Talk:HMS Hood (51)

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[edit] Forward magazine explosion?

I recently came across the following post by Bill Juren on Kbismarck.org Who really sank the Hood? Bismarck or Prinz Eugen?

"The (television) documentary suggesting the forward magazine explosion, which is not too bad otherwise, keeps coming up again and again. As a member of the Marine Forensics Committee of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, and the author of "The Loss of HMS Hood -- A Re-examination" I was specifically tasked with the forensic investigation of the causes of Hood's loss on the 2001 documentary which you saw.
"There was definitely no forward magazine explosion -- or at least no forward magazine explosion of consequence -- on Hood. The forward hull separated due to hydrostatic compression and structural overload. The documentary quite deliberately ignored and/or distorted my findings in this regard and substituted a forward magazine explosion theory which, to put it kindly, might be best described as 'goofy'. You will see me in the program, but most or all of my comments regarding the actual cause of the forward hull separation have been carefully edited out.
"The detailed results of that investigation were published in a paper for the Marine Forensics Committee of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in 2002.


Bill Jurens"

Bill has commented at greater length in the HMS Hood Association’s Battlecruiser Hood Forum Alleged Forward Magazine Explosion. In view of his statements, I have removed all references to a forward magazine explosion.

John Moore 309 10:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Boards of Enquiry and Modern Theories on the Sinking sections

I have added these sections, which I hope expand significantly on the material they replace, with minor corrections (such as the correct ranks for Vice-Admiral Blake and Rear-Admiral Walker). In accordance with the “no original research” policy, he material is based mostly on Jurens and the transcript of the proceedings of the Walker enquiry, (the latter available in full on the superb Hood Association website).

You do not need to browse very far in Wikipedia to discover that, over 60 years on, the fate of HMS Hood remains a subject of intense and occasionally ruthless debate. I will be honest and say that I have been disturbed by the standard of some of the editing which has taken place on this article in recent months (see my comment on “Integrity of Primary Sources” below). I am relatively new to Wikipedia, but my understanding is that the job of Wikipedians is to inform debate, by providing verifiable evidence, rather than to use the project as a platform for advocacy. I also believe that as an editor, if I make a substantive change to an article, I have a duty to identify myself, explain my rationale, and give other editors a chance to challenge what I have done.

If anyone has a serious problem with my changes, then I would urge them firstly to do as I have done, and study carefully the source material cited in the article, which I consider to be of the utmost value though by no means infallible; and secondly to raise them here on the discussion page (which is on my watchlist) rather than making wholesale changes or reversions. In asking for such consideration, let me say that I have spent many painstaking hours on compiling, checking and re-checking this work, taking particular pains to eliminate POV, and that I have not knowingly included any statement which is not attributable to either a primary source or to a published authority of international and long-standing repute (such as John Roberts, VE Tarrant, WE Jurgens and Anthony Preston).

I look forward to your comments.


John Moore 309 17:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


I have done now what I should have done before, and downloaded the Prinz Eugens'ss War Diary from KBismarck.com. This primary source confirms that the Prinz Eugen transferred her fire from Hood to Prince of Wales at least 2 - 3 minutes before the Hood blew up (see quotations below). In view of this evidence, I have removed all references in the article to the possibility of a shell from Prinz Eugen having penetrated one of the Hood's magazines. There remains the theory that the fire started by Prinz Eugen caused the loss (for a vigorous espousal of this theory, see Ted Briggs' Flagship Hood at HMS Hood Association (Chapter 24) ).
Quotations from the Prinz Eugen’s War Diary (Kriegstagebuch):
0555 hours – Prinz Eugen and Bismarck return fire. Both ships shoot initially at Hood. The semaphore order from Fleet, “Engage opponent farthest to the left” was not implemented until after the sixth salvo, with target shift to King George (sic). Both ships are on target after the first salvo. After the impact at 0557 of the second salvo from Prinz Eugen, a rapidly spreading fire at the level of the aft mast was observed, apparently involving the aircraft hanger or petrol stowage.
0601 hours & 20 seconds – An extraordinarily violent detonation aboard Hood. A high pillar of metal debris is becoming visible. A heavy cloud of black smoke envelops the ship as it rapidly sinks by the stern while twisting at about 180 degrees. Both ships concentrate fire on King George.
(After firing) the bracketing group, an extraordinarily bright fire flash appeared on the (lead) enemy ship’s aft section at the level of the aft mast. The fire developed on the portside of the opponent, since the superstructures stood out as sharp silhouettes. Immediately thereafter, I (Korvettenkapitan Paulus Jasper, First Gunnery Officer) received the order from the ship’s command to “change target to the left”, that is towards the second opponent, whereby the fire of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen now crossed. I was unable to observe Bismarck’s decisive salvo because I was no longer in a position to do so. I ordered the targeting officer to acquire the second target and so lost the first from the visual field of action (Gefechtsfeld). Consequently, I did not perceive the detonation of the first target.

