HMS Hood: the Pride of Royal Navy and Battle That Shocked an Empire

For more than twenty years, HMS Hood was the most famous warship in Britain.She was the Mighty Hood, flagship, imperial showpiece and visible symbol of the Royal Navy's power. Then, on the morning of 24 May 1941, she entered battle against the German battleship Bismarck in the Denmark Strait.Within minutes, Hood was gone.Of the 1,418 men aboard, only three survived.HMS Hood: The Pride of the Royal Navy and the Battle That Shocked an Empire traces the extraordinary story behind one of the most devastating losses in British naval history. Gordon J. MacKenzie follows Hood from the battlecruiser ideas that created her and the lessons of Jutland through her construction at Clydebank, the famous Empire Cruise, the modernisation that never came, her controversial participation at Mers-el-Kébir, and the desperate pursuit of Bismarck.The final battle is reconstructed without turning uncertainty into certainty. Why did Hood close the range? Why was Prinz Eugen initially mistaken for Bismarck? What caused the catastrophic magazine explosion? Could Hood's delayed reconstruction have changed the outcome? And what did later investigation of the wreck reveal?The book also restores the human story behind the famous ship, following Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, Captain Ralph Kerr and the only three survivors: Ted Briggs, Robert Tilburn and William Dundas.Drawing on Admiralty records, official inquiries, survivor testimony, specialist naval histories and wreck investigation, this is an evidence-led account of a warship whose destruction shocked a nation and transformed her from symbol into memorial.The pride of a Navy. Six minutes of battle. Only three survived.