HMS Hood (51)

HMS Hood, 17 March 1924
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Hood
Namesake:	Admiral Samuel Hood
Ordered:	7 April 1916
Builder:	John Brown & Company
Laid down:	1 September 1916
Launched:	22 August 1918
Commissioned:	15 May 1920
In service:	1920–1941
Identification:	Pennant number: 51
Motto:	Ventis Secundis (Latin: "With Favourable Winds")
Nickname(s):	Mighty Hood
Fate:	Sunk during the Battle of Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941
Badge:	A Cornish chough bearing an anchor facing left over the date 1859
General characteristics
Class and type:	Admiral-class battlecruiser
Displacement:	46,680 long tons (47,430 t) deep load
Length:	860 ft 7 in (262.3 m)
Beam:	104 ft 2 in (31.8 m)
Draught:	32 ft 0 in (9.8 m)
Installed power:	144,000 shp (107,000 kW)
Propulsion:	4 shafts Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines 24 Yarrow boilers
Speed:	1920: 31 knots (57 km/h; 36 mph) 1941: 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Range:	1931: 5,332 nautical miles (9,870 km; 6,140 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement:	1919: 1,433 1934: 1,325
Sensors and processing systems:	Type 279 air-warning radar Type 284 gunnery radar
Armament:	As built: 4 × 2 – BL 15-inch Mk I guns 12 × 1 – BL 5.5-inch Mk I guns 4 × 1 – QF 4-inch Mark V anti-aircraft guns 6 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 1941, as sunk: 4 × 2 – 15-inch (381 mm) guns 7 × 2 – QF 4-inch Mk XVI AA guns 3 × 8 – QF 2-pdr "pom pom" AA guns 5 × 4 – 0.5-inch Vickers machine guns 5 × 20-barrel "Unrotated Projectile" mounts 2 × 2 – 21-inch above water torpedo tubes
Armour:	Belt: 12–6 in (305–152 mm) Deck: 0.75–3 in (19–76 mm) Barbettes: 12–5 in (305–127 mm) Turrets: 15–11 in (381–279 mm) Conning tower: 11–9 in (279–229 mm) Bulkheads: 4–5 in (102–127 mm)
Aircraft carried:	1 fitted 1931–32 1 catapult

HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. Commissioned in 1920, she was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood. One of four Admiral-class battlecruisers ordered in mid-1916, Hood had design limitations, though her design was revised after the Battle of Jutland and improved while she was under construction. For this reason she was the only ship of her class to be completed. As one of the largest and most powerful warships in the world, her prestige was reflected in her nickname ‘The Mighty Hood’.

Hood was involved in several exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to Britain in 1939 for an overhaul. By this time, advances in naval gunnery had reduced Hood's usefulness. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 forced the ship into service without the upgrades.

When war with Germany was declared, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and she spent the next several months hunting between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea for German commerce raiders and blockade runners. After a brief overhaul of her propulsion system, she sailed as the flagship of Force H, and participated in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Relieved as flagship of Force H, Hood was dispatched to Scapa Flow, and operated in the area as a convoy escort and later as a defence against a potential German invasion fleet.