Customer Reviews

HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy

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Norman's book begins with a fundamental mistake on its very first page, a description of the Hood's adversary, the Bismarck, as a "pocket battleship" (an error also found in Ian Kershaw's otherwise estimable biography of Hitler). This was a term applied only to the first three warships Germany built after the First World War, the Deutschland (later Lützow) the Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spee, which by treaty were limited to 10,000 tons. The Bismarck was a full battleship (over 50,000 tons fully loaded) and, at the time of her launching in 1939, the largest in the world.
The problem with any biography of the Hood (Edwin Hoyt's poorly written "The Life and Death of the HMS Hood" is a similar example) is that for the first 19 of her 20 years of existence she led a relatively uneventful career, so the first part of Norman's book tends toward the anecdotal (the ship's pets, some of her more colorful characters, etc.), while the latter part simply rehashes material better stated elsewhere. Norman's theories concerning Admiral Holland's tactics and the Hood's final explosion tend toward the far-fetched and don't really add anything to the scholarship of this subject. He would have done better to consult Robert Winklareth's "The Bismarck Chase," which, while it contains errors of its own, at least explores in detail issues of naval gunnery with some degree of knowledge. Kennedy's "Pursuit" and Müllenheim-Rechberg's "Battleship Bismarck" still remain the preferred and most accurate sources.

The author's potential contribution to the study of HMS Hood lay in recording the memories of her crewmen. Surprisingly though, the "recollections" section takes up a mere 40 pages--published separately as a booklet, this might have been worth a modest price. Here I will discuss the remaining 100+ pages with their focus on technical/historical material: warship design, naval combat, and battle history, none of which Norman understands. From a vast list of errors, I have selected a few representative examples.
NORMAN on warship design: Regarding deck protection, "Hood's armor was not plate, but of the cemented type...." This is pure gibberish. Hood did have British C armor ("C" for "cemented") in thicknesses up to 15-inch, but not on her decks, which instead had lesser steel with no individual plate more than about 2-inch. No mere detail, this bears directly on the cause of Hood's loss, and the author cannot even correctly parrot the fundamentals.
NORMAN on battle history: "Most, if not all [of Bismarck's shells], failed to explode or did so only partially." In reality, German shells indeed underachieved, but it was Prinz Eugen's ammunition that gave a demonstrably poor performance, not Bismarck's. Norman says that, if Bismarck hit Hood with a shell, "chances were that it had not exploded"--opening the door for his theory that Eugen fired the fatal shell. Norman's theory depends on ignorance of the basic facts.
NORMAN on naval combat: When sunk, Hood was "well within" her immune zone, "defined as a range no closer than 12,000 yards, and the outer limit beyond 25,000 to 30,000 yards." The concept of an immune zone--the area where both the belt armor and the deck armor are likely to resist the armor-piercing shells--did not apply in this instance for the simple reason that Hood had no immune zone. Quite the contrary, through much of Norman's specified zone, neither Hood's belt nor her deck would suffice to keep out Bismarck's shells. She was doubly vulnerable! But Norman again is steering us toward his Eugen theory, puzzling though it is--if Hood was immune to Bismarck's 800kg armor-piercing shells, what could Eugen achieve with shells that were 122kg and not armor-piercing? Norman claims Eugen's shells could by-pass Hood's armor, plummeting straight down Hood's funnel, though he offers no explanation how the shells could achieve the great heights necessary for this trajectory. In fact, Eugen's shells were descending from an angle only about 20 degrees above the horizontal; so unless the Germans managed a bank shot off a low-flying billiards table, this theorized hit was physically impossible.
Given the availability of many fine books on Hood and Denmark Strait, this one earns little regard. The final word on Norman's research appears on page 82 with a photo captioned "Hood at speed"--a dramatic photo which, unfortunately, depicts the battleship Royal Oak, a ship four years older than Hood and from an entirely different class.

Spotty history, technical speculation, second rate naratives.

Don't waste your time with this mess of a book. I knew I was in trouble when the author had already refered to the Bismarck as a "pocket" battleship in the prologue.

It covers little to nothing on the design of the Hood. It spends an entire chapter covering some obscure world cruise but has zero account of the Hoods pre-Bismarck battles (as part of Force H), zips straight through the Denmark straight fight, then dives into poorly thought out conjecture and speculation as to why the ship was lost.

His grand conclusion is that an 8" plunging shell (HE by the way, not AP) from the Prinz Eugen somehow passed straight down one of the stacks, penetrated the steel bar supports and armor, and exploded in the boiler room. Here superheated steam (itself a massive fire supressant) and pre-heated oil were released and flashed into a major fire that broke the ship in two and sank it. All this theory is based on the fact that something similar happend to a cargo ship bombed by a brit naval aircraft at some other point in the war. You gotta be kidding me.

I picked this title up for $5 at a remainder sale, and it was overpriced at even that price. Spend your money on something educational like a comic book. This title has no place in the library of any serious naval historian.

