A Night to remember - Invincible. That was the sole word in the English Language to describe the Mighty Hood.

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Graeme Bingham 11MN                         Personal and Imaginative Unit        30/04/07

A Night to remember

        Invincible.  That was the sole word in the English Language to describe the Mighty Hood.   For us she was not just the largest and most powerful weapon of war in the world, she was home.  She always had been and always would be.  But now our home was at risk, as Hitler’s Germany threatened the United Kingdom.  Twenty-two miles across the channel, but much closer in everyone’s mind.  It wasn’t a case of if, but a case of when the invasion would occur.  Aboard HMS Hood, the largest battleship ever built, we all felt much more secure.  Protected by ten inch thick iron plating, she was like a mobile impregnable fortress.

        The year was 1940.  World War Two had erupted eighteen months previously and had transformed the whole of Europe into turmoil.  Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Norway and now France had all fallen to that Austrian Lucifer.  We Britons were in total isolation, with our great cities under comprehensive bombardment and the forecast looking as bleak as mid-winter.  So why continue alone against the most powerful dictator on the planet?  The answer, of course is due to our ethics.  If there is still a chance of liberating Europe from a malevolent dynasty then it is worth taking, even if the cost of failure is high.  We all stood united behind our great leader, Churchill and vowed that ‘We will never surrender’.  In some ways the fall of France was a Godsend to us.  The imminent threat sparked people’s patriotism and the calling for the end of appeasement and the Phoney War came about.

        People gave up all they could and volunteered to do what they could all I the name of King and Country.  I myself, an aimless youth, like many of my fellow countrymen signed up for active service in the armed forces.  I wanted to fight the Huns personally, and help to protect my country.  Like most young men I was originally assigned to the great military force that is the British Army, of which I had dreamed of undertaking combat for since the opening days of the war.  I wanted personal revenge against the Germans, for it was they in the last weeks of the Great War who had killed my father whilst liberating the Belgium city of Liege.  He had not even been fighting, he was a volunteer doctor treating the injured. Throughout my youth I had dreamt of revenge against the people who killed my father in cold blood.  Had Hitler not have plunged Europe into another Great War, this passion may have died, but instead it was relit stronger than ever.  

        It must have been the greatest disappointment in my life when I was told that I could not join the army.  It turned out that I have a rare blood group and if I were wounded they might not be able to find a blood supply to transfuse.  I felt betrayed, let down by my own country.  All that I wanted to do was fight, I didn’t care if I died, I just wanted to be part of the mighty war machine that I knew would one day crush Nazi Germany.

        It had come to this, but I had no other option.  I wanted to help in the war effort, but as I couldn’t be involved in active service, peeling potatoes all day on the world’s greatest vessel would have to suffice.  Although the great Hood was quite an old ship, dating from 1918, she was by far and away the pride of the Royal Navy, having the greatest speed for a vessel of her size, and a firepower to match her immense tonnage.  I had seen pictures of her before, it had been heavily documented when she traversed the oceans of the world in the 1920s to remind the world who had the largest navy.  I never imagined that I, a mere boy, would have the chance to serve for the fleet flagship.

        The journey from my East Midland home to Northern Scotland by train was quite comfortable as I awaited my first sight of the Hood.  Upon arriving at Thurso, I caught the ferry to the Orkney Islands where the Grand Fleet was based.  (Scapa Flow was the only port big enough to hold the Royal Navy.)  I was filled with awe at the sight of the ship, I felt as if I had now reached manhood.  I felt like a miniscule ant as I gaped underneath the inscription of her noble name on her great grey bow.  Many of my companion sailors did not feel at all as I did, they felt that she was a melancholy sight, they had read too much about Hitler’s newest warship, the Battleship Bismarck, which many thought would challenge the Hood for the honour of being the mightiest warship in the world.  Indeed I later learned that all of Bismarck’s crew were trained especially in accordance with a one on one battle with the Hood.

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        For the majority of the war up until that point, the Hood had not left port; there had not been a great number of naval operations in the early part of the war.  But now Germany was near to completing its major naval construction projects; the infamous Bismarck was shortly to be released into the sea after fitting out, the Tirpinz and Graf Spee had recently had their keels laid, and the Sharnhost was near completion.  These possible encounters in the future kept the momentum going, but the tension created by the waiting was enormous, although a lot of the ...

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