NAVY NEWS, JULY 2008 41
Revisiting the
Mighty Hood
FOUR years ago Bruce Taylor, a Briton living in the
USA, produced a handsome volume on HMS Hood,
full of interesting photographs and with truly excellent
computer graphics provided by Thomas Schmidt,
writes Prof Eric Grove of the University of Salford.
I was so impressed that I paid
over the odds for a copy at a fund-
● French civilians inspect the wreckage of a downed Gotha
raising auction held at that year’s
meeting of the Hood Association,
The Grove
of which I have been proud to be a
member since playing a part in the
Review
Gothas and
Channel 4 Hunt for the Hood and
Bismarck project in 2001.
A new edition of the book – The It might seem to a reader
Battlecruiser Hood: An Illustrated more steeped in the history and
Biography 1916-1941 (£35, traditions of the Service than Dr
ISBN 978-1-84832-000-0) – has Taylor that certain people settle
now appeared, a co-production of into the naval life and others do
vandals
the new Seaforth stable and the not.
United States Naval Institute. There were diffi cult patches in
It retains all the positive features the Royal Navy’s adjustment to
of the original – not least the 20th-Century social development
detailed appendices including but in general it succeeded with
Inevitably the circumstances of
lists of senior offi cers, the great very few Invergordons.
HMS Hood’s loss are important
ship’s scheme of complement, a Hood appears to have been
and when fi rst seeing the new
HISTORY invariably falls into two
The fi rst signifi cant blow was struck not against
chronology of her life and a roll essentially a very happy ship,
edition it was to this section I
of honour of those who perished despite the negative domestic
fi rst turned – only to be rather
categories: academic and narrative.
the capital, but Folkestone in May 1917, a raid which
when she blew up in the impact of her obvious signs p
disappointed.
The former is usually detailed, offers unique insights
served as a wake-up call to Britain’s defenders. The
Denmark Strait. of age as her career of
There is no refl ection on the
and can be as dry as the Sahara in a drought.
Press was indignant at the Hun ‘babykillers’ who’d
It is still beautifully-lly- progpro ressed.
fi xed ideas of Bill Jurens, my
The latter normally rattles on at a cracking pace
been dragged out of the Belgian and French brothels
produced and remains ains If one trIf usts the
slightly frustrating colleague on
but rarely skims the surface of serious research.
where “they spent most of their time” to bring misery
excellent value. AAll ll testimontesti y of the
the Hunt for the Hood expedition
To marry the two is a rare art – and it is an art Neil
to Britons.
interested in Hood and,d, unreliable (in evun ery
– and another bearer of the view
Hanson has mastered.
And bring misery to Britons they did. Throughout
indeed, the 20th- sense) Len s Wincott
there are two ways of doing things,
After fi rst-rate histories of the Spanish Armada
the summer and autumn of 1917, the Gothas and
Century Navy should one is bound to
the US Navy’s and the wrong way.
and the Great Fire of London, Hanson has turned
Giants raided London. The death and destruction
obtain it – but it must obtain a negative
Interestingly, Jurens is the only
his attention to the Great War in the Air in First Blitz
caused, however, was rather less than the panic.
be treated with care. picture. People
member of the expedition to stick
(Doubleday, £17.99 ISBN 978-0385-611701).
The attacks unsettled Londoners. They vented their
Potential readers often do not write
to the ‘single explosion’ theory.
There is a smattering of books on the ‘fi rst Blitz’
anger by smashing shops with German-sounding
are requested to take about experiences
The key evidence for a secondary
as it became known (only after ‘The Blitz’ Blitz a
names, forced their way into the homes of ‘Germans’
the following as a they like.
explosion is not the severed bow
generation later) – but almost all of these focus on
and ransacked them. Such riots invariably sparked
‘health warning’ from One glaring
but the huge conning tower which,
the raids of 1917.
widespread looting.
a professional naval example of this is the ex
much to our surprise, we found
A year later, a far more destructive series of raids
The Hun protested at their treatment. Captured
historian with a profound und juxtaposition on the juxt
at a remarkable distance from the
were planned, however – a story which is the hub of
German airman did not “go to war to kill women and
interest in the pride of the same page of the memories wreck. We fi nd it hard to believe it
this work – which would have been a mirror image
children,” they told their interrogators. “Such
inter-war Royal Navy. of Ted Briggs – one of three men just fell out as the ship sank.
of what Londoners would face in 1940. But there
things happen accidentally in war.”
