpedoes could have been detonated either by the fire raging on the boat deck or, more probably, by a direct hit from. Crew lists from Ships hit by U-boats. [46], While in Australia in April 1924, the squadron escorted the battlecruiser HMASAustralia out to sea, where she was scuttled in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty. Shipwreck [88], After footage of Bismarck was collected, Mearns and the search team began scanning a 600-square-nautical-mile (2,100km2) search box for Hood; completely covering the area was estimated to take six days. These deaths constituted the Royal Navy's greatest single ship loss of the Second World War. [65] A shell from this salvo appears to have hit the spotting top, as the boat deck was showered with body parts and debris. For instance, the never-built G3 battlecruiser was classified as such, although it would have been more of a fast battleship than Hood. When war broke out later that year, she was employed principally to patrol in the vicinity of Iceland and the Faroe Islands to protect convoys and intercept German merchant raiders and blockade runners attempting to break out into the Atlantic. Kenneth Ellison. [2] This work is still very much in development but we have about one-third of the people who died already listed. CREWMAN Served from 1942 - 1941 Served in HMS Rodney. . In January 1941 Janus assisted with convoy operations between Malta and Piraeus. Whatever caused the explosion, it proved fatal for the ship and most of her crew. Organisation of the search was complicated by the presence on board of a documentary team and their film equipment, along with a television journalist who made live news reports via satellite during the search. However, the additional armour was never fitted pending further trials. When Briggs fought his way to the surface, he could see only two other . It remains possible that a door or trunk could have been opened up by an enemy shell, admitting flames to the magazine. On May 24, 1941, HMS Hood engaged the German Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and the battleship Bismarck. Commissioned in 1920, she was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood. Hood reported an accuracy of 3 degrees with her 279M set. [19], During Hood's last refit in 1941, a Type 279 early-warning radar for aircraft and surface vessels and a Type 284 gunnery radar were installed,[20] although the Type 279 radar lacked its receiving aerial and was inoperable according to Roberts. On May 24, 1941, the fifth salvo of the German battleship Bismarck sank the British battlecruiser HMS Hood. The British opened fire at 05:52 with Hood engaging Prinz Eugen, the lead ship in the German formation, and the Germans returned fire at 05:55, both ships concentrating on Hood. King George V and Smaller Vessels of RDF279", "Memorials in Southsea Portsmouth Naval Memorial", "The July 2001 Channel 4 Expedition to Locate and Film the Wrecks of, "Statutory Instrument 2006 No. On the other hand, the 12-inch belt could have been penetrated if Hood had progressed sufficiently far into her final turn.[84]. [99][98][100], The recovered bell was originally carried on the pre-dreadnought battleship Hood. The German ships were spotted by two British heavy cruisers (Norfolk and Suffolk) on 23 May, and Holland's ships intercepted Bismarck and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland on 24 May. Hood Crew Information- 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. They were supplemented by two additional control positions in the fore-top, which were provided with 9-foot (2.7m) rangefinders, fitted in 19241925. More recently, the records for men who joined the Royal Navy before 1929 have been released into the public domain and are available on Ancestry (subscription required) or The National Archives (free if registered). [4], The main battery of the Admiral-class ships consisted of eight BL 15-inch (381mm) Mk I guns in hydraulically powered twin gun turrets. [102], Some relics from the time of Hood's sinking still exist. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the bridge. In addition to the above, submissions by individuals remains a valuable contribution to the database. [18] The 5.5-inch control positions and their rangefinders on the spotting top were removed during the 1932 refit. HMS Hood had a crew of 1,419 and was faster than the Bismarck with a maximum speed of 32 RN Northern Ireland - In Remembrance. 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. [44], Shortly after commissioning on 15 May 1920, Hood became the flagship of the Battlecruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. He then joined HMS Letchworth and was promoted to Wireman (LC) on 26/10/43. We therefore welcome and encourage anyone with information on the men who served in Hood to contact us to submit new or supplementary information or photos. They were and are the very heart and soul of the ship. They were and are the very heart and soul of the ship. The loss of HMS Hood, with 1,400 crew was the Royal Navy's darkest hour. In March Janus was involved in the battle of Cape Matapan, whilst a unit of the 14th DD Flotilla, under Captain Mack aboard . H.M.S. Navy Artwork. Alternative routes for admission of flame could have been the