HMS Hood

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The bell from HMS Hood has just been recovered.

http://www.paulallen.com/News/News-Articles/Hood-Bell-Recovery

Original post

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Alan

I think few will have a clue as to what HMS Hood is or was or, the circumstances of her sinking.

Still, you've posted a link !

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10 years 7 months

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Thought the wreck of HMS Hood was a war grave?

The wreck of HMS Hood is designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. As well as providing a memorial, the recovery has prevented it from being taken by any illegal operation for personal gain.

http://www.paulallen.com/News/News-Articles/Hood-Bell-Recovery

I seem to recall a survivor of the Titanic was taken down to view the wreck that she was too young to remember sailing on and told that in order not to desecrate the site they could not bring up a tea cup that was laying on the sea bed; the remains of HMS Ark Royal is designated a war grave although only one man lost his life. If there is the chance of human remains being found then - usually - permission to dig up aircraft wreckage is withheld.
Yet if you are a multi-millionaire with connections then a little thing like respect for the grave site appears to get forgotten about rather quickly.

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The problem with the Titanic is they never recovered anything, if Ballard had recovered a single item 'ownership' of the wreck would have past to him, but because he didn't it allowed the people that came after him to plunder it.

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Perhaps the fact that the bell is going to form a memorial, with the sanction of MOD, is relevant.

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What a fantastic end to a very tragic story. Even though Bismark could easily have "Stood off" well out of the range of the guns of HMS Prince Of Wales, and HMS Hood. both of HMSs ships went in to engage Bismark, knowing they were on a hiding to nothing.and out gunned. It will be nice to see the ships bells finally together for all to see. I don't honestly think that anyone would consider the taking of the bell as theft from a War Grave in this instance. I think Paul Allen is owed a debt of gratitude, he may well be worth zillions, but it must have cost him a mint in the recovery.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

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What a fantastic end to a very tragic story. Even though Bismark could easily have "Stood off" well out of the range of the guns of HMS Prince Of Wales, and HMS Hood. both of HMSs ships went in to engage Bismark, knowing they were on a hiding to nothing.and out gunned. It will be nice to see the ships bells finally together for all to see. I don't honestly think that anyone would consider the taking of the bell as theft from a War Grave in this instance. I think Paul Allen is owed a debt of gratitude, he may well be worth zillions, but it must have cost him a mint in the recovery.

Jim.
Lincoln .7

Why do you say both RN ships were out gunned, Hood had 15in guns, prince of wales had 14in guns, Bismark 15in, so to my mind it was Bismark that should have been out gunned, any way if the bell is to be part of some memorial then I think that's ok.
I do agree what you say about the debt we owe him for recovering it :)

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Thought the wreck of HMS Hood was a war grave?

I seem to recall a survivor of the Titanic was taken down to view the wreck that she was too young to remember sailing on and told that in order not to desecrate the site they could not bring up a tea cup that was laying on the sea bed; the remains of HMS Ark Royal is designated a war grave although only one man lost his life. If there is the chance of human remains being found then - usually - permission to dig up aircraft wreckage is withheld.
Yet if you are a multi-millionaire with connections then a little thing like respect for the grave site appears to get forgotten about rather quickly.

The Protection of Military remains Act 1986 is An Act to secure the protection from unauthorised interference of the remains of military aircraft and vessels that have crashed, sunk or been stranded.

So in fact it has nothing to do with a war grave of people.

It also has nothing to do with being a multi-millionaire with connections then a little thing like respect for the grave site appears to get forgotten about rather quickly.

The Bell was also not attached to the main hull of the ship.
and the recovery was Authorised.

Guess there is always someone who wants to muddy the water.

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I think few will have a clue as to what HMS Hood is or was or, the circumstances of her sinking.

Seriously? On this forum?

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17 years 6 months

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Even though Bismark could easily have "Stood off" well out of the range of the guns of HMS Prince Of Wales, and HMS Hood both of HMSs ships went in to engage Bismark, knowing they were on a hiding to nothing and out gunned...

Isn't the current theory that HMS Hood, being a battle-cruiser with very thin deck armour, chose to close Bismark to avoid the plunging fire at longer range?

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Did any Royal navy Capital Ships survive the Second World War, I can't think of one :)

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Isn't the current theory that HMS Hood, being a battle-cruiser with very thin deck armour, chose to close Bismark to avoid the plunging fire at longer range?

Warren, Bismark, and Prinz Eugen, were "Broadside on, as Hood, and the Prince of Wales approached head on. The Prince of Wale's main guns were not in full working order, and indeed had civilian workers on board trying to get them working. Bismark had 15" guns, that fired amour piercing shells. (Just Google how many guns that Bismark had, it's staggering the firepower that it had, and all its guns were in working order. 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.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

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Did any Royal navy Capital Ships survive the Second World War, I can't think of one :)

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

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Some years ago (1986) I met a Hood sailor who was (lucky) posted dreckly before the ship sailed for Bismark. He told me the ship was at flank speed when hit and as the engines and propellers were undamaged, it propelled the ship (with all of the damage) immediately underwater from which there was no recovery.

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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.

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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. :)

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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

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14 years

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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.

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17 years 6 months

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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.

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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.

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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.