It is to be regretted that the who would survive the ship’s I originally thought that the
are echoes of WW2 throughout this volume.
Or perhaps not. For in the summer of
author seems not to have taken cataclysmic sinking – and those explosion went straight forward
Blackouts – limited initially – were imposed
1918 Major Wilhelm Siegert set out to
advantage of a new edition to of the clearly-disaffected Coombs but the absence of much of the
in the autumn of 1914. Street lamps, bright
systematically destroy the capital of
make some amendments to his twins on their fi rst impressions of starboard side on the main part of
shop signs, bus headlights were all dimmed.
the British Empire.
fascinating and generally well- Hood. the wreck of Hood, coupled with
Black curtains were the rule in every
That he could do so was thanks
sourced account. Briggs, clearly a round peg in a the testimony of eyewitnesses of
window. The darkness exacerbated
to the perfection of the incendiary –
On the question of gunnery, round hole, gazed in wonder at his fl ames licking along that side is
people’s panic and fear – and sparked
the Elektron fi re bomb – by German
for example, a great deal has been surroundings. indicative of a possible path for
an upsurge in criminal activity.
industry.
written in the last few years about Coombs, on the other hand, hot defl agrating gases forward.
There were (nonsensical) inter-
With Germany on the cusp of losing
the weaknesses (or otherwise) of saw conditions on board as More work is needed on Hood’s
Service rivalries. The Royal Naval
the war on the Western Front – the great
the Dreyer fi re-control table with making him and the newly-joined loss; we are still some way from a
Air Service would defend dockyards
spring offensives had run their course –
which Hood was equipped. boys feel like ‘fl ies in a dungheap’. ‘defi nitive’ account.
and naval facilities but would only
she planned massed raids against Paris and
It seems the author did have One suspects that relatively few of The decisive shell seems to
operate over the hinterland when German
London; the latter city would be engulfed in
access to the work of John Brooks Hood’s sailors over the years were have entered where extra armour
bombers or Zeppelins crossed the coast.
fl ames “the likes of which had not been since the
but his negative analysis remains so disappointed. had not been added above the
Soldiers manned anti-aircraft guns (or ‘archie’) in
Great Fire of London some 250 years earlier.”
untempered by the balance that Other distortions of perspective secondary armament magazines,
ports, while naval guns ringed London to defend the
Five heavy bombers could drop 5,000 incendiaries
has recently entered into this come from too great a reliance on just forward of the main armament
capital.
on the city, sparking 800 blazes which fi re-fi ghters
polarised debate. the rather jaundiced reminiscences magazine.
In the early days of the war it was the RNAS
would be unable to deal with.
Indeed, the author quotes of one particularly articulate This oversight – probably the
which dictated Britain’s aerial strategy, not the
They were all lined up to do so. More than 80 aircraft
Hood’s gunnery ofi cers without member of the Engineering true Achilles heel of HMS Hood
Royal Flying Corps; it attacked Zeppelin sheds up
were lined up on German airfi elds on September 23
fully developing the profound Branch. (rather than the torpedoes as I
and down the German frontier, including the works
1918 to strike at London and Paris.
differences of professional culture The picture thus obtained of previously thought) – deserves
at Friedrichshafen. Naval bombers violated Swiss
They never took off. The de facto head of the
that separated the British and mainstream offi cer training and further attention than the author
airspace to attack the factory and, protested the
German military, Erich Ludendorff, forbade the raids.