John Moore 309 00:05, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Integrity of primary sources

I've just spotted the fact that an anonymous editor recently changed a verbatim quotation from the 2nd Board of Enquiry, by substituting the words Prinz Eugen for Bismarck. This strikes me as a non-trivial change, although the editor responsible didn't think it worthwhile to complete an edit summary (if anyone is interested, the change was logged at 23:17 on 24 Feb 2006). Surely, if the editor believes that the conclusion of the Board was mistaken, his or her proper course was to say so; for example to write "the Board of Enquiry mistakenly concluded that ...". As it is, the change resulted in a complete misrepresentation of a primary source. John Moore 309 17:47, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Can we revert to HMS Hood (1918)?

I've just noticed that someone has redirected HMS Hood (1918) to the current title, HMS Hood (51). I'm guessing the idea was to use Hood's pendant number to disambiguate (as in USS Enterprise (CV-6)), but the date system seems to be the overwhelming choice for RN ships. I'm sure it should be moved back to HMS Hood (1918), but I don't feel confident about making this kind of change. From my reading of the how-to, it seems there may be side-effects from undoing the redirect, since the article was subsequently edited. Perhaps someone with more experience with this sort of thing would like to give it a try. SRH 02:52, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The general rule has been to use hull number, pennant, or similar navy-assigned identification to disambiguate if it's available, otherwise to use year of launch. Pre-pennant RN ships will of course have to use year, and some use years if no editor knows the pennant (earlier pennant numbers seem hard to come by; Colledge's book doesn't mention them for instance). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships for more on the subject, and feel free to propose a change of standard on its talk page - unfamiliar pennant numbers seem less informative to readers than the year of launch. Stan 04:57, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. Glad I asked first. SRH 07:45, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
But shouldn't there be some explanation on the page about what the (51) means? I didn't have a clue till I looked here. Bobbis 16:18, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If we had an article on pennant number, we could link to it; I've been keeping an eye out for an authoritative source, haven't seen one yet. Stan 20:27, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've removed (rather abruptly I'm afraid) 144.136.26.120's text on Hood's actions at Mers-el-Kebir. We have a whole article on that battle, so details should go there. (And that article has almost no detail about the action itself, so if 144.136.26.120 could fill in more about who did what, it would be an improvement. I think it's just what that article needs. Other than a shorter title.) SRH 14:32, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I actually liked the addition; just to say "participated" is too brief, readers don't want to have to click on every link just to find out whether "participated" meant in the thick of things or just within visual range. :-) One sentence summarizing the nature of the participation gives the reader some guidance, plus it works better when printed. Stan 04:46, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Survivors

If possible, the names of the survivors should be mentioned. After all, there were only 3 of them. I think that they diserve to be known as the only men to live through the Hood. Kaiser Matias 02:22 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I happen to know their names and I will add them. (Ted Briggs, Bob Tilburn and Bill Dundas)

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 23:54, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Additional references

STAN:

I have some additional books for 'further reading'. Should I send them to you and have you put them in, or would you like me to add them myself?

