NAVY NEWS, NOVEMBER 2008 29
Hood’s fine
LETTERS to the editor should us to publish it.
always be accompanied by the Given the volume of letters, we cannot
correspondent’s name and address, not publish all of your correspondence in Navy
necessarily for publication. News.
E-mail correspondents are We do, however, publish many on
also requested to provide this our website, www.navynews.co.uk,
information. Letters cannot accompanied by images.
be submitted over the We look particularly for
example
telephone. correspondence which stimulates
If you submit a debate, makes us laugh or
photograph which you did raises important issues.
not take yourself, please The editor reserves
make sure that you the right to edit your
have the permission for submissions.
I HAVE been ill and must have missed examined’ the wreck in 2001.
Professor Grove’s rather jaundiced review
He omits to say that among the dissenting voices
of Dr Bruce Taylor’s magnificent work The
was the expedition’s only qualified forensic expert,
Battlecruiser HMS Hood (July).
Bill Jurens of the Society of Naval Architects and
There are several incidents in my time in the Navy
Marine Engineers.
where ‘jaundiced’ could be justly applied to my views
Readers may like to know that analysis of available
on naval matters.
footage of the wreck published in 2002 by Jurens and
But I am rather at a loss to identify which
a panel of experts has discarded in scientific terms
particular quotations in Dr Taylor’s great work have
what commonsense should never have entertained.
offended the good Professor.
Professor Grove’s absurd cul-de-sac continues to
You kindly sent me Professor Grove’s article and
obscure the long-awaited exploration of precisely how
suggested I should comment on Hood’s destruction
the ship was destroyed, for which sufficient material
and give my views as to whether she was ‘a happy
apparently exists on film.
ship.’
Moving on, no one who actually troubles to read
Whatever criticisms historians may level at their
the book will be left in much doubt that she was a
work, together Dr Taylor and Nixie Taverner in
“happy ship” for most of her career.
Hood’s Legacy have put together a fine written
That said, there were times when she was less
memorial to an old ship, manned at her ending by a
than happy and the irrefutable evidence of those who
largely worn-out ship’s company.
served in her is that the winter of 1940–41 was one
Their faithfulness to make the best of her
of those times.
unmodernised age and to serve their country should
– Dr Bruce Taylor Los Angeles, California
be an example and a lesson to succeeding generations, ON September 4 the Fred Olsen cruise ship Boud-
not only of ship’s companies, but to those who have icca halted her journey from Iceland to Greenland in
the ordering of the Fleet – politicians and chiefs of the Denmark Strait to remember and pay respect to
staff. the offi cers and crew of HMS Hood.
Those who manned her were typical of a Navy The starting point for this memorial service was
which grew tenfold from its 75,000 and yet, like a conversation between a passenger and a military
the other two Services and the civilian population, historian who was a guest lecturer.
remained invincible, while civilisation was threatened The passenger, realising the Boudicca would sail
and other nations stumbled… close to where his father had lost his life in HMS
– Louis le Bailly, St Tudy, Bodmin, Cornwall Hood, asked the historian if he could tell him when
Vice Admiral Louis le Bailly’s thoughts on HMS they were at the nearest point to the ship.
Hood can be found on the Navy News’ website, This question eventually arrived with the captain,
www.navynews.co.uk, under the Letters section. Bjarne Larsen, formerly of the Royal Danish Navy,
MAY I be allowed a very short reply to the critical who checked his planned course and found he would
letters (August)? be within 50nm of the wreck site.
Mr French is fully entitled to disagree with me He changed course to pass over the site and gave
‘on events in 1940’ or our ‘laughable theory’ on how instructions for a memorial service to be held when
Hood was lost – although I would like to see his they reached it.
counter-evidence. At 1145 on the Thursday morning Boudicca
I agree, however, with his views that Hood was stopped her engines and a large number of the
not in a ‘pitiful state’ and do not consider him at all passengers and most of the ship’s officers gathered
‘arrogant’ or ‘self-opinionated’ in taking such a view, for the service.
although it is contrary to Bruce Taylor’s. I thought your readers would like to know that this
As for Mr Mantle, his memory is at fault. I have happened.
never referred anywhere to Hood’s non-existent – Geoff Woodward
aircraft spotting for her in the Denmark Strait, and See page 34 for more about the service, and Ted
certainly not on the Channel 4 TV programme on Briggs, the last survivor – Ed
Hood and Bismarck with which I was involved.
ASTERN of HMS Hood in your picture on page
– Eric Grove, University of Salford
28 (September) is a carrier which looks like one of
PROFESSOR Grove states that his homespun theory the early conversions from a merchantman, maybe
on the loss of HMS Hood was accepted by ‘almost Hermes or Courageous. Can anyone identify her?
all my colleagues on the expedition that found and – Dave Harding
● Two huge clouds of smoke on the left of the picture mark the end of HMS Hood, while German
shells crash down around HMS Prince of Wales – as seen from the cruiser Prinz Eugen
028-029_NN_Nov08.indd 2 21/10/08 14:35:12
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  |  Page 51  |  Page 52