09/24/2025
HMS Hood, traveling with HMS Prince of Wales to the Denmark Strait on May 22nd, 1941, was the pride of the Royal Navy. When she entered service in 1920 she was, by most metrics, the largest warship in the world. With dimensions like 47,000 tons displacement at deep load and 860ft long, she far eclipsed her contemporaries for 20 years until the Yamato and Bismarck-class battleships hit the water.
Unfortunately Hood was an enlargement of previous WW1 Royal Navy battlecruisers and had many shortcomings related to them. The hard lessons learned during the Battle of Jutland (1916) where three Royal Navy battlecruisers were lost in the space of a couple hours were quickly implemented in alterations to Hood's design. Armour was added to her deck, increasing her weight by 5,000 tons. This increased her draught by over 1 meter. While this may not sound like a lot, she was already pretty minimal in the freeboard department, and so at high speed or in a heightened sea state her aft deck (quarterdeck) was virtually submerged. Water also entered ventilation shafts causing misery for some of her sailors berthed in those aft compartments. Unfortunately the armour was added to what was already an antiquated armour design which still left her vulnerable to plunging fire. Despite this, Hood was an excellent gun platform- steady with minimal roll.
Hood, as the pride of Navy, was showcased in a famous circumnavigation of the world in 1923-1924. Because of the demands placed on her, a scheduled rebuild along the lines of HMS Renown or Warspite (examples), was continually put off until it was too late. Once the war began in 1939 she would only have a couple minor refits. The large rebuild that may have saved her never happened.
Poignantly, the last photo shows the crew of HMS Hood posing for a group photo on their beloved ship during a short refit in January-March, 1941. Nearly all would perish a few months later.
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