Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length.
Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: HMS Hood - The End of Glory  (Read 2555 times)

Colin Bishop

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 12,171
  • Location: SW Surrey, UK
HMS Hood - The End of Glory
« on: August 10, 2016, 10:36:00 pm »

I have just finished reading this superb book by Bruce Taylor https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Glory-Peace-Hood-1916-1941/dp/1848321392/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

It tells the story of HMS Hood from her building to her terrible end at the hands of the Bismarck.

As modelmakers we reproduce our favourite ships in miniature but perhaps those of us who have not served in the Navy should reflect upon what it was like to actually serve aboard the ships we depict. Bruce Taylor's book really brings to life the Royal Navy of the 1920s and 1930s with personal accounts of crew members of 'The Mighty Hood' which fully deserved that description despite the fatal weaknesses that brought about her destruction in the Denmark Strait. I really do recommend this book. I recently saw the salvaged ship's bell of Hood at Portsmouth and it is a poignant reminder of the end of perhaps the Navy's greatest warship.

For those interested in the subsequent nemesis of Bismarck, Ian Ballantyne's book provides a graphic description of her destruction: https://www.amazon.co.uk/HMS-Rodney-Bismarck-Saviour-Warships-ebook/dp/B00DN5V4ZY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470864618&sr=1-1&keywords=ian+ballantyne+rodney

Apparently the Rodney's Chaplain begged her captain to halt the slaughter but he could not do so as it was essential to sink the Bismarck as if she had been left as a drifting wreck she might have been towed in and repaired only to subsequently pose a new threat to the RN.

These books both demonstrate the brutality of war but Bruce Taylor's book celebrates the role of Hood in the dying days of the 'old navy'.

Colin

Logged

ballastanksian

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6,447
  • Model Boat Mayhem inspires me!
  • Location: Crewkerne
Re: HMS Hood - The End of Glory
« Reply #1 on: August 11, 2016, 10:28:23 pm »

The saddest thing for me is that on each Capital ship there were up to sixty ships boys of between fourteen and seventeen years of age aboard. They were often involved doing duties as complex as any sailor and pobviously in at the thick end like the sailors and no less brave, but at the end of the day, they were someones grand son. When a ship like the Hood, or Barham, or the Battlecruisers of WW1 that sank in minutes, most if not all of them perished. That is a lot of children.

Logged
Pond weed is your enemy

spooksgone

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 355
  • Location: East Devon
Re: HMS Hood - The End of Glory
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2016, 02:22:41 pm »

My wife's uncle was taken off of HMS Hood and transferred to submarines at the start of world war two. He was killed rescuing civilians after an air raid by the Luftwaffe on Plymouth, his name is on a memorial plaque in Plymouth. The Submarine that he was serving on never came back from patrol. That is real food for thought for me. We used to have some photos of him on HMS Hood, I think that my wife has sent them to the HMS Hood association. So sad.
Logged

Captain Flack

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,042
  • Location: Devon
Re: HMS Hood - The End of Glory
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2016, 04:02:15 pm »

My Grandfather was detailed off to go to HMS Hood as a Blacksmith, but due to other projects he was working on, his then CO got his orders changed, and he never went.  Spent the rest of the war on Submarine Defence in Plymouth.
Logged

dodes

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 985
  • Location: Hampshire
Re: HMS Hood - The End of Glory
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2016, 09:28:06 pm »

My father was a fifth year boy art apprentice, there was 25 in his intake, all on outbreak of war where drafted out to the fleet to make numbers up, 20 of his intake where drafted to the Hood. One of the remaining 5 was drafted to Norfolk and he was emotional to leave his buddies, my Dad felt sorry for him and swopped drafts. So on that fateful day my father was off duty and was watching Hood with high power watch keeping binoculars for over 30 minutes before she went up. He gave me a different story to what you read. But there you are one kind act saved him and enabled me to break into this world.
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.106 seconds with 21 queries.