PAUL

I read an article years ago in the Sunday Express where it mentioned a guy who was at the stern and was being dragged down by cables.

He took his jack knife out and cut himsself free and swam to the surface.......

Dave

[edit] Bismarck, Eugen or Hood could have caused the Hood to sunk

There are at least three theories on why the Hood exploded: -Bismarck's 15" shell penetrated either a gunpowder magazine (or the engine room and blew the rear firewall away, so the explosion could propagate to the magazine) -Prinz Eugen's 8" shell set the unrotated projectile ammunition pile on fire abord the Hood's deck and the flames were sucked into the ship via a left open door or some failing ventillator -Hood blew itself up due to 15" autoloader malfunction or human error. An old lady came forward some 3 years ago to say in public what his father, an RN veteran confined in her. Hood had unreliable gunnery equipment and its crew were poorly trained after the mid-1930s, they almost managed to blew themselves up during an excercise some week prior to the battle. Such an event would not be unparalleled in the course of naval warfare or the history of the Royal Navy. It is quite plausible. 195.70.48.242 20:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Could not have been the deck armor

It has been shows that the shells from Bismarck hit Hood at about 13 degrees from the horizontal (surface of the water). The deck armor played no part. The shell that destroyed Hood hit the side armor, not the deck armor. 147.240.236.8 22:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Where has it been shown, just out of curiosity? I was the one who added the information about the deck armour, and my source is a conversation about the subject with one of the men who was on the expedition that discovered Hood's wreck, Dr. Eric Grove. Chris Buckey 22:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
The likely source is that faithful old warhorse, Jurens (Warship World 2/1987)[1]. Jurens quotes the 13 degree figure, from ballistic tables for Bismarck's 38 cm guns, and, working from contemporary German graphs of armour penetration, estimates that deck penetration at this angle of descent would not exceed 65mm (approximately 2 1/2 inches). John Moore 309 17:46, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

This article nails its colours on the sinking very firmly to the Prinz Eugen mast. The actual cause may never be known, of course, but isn't there a problem in stating that Hood was hit by a 6" shell from Prinz Eugen at 06.01? Hadn't the cruiser already changed target to Price of Wales and been firing at the battleship for at least 4 minutes by that time? I asked the same question of the "Battle of the Denmark Strait" talk page but without response to date. Regards Patrick.

Good spot, Patrick, and thank you. Now you point this out, I can confirm that Mullenheim-Rechberg ("Battleship Bismarck - A Survivor's Story", ch 14) writes that after the Hood had gone, our heavy guns were ordered to "Shift to left target" (i.e. "Prince of Wales"). This meant combining our fire with that of the "Prinz Eugen", which, along with our own medium guns, had been firing on this target for some minutes. Bonomi [2] says the change of target by Prinz Eugen was ordered by Lutjens at 0558, i.e. 2 - 3 minutes before the Hood exploded. The source for all this is probably the report of Jaspers, the Prinz Eugens's chief gunnery officer, given at Battle of Denmark Strait Documentation Resource. Note that German times for the battle appear to be about 1 minute ahead of British ones. Incidentally, I have added a "citation needed" note to the claim made for Prinz Eugen.
John Moore 309 20:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Armor penetration quoted in article

Can anyone clarify what the armor penetration figures mean? It gives 'They rated at a vertical penetration of 297 mm and an horizontal penetration of 72 mm at 20,000 yd (18 km). Hood's magazines carried 120 rounds for each gun.' The 72 mm figure seems strangely low, that's less than three inches of penetration. I've also never heard of giving x and y values for penetration. Is that referring to plunging vs. direct fire? If so, we can't use the same range for both numbers. MilesVorkosigan 17:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Good question. The figures probably came from www.navweaps.com [3]. They appear there in the second of the two tables headed "Armor Penetration with 1,938 lbs. (879 kg) APC Shell", sourced from "Battleships: Allied Battleships in World War II" by W.H. Garzke and R.O. Dulin. Our editor has used "vertical penetration" to mean "penetration of vertical (i.e. belt) armour, and "horizontal penetration" to mean "penetration of horizontal (i.e. deck) armour". Yes, I also find this confusing. I'll hold this open for comments for a few days & then reword it.
Thanks for spotting this. Regards, John Moore 309 12:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC).
On revisiting www.navweaps.com [4], I have discovered that the figures quoted refer to the 6-calibre radius head (crh) round, and that the Hood never embarked this round. I have updated the para on main armament, substituting the performance of the 1920lb round.
Regards, John Moore 309 21:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 4th Survivor - citation needed