American navies in this key area. background is therefore inevitably gives it. The detailed story of the
Germans, dropped their loads “in a barbaric manner
Publicly he said he could not permit “destruction for
He clearly has ‘gone native’ in skewed, with, for example, an ship’s up-armouring is easily
upon innocent civilians”. This from the nation which
its own sake”. Privately, Germany’s leaders feared
his new Californian surroundings amazing description of the inter- available in the ship’s cover at
had jackbooted through Belgium and put civilians to
Allied retaliation; they were right – a combined
to see things rather uncritically war Dartmouth as a hive of Woolwich.
the sword…
Anglo-British-French-Italian bomber force was being
from the point of view of the US homosexuality! There is still more to be said
Major Wilhelm Siegert was gripped by no such
formed whose might would have eclipsed anything
Navy observers whose interesting, Dr Taylor clearly has not taken on this key subject and ‘expert
feigned outrage. He assembled Germany’s fi nest
the Reich could throw at Paris or London.
but inevitably partial, criticisms he account of basic service tribalism. opinion’ on the subject is not quite
aviators in the innocuous-sounding Breiftauben
Six weeks later, Germany sued for peace. The
approvingly quotes. His knowledge of offi cer training so united as Dr Taylor thought in
Abteilung (Carrier Pigeon Unit) and began to wage
Elektron bombs were tossed in the Scheldt, the
One of the real strengths of is rather confused and there are 2004.
war against Allied strategic targets.
aircraft earmarked to carry them scuttled by their
the book is the range of sources other signs of limited background As I have said, this is a wonderful
The ‘carrier pigeons’ did not achieve a great deal
crews. The men of the Gothas and Giants, liked their
the author has consulted to give in general naval history, for and informative book. It is well and
with their pinprick raids but they did, the Allies press
comrades on the ground, struggled to accept defeat.
a comprehensive account of the example, in the sections on the engagingly written. The fact that,
protested, cause “the death of that standard trinity:
“In our innermost beings we wanted nothing but to
social side of the ship and for this rum ration. like its subject, it has serious fl aws
women, children and old people”.
be warriors for Germany,” one lamented.
he is to be congratulated. The origins of the battle-cruiser does not detract from its overall
But as 1917 dawned, a new breed of pigeons was
These warriors for Germany had raided Britain for
However the result tends to give concept are also completely enormous value. But please – use
arriving at front-line units. Little more than a dozen
just shy of a year.
a slightly-blurred picture. misunderstood. with care.
years after man had taken to the skies in heavier-than-
They killed fewer than 1,000 Britons and caused
air craft, German industry was producing machines
damage valued at £1.5m (over the same period rats,
beyond the wildest imagination of the Wright
Hanson pointed out, destroyed crops and other
Brothers.
material worth nearly 50 times).
The Gotha IV could carry a payload in excess of
This is a compelling story compellingly told. The
1,000lb; its successor, the Gotha V, could drop bombs
author has made full use of published and unpublished
twice as heavy on its target.
sources, British and German, and knitted a gripping
Such payloads paled when compared with the
narrative using them.
Riesenfl ugzeug (literally ‘huge aircraft’, or in common
It is a story of brave men on both sides, Army, Navy
parlance ‘Giants’) which could carry up to 4,400lb
and – latterly – RAF aviators who took to the skies
of bombs – similar to Hitler’s principal bomber, the
to defend Britain against German airmen equally
Heinkel He111 a generation later.
determined to bring the Empire to its knees.
And the Gothas and Giants set out to do just what
With hindsight, the ‘fi rst Blitz’ was neither as potent
the Luftwaffe attempted in 1940: to raze London and
nor as destructive as contemporary accounts on both
bring Britain to her knees.
sides proclaimed.
Only the resources available to the German Air
The Giants and Gothas were unreliable. Rarely
Force in 1917 were rather meagre. Luckily for them,
did raids involve more than 20 aircraft – and all failed
so too were the resources of the defenders.
utterly in their aim: to demoralise enemy morale such
In the spring of 1917 as the Gotha campaign against
that he would sue for peace.
London – Turkenkreuz (Turk’s Cross) – began, there
Two decades later, airmen would climb into more
were barely 70 pilots defending the skies of Britain,
reliable bombers and fi ghters and do the same again.
and archie wasn’t allowed to open fi re at anything in
They failed again, but not without razing much of
the skies, friend or foe.
Western Europe.
0041_NN_July.indd 141_NN_July.indd 1 119/6/08 16:59:289/6/08 16:59:28
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50