ventilation or venting arrangements of the magazines or, as Ted Briggs suggested, through the floor of a 15-inch gunhouse. Hood and several light cruisers gave chase, but gave up after two hours; Hood had dodged a salvo of torpedoes from a French sloop and had damaged a turbine reaching 28 knots (52km/h; 32mph). The principal theories include the following causes: At the second board, expert witnesses suggested that what was observed was the venting, through the engine-room ventilators, of a violentbut not instantaneousexplosion or deflagration in the 4-inch shell magazines. Served from 1931 - 1957 Served in HMS Rodney. [64], Just before 06:00, while Hood was turning 20 to port to unmask her rear turrets, she was hit again on the boat deck by one or more shells from Bismarck's fifth salvo, fired from a range of approximately 16,650 metres (18,210yd). Later that year, her crew participated in the Invergordon Mutiny over pay cuts for the sailors. Areas that Mearns felt were more likely to hold the wreck were prioritised, and the side-scan sonar located the battlecruiser in the 39th hour of the search.[89]. The process of identifying Hood men is, therefore, a time-consuming one which involves trawling all records looking for "Hood" as an entry in amongst the list of ships in each record. This explosion broke the back of Hood, and the last sight of the ship, which sank in only three minutes, was her bow, nearly vertical in the water. . The search team also planned to stream video from the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) directly to Channel 4's website. It is estimated that as many as 18,000 men, perhaps more, served aboard the "Mighty Hood" during the operational portion of her 21 year career. HMS Repulse was one of two Renown -class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Service records list all ships in which a individuals served but it is not possible to search for "Hood" or any other individual ship. The other was fitted in the spotting top above the tripod foremast and equipped with a 15-foot (4.6m) rangefinder. 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. Due to her publicly perceived invincibility, the loss affected British morale. On 24 May 1941, early in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded, and sank with the loss of all but 3 of her crew of 1,418. The exact cause of the loss of Hood remains a subject of debate. HOOD-Class battle ordered on 7th April from John Brown of Clydebank. [30] During her 19291931 refit, the platform was removed from 'X' turret and a rotating, folding catapult was installed on her quarterdeck, along with a crane to recover a seaplane. [23], The armour scheme of the Admirals was originally based on that of the battlecruiser Tiger with an 8-inch (203mm) waterline belt. [34] However, the US continued with their established design direction, the slower, but well-protected, South Dakota-class battleship and the fast and lightly armoured Lexington-class battlecruiser, both of which were later cancelled in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Another "pom-pom" director was added on the rear superstructure, abaft the HACS director in 1938. This high position allowed them to be worked during heavy weather, as they were less affected by waves and spray compared with the casemate mounts of earlier British capital ships. [4] The ship's secondary armament consisted of twelve BL 5.5-inch (140mm) Mk I guns, each with 200 rounds. [67] The three were rescued about two hours after the sinking by the destroyer Electra, which spotted substantial debris but no bodies. [7] The ship's complement varied widely over her career; in 1919, she was authorised 1,433 men as a squadron flagship; in 1934, she had 81 officers and 1,244 ratings aboard. [89] Mearns had spent the previous six years privately researching the fate of Hood with the goal of finding the battlecruiser, and had acquired the support of the Royal Navy, the HMS Hood Association and other veterans groups, and the last living survivor, Ted Briggs. In 1934, the "pom-pom" directors were moved to the former locations of the 5.5-inch control positions on the spotting top and the 9-foot (2.7m) rangefinders for the 5.5-inch control positions were reinstalled on the signal platform. Before being installed on the battlecruiser, the bell was inscribed around its base with the words: "This bell was preserved from HMS Hood battleship 18911914 by the late Rear Admiral, The Honourable Sir Horace Hood KCB, DSO, MVO killed at Jutland on 31st May 1916. [4] About 28 torpedoes were carried. Information about men who served in Hood, NAAFI Men Hood Crew List -H.M.S. HMS Hood v Bismarck The fame Bismarck received for sinking HMS Hood and then being hunted in turn have turned her into a legend. HMS Hood bore the motto "with favorable winds" and was named after Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, a victorious commander in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War . [50], The ship participated in King George V's Silver Jubilee Fleet Review at Spithead the following August. She was the most powerful warship afloat during the interwar. Victor White trained at HMS Royal Arthur as an Ordinary Telegrapher from 20/07/1943 to 12/08/1943. 