Having found the last resting place of the Titanic and Bismarck, it was only a matter of time before someone would find the "Hood." This ship was indeed the pride of the Royal Navy and fondly regarded as the most beautiful ship wherever she went. With her recent discovery, there were bound to be a plethora of books on the subject giving rise to the age-old debate of how and why this magnificent Battle Cruiser sank so quickly.

Andrew Norman favours one particular theory for the sinking of the Hood - and I must say, it really is as plausible as any I have read (except for the "Built from the same faulty batch of steel as the Titanic" theory.). His description of the "Concept of the Immune Zone" is easily understandable - and something of which I was previously unaware. His conclusions that an 8 inch shell from the Prinz Eugen sank the Hood is, therefore, as sound as any. That said, it is the job of any good author to write his book in such a way as to lead the reader to that same conclusion.

HMS Hood - Pride of the Royal Navy is hardback, measuring 9¼ in x 6 in and contains over 150 pages of information and dialogue presented in an easy-to-read style. There is also a liberal sprinkling of very relevant b & w photographs throughout. Altogether, a very competent piece of work, where the author sets the scene by telling us all about the ship through the recollections of a variety of very different people who served on board at different times. This gives the reader a good "feel" for the ship before arriving at the events of May 1941 - which are described in even closer detail. As the jacket states "In these pages you will meet" and then lists 5 of those individuals - two of whom had the great fortune to be amongst the three survivors on that fateful day.

Doubtless, those who subscribe to a different "reason" as to why the Hood sank so quickly, will knock this book in order to place their own favoured theory at the top of the pile. Personally, I don't know because I wasn't there - but I do believe this book should be read alongside all other theories in order to provide a balanced view. Unlike many, it is a very good read.

NM

Some of the criticism leveled against this book are fair, but in the same breath it is unfair to dismiss the book entirely based upon the authors assertion that the Prince Eugen was responsible for the sinking of the HMS Hood. There is much more to this book, it contains a snapshot of shipboard life that no longer exists in this day and age. For a less insulting, highly professional discussion of the sinking of the HMS Hood read the article at http://www.warship.org/no21987.htm

This is a short book, and by no means a history of the ship in question. If you are new to the subject, you would be better served getting a copy of "Flagship Hood" by Ted Briggs etal. The book is in two sections "Life of the ship" and "Death of the Ship". This first section though interesting to me is disjointed and does not add much to the overall understanding of the Hood and its role in the history of the RN. Any of the stories are short and lack Closure.
The section regarding Holland Tactics is well explained and illustrated. The theories regarding the destruction of the ship are well articulate and the pros and cons of each described. I shall not describe the "new" theory but it was one that I remember discussing with my father (ex RN) many years ago, (I should have written the book hey!), it is certainly compelling and if true would debunk a lot of the hackneyed observations regarding the Hood and its role in the Bismarck action. The disappointing aspect is although the wreck was discovered before publication, no findings appear to have been incorporated in this volume (sounds like a justification for a 2nd edition). Overall though a welcome addition to my library.

This book will obviously attract most attention from the reader with a keen interest in historical and military subjects, particularly naval disasters, ancient and modern. HMS Hood, flagship and pride of the British Royal Navy, had been considered an unsinkable battle cruiser until her encounter with the German battleship Bismarck and her consort, Prinz Eugen on May 24, 1941. Only 3 crew members from the Hood survived; 1,418 went to their graves that day, a hideous waste of human life, as all such war casualties are. The author covers the death of the ship, the postmortem (Boards of Enquiry), the doubts over the official verdict, and some of the theories as to what went wrong, including one of his own. As a civilian from a later generation, I couldn't begin to offer an opinion on the theories. But the author's description of the battle (in which the battleship HMS Prince of Wales also took part) is vivid and shocking.

The first section of the book is easier reading for the non-military or non-history reader, covering as it does recollections of everyday life aboard the Hood before she was drafted into service for World War II. The Hood visited many ports on her world cruise (crossing the equator six times) and the crew had collected quite a menagerie on board, including a kangaroo. The anecdotes are often funny and eye-opening.

Some of the technical details (that is, military specs) can be a bit tedious for the lay reader, but naval buffs will certainly appreciate them. The book is well-written, well-researched, and full of original photographs from some of the men who served on HMS Hood, along with other unique and original source material. It is definitely a keeper! ...

I have to agree with most of the reviews of this book except for one fact. In 1958, I was stationed at a u. s. army base where I got to know a german employee. He told me that he had been a crewman on the Prinz Eugen during the battle and it was firing on the Hood. It was only much later that I realized the logic of this. The Hood was a well known ship and the fact that it weakly armoured was known. the Weaker german ship, a mere heavy cruiser, would logically fire on it while the bismarck would fire on the heavily armoured and armed new british battleship as being the most dangerous ship.