There is a footnote in Flagship Hood regarding this. I do not have the book in front of me, so I can't provide the page number off hand.

[edit] Review against A standard

I note from [the review] that one complaint was that characteristics of the Hood should be covered more on the Admiral class battlecruiser article. I personally don't hold with that since they only ever built the Hood and she was modified along the way but is ther any other information on the planned ships available. GraemeLeggett 16:33, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Seconded, the "Admiral class" were a class on paper only. Emoscopes Talk 16:54, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I also find this odd. There is little point splitting out the class characteristics because she was unique, and the article is not much overlong. The other point raised was the referencing, which seems ot be addressed by the lengthy bibliography. Anyone know how to ask for the decision to be restarted? The Land 19:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jumped Ship

This isn't really to do with the article, rather then a question about the HMS Hood, and its records.

My Grandfather served on HMS Hood, but jumped ship, and got arrested in Canada. He then served in the Merchant Navy, and saw the Hood sink.

Does anyone know where you'd find records regarding the people who served on the Hood? Regards User:Norfolkdumpling

  • Try the HMS Hood Association website [5]. John Moore 309 12:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Need references for 2-pdr = 40mm

The British used the English system for gun diameter. 1pdr = 1 inch; 2pdr = 1.5 in; 6 pdr = 2.25 in; 12 pdr = 3 in.

40mm = approx. 1.57in, slightly larger than 1.5 in., but not the same.

Someone need to provide a reference where the British used the metric system for the 2pdr gun before Britain was on the metric system.

This occurs in several other articles relating to British ships as well.

68.61.35.13 23:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The "modern" 2 pounder is definitely of 40 mm (1.575 inches) calibre, a check in any authoratative texts on the subject, such as;
  • Naval Weapons of World War Two by John Campbell
  • Destroyer Weapons of World War 2' by Peter Hodges and Norman Friedman
will confirm this.
I believe any confusion here probably comes from the much older use of the 2 pounder rating in smoothbore muzzle loaders. Of course, the 2 pounder was never referred to in either inches or millimetres by the British, but the British were using the metric system for various small arms calibres (e.g 7.92mm and 15 mm BESA, 20 mm Oerlikon and Hispano, 40 mm Vickers S) before Britain officially adopted the metric system. Emoscopes Talk 00:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Epithet

Should her epithet "the Mighty Hood" be in the intro? GraemeLeggett 11:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I always thought it was the "Mighty 'ood" :) I'm sure there's a source out there for either / or. I'll get googling. Emoscopes Talk 12:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimedia Commons image purge

Unfortunately, most of the images of Hood on Wikimedia Commons have recently been purged, mainly on the grounds of "unknown sources". If anyone wants to upload some fresh ones, they can protect them from this fate by using Permission=Released into Public Domain by HM Government (UK), with the template, {{PD-BritishGov}} , which looks like this:



Public domain

This work is in the public domain worldwide. This is because either:

  1. It is a photograph created by the United Kingdom Government more than 50 years ago; or
  2. It is an engraving created by the United Kingdom Government and commercially published more than 50 years ago; or
  3. It is an artistic work other than a photograph or engraving which was created by the United Kingdom Government more than 50 years ago.
See Copyright, Crown copyright artistic works and HMSO Email Reply.

John Moore 309 21:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


I was just thinking why they haven't got this famous picture "Sinking of HMS Hood" on the page. --Mcflashgordon 15:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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