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. Although these give the date on which any man joined the ship, they do not give the date on which he left. We are using the few, fragmentary crew lists known to exist, Navy Lists, various official reports, public records, and most importantly of all, inputs from the families of former crew. [93] Bill Jurens points out that there was no magazine of any kind at the location of the break and that the location of the break just forward of the forward transverse armoured bulkhead suggests that the ship's structure failed there as a result of stresses inflicted when the bow was lifted into the vertical position by the sinking stern section. It was introduced in Update "Danger Zone" . [8], The Admirals were powered by four Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by 24 Yarrow boilers. Admiral Tom Phillips and others criticised the conduct of the inquiry, largely because no verbatim record of witnesses' testimony had been kept. [16], The ship's main battery was controlled by two fire-control directors. Hood Crew Information HMS Ledbury saved some of her crew out of the blazing sea. The bell was rung eight times in a commemorative service at midday attended by descendants of crew members who died in the battle before being placed in the museum's exhibit on the Battle of Jutland. C.P.O. While Type 279 used two aerials, a transmitter and a receiver, the Type 279M used only a single transceiver aerial. The HMS Hood at Table Bay in Cape Town with the HMS Repulse behind, January 1924. Hood Rolls of Honour Memorials to Men Lost in the Sinking of Hood, 24th May 1941 Updated 07-Mar-2010 This page contains a listing the 1415 men who were lost when Hood was sunk on 24th May, 1941 In the early days of the database, information came to us mainly from relatives of individual men. *** Please note that joining this FB page group does not make you a member . When the Spanish Civil War broke out the following year, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to Britain in 1939 for an overhaul. [11], During the 19291931 refit, a high-angle control system (HACS) Mark I director was added on the rear searchlight platform and two positions for 2-pounder "pom-pom" antiaircraft directors were added at the rear of the spotting top, although only one director was initially fitted. The outbreak of the Second World War made removing her from service near impossible, and as a consequence, she never received the scheduled modernisation afforded to other capital ships such as Renown and several of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. After a cruise to Scandinavian waters that year, Captain Geoffrey Mackworth assumed command. Hood was hit by a 250kg (550lb) bomb from a Junkers Ju 88 bomber that damaged her port torpedo bulge and her condensers. [28] As completed, Hood remained susceptible to plunging shells and bombs. When the threat of an invasion diminished, the ship resumed her previous roles in convoy escort and patrolling against German commerce raiders. Hood Crew List Updated 07-Mar-2010 This part of the site offers a searchable database of the H.M.S. HMS HOOD - 15in gun Battlecruiserincluding Convoy Escort Movements. THE only three British sailors to have survived the sinking of HMS Hood after an attack by the Nazis have spoken about their terrifying ordeal the day after the 75th anniversary of D-Day. [88] This was the first time anyone had attempted to locate Hood's resting place. Hood was the first of four Admiral-class ships planned to be built during World War I. Three torpedo-control towers were fitted, each with a 15-foot (4.6m) rangefinder. H.M.S. To these were added five unrotated projectile (UP) launchers in 1940, each launcher carrying 20 seven-inch (178mm) rockets. The Battle of the Denmark Strait was effectively part of the larger Battle of the Atlantic, the conflict fought as Germany tried to isolate Britain from its colonies and allies in hopes of forcing a negotiated peace. [39] Most seriously, the deck protection was flawedspread over three decks, it was designed to detonate an incoming shell on impact with the top deck, with much of the energy being absorbed as the exploding shell had to penetrate the armour of the next two decks. A shell, falling short and travelling underwater, struck below the armoured belt and penetrated a magazine. Hood Crew List Albert Edward Pryke "Ted" Briggs was the last survivor of the battle cruiser HMS Hood, sunk by the German warship Bismarck in the North Atlantic during the Second World War. Captain Harold Reinold relieved Captain im Thurn on 30 April 1925 and was relieved in turn by Captain Wilfred French on 21 May 1927. [27], Live-firing trials with the new 15-inch APC (armour-piercing, capped) shell against a mock-up of Hood showed that this shell could penetrate the ship's vitals via the 7-inch middle belt and the 2-inch slope of the main deck as a result 3-inch plating on the main deck over the slopes was added alongside the magazine spaces at a very late stage of construction and the four aftermost 5.5-inch guns and their ammunition hoists were removed in partial compensation.. A proposal was made to increase the armour over the forward magazines to 5inches and 6inches over the rear magazines in July 1919 in response to these trials.