Sudden Destruction: Why Did HMS Hood Explode?
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- čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
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In May 1941 the pride of the Royal Navy engaged Germany's newest and most powerful warship, the mighty Bismarck. The ensuing Battle of the Denmark Strait has become the stuff of legends after Hood violently exploded. In the years since, the reason for this dramatic end has been obscured by myth and confusion. Today let's look at the theories behind the Hood's destruction and what it most likely was that brought down the mighty battle cruiser.
Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s greatest vessels- from Titanic to Queen Mary and from the Empress of Ireland to the Lusitania. Join maritime researcher and illustrator Michael Brady as he tells the stories behind some of history's most famous ocean liners and machines!
#history #bismarck #kriegsmarine #hmshood #ships #baattleship #worldofwarships #documentary
0:00 Introduction
0:51 The Bismarck
6:26 The Mighty Hood
11:52 The Battle
17:07 The Theories
26:28 The Likely Cause
29:00 The Loss - Zábava
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~Mike
Can you redeem this if you already have an account?
Also, what server do you play on?
@@spazztardvr1233 i think this is just for new accounts. Btw I play on both SEA and NA! I stream on my other channel :)
@@OceanlinerDesigns I'm on NA.
Thoughts on paper-ships in the game?
This one is very close to my heart. My grandfather was stationed up in Iceland as part of the merchant navy. His tug was out looking survivors, but they found nothing just wreckage. He never mentioned the details about floating detached limbs and dead bodies until about 1-year before he died. It was like he'd been holding it in all the years (65+) and finally had to let it go. It had obviously traumatized him. He saw the horrors of war and it's devestation and the full price others had to give with their lives. Never even liked wearing his medals was far too humble a man.
God bless youre grandfather and may he rest in peace.
@@ChristianNationalAuthoritarian thank you.
@Anne Frank Vape Pen death toll approx 15000
@@annefrankvapepen2064 Yes, your mention of the death toll might be a little out but it is accepted that because of refugees entering the city noone will know the actual number. The lame excuse the allies gave for bmbing the city was pitiful. The war was over for the Nazis. There was also a problem in that there were allied eye witnesses in the form of POW's that had been let loose. So disgusted were many people over the bombing that the "Friends of Dresden" was formed.😢
My 2 great uncles (brothers) were killed on the Hood. One was a engineer one was a stoker
I wasn't born when this happened but this story was retold by my mum. My grandfather served on the Hood as a radio operator and when the news reached my grandmother everyone feared the worst that my grandfather was dead. It wasn't until a week later that they found out that he had been transferred off the Hood before it set sale to confront the Bizmark. My grandfather apparently was never the same.
Well, the reason for why he was never the same afterwards is because he would have known so many sailors aboard The Hood, so in addition to the grief of losing ship mates he would have also had Survivor's Guilt from surviving when so many others had perished.
@@markfryer9880 That's true, the navy it's like a second family, they are very united!
Wow that's lucky....Reminds me of the Edmund Fitzgerald's cook, who went out sick in November '75...afterwards he felt awful about what happened to his replacement.
@@Yamato-tp2kf ...AND ALL SAILORS ARE SUPERSTITIOUS BY NATURE-!!!
Survivor’s Guilt is a bastard
Anyone ever heard of Ted Briggs story from how he survived the sinking of the Hood? He did a documentary in 2001about it and it was so emotional when he was on camera talking about it, especially when he talked about leaving the bridge and running into his commanding officer, who put his hand forward and said "After you." As Briggs left the bridge first and the officer behind him. Even I still remember that story all these years later.
Yes, I've seen him talk about it in several documentaries about the Hood and Bismarck.
@@dukecraig2402 Good I ain't the only one then :)
I remember one mans account saying as he was leaving the bridge he saw Admiral Holland sitting in his chair calmly, accepting his and Hood's fate.
@@nashzahm Probably instead of sitting calmly, the Admiral may have been frozen by shock of losing his ship! He just looked calm to other people in that short moment.
@@plaidzebra5526 Higgins narrates it! John Hillerman
Drachinfel did a 42:36 long video about this. The color of the flames around the aviation fire, just before the big explosion, indicated a Cordite fire (British smokeless propellent at the time was called Cordite). Also, the way the HMS Hood's bow wave behaved at that speed would allow a shell from the KMS Bismark's 15" guns to hit the Aft 4" AA ammo magazine, the aft bulkhead of which was right next to the magazine of Y turret...
So his hypothesis is that a 15" (38cm) shell hit in an Afterward Machinery Space, penetrated the aft bulkhead of that space, which was also forward bulkhead of the aft 4" magazine as it exploded. Then in the fraction of a second for the pressure to build up high enough to shove in the bulkhead 'tween the 4" and 15" magazines, the flames escaped through the ventilation ducts of the machinery room....
Don't forget the British emphasised rapid fire in battle. To speed up the delivery of ammunition to the guns, propellent was stacked around the magazine for speed of access instead of being handled as they would in peace time. Any flash fires or explosions would rip the magazines apart. That was thought one of the reasons the British lost so many battle cruisers at Jutland. Admiral Beatty's flagship HMS Lion was saved from a magazine explosion because the officer ordered his magazine be flooded to prevent a fire spreading. All the men who could not get out were drowned, but the ship was saved.
@@ATtravel666 Yes, Drach (Dranifel) went over that issue and why the (WW1) Battlecruiser Squadron did that.
It wasn't done after that! Plus the light (for the caliber) 15" (38cm or 38.1cm) shells wouldn't have penetrate the deck armor due to the angle of impact and the main belt armor was also too thick for penetration. The thiner armor below the waterline (except how the bow wave made a trough at that point) could be penetrated.
The color of the flames to flared up after the boat and avgas fire was knocked down and in the process of being extinguished matches a propellent fire venting through a machinery space's ducting to the outside which also matches the location of the flames shooting up....
Drachinfel also noted that the 3 traditional theories all have at least one issue, but his is the only that matches all of the facts, including a picture of the HMS Hood going north to the straits at full speed if not flank speed. The very last picture anyone took of her before the explosion (other than some grainy movie pictures taken by someone on the KMS Prince Eugen during the battle. (Without a Telephoto lens so the HMS Hood is basically a very small smudge on the horizon....)
@@ATtravel666 since the end of Age of Sail, the Royal Navy emphasised accuracy over Rate of Fire. The only deviation was the battlecruisers prior to jutland, were it was though RoF would compensate for lack of gunnery practice due to been in a built up environment. But not all of the battle cruiser captains went along with Beattie's recommendations/suggestions/orders. The captain of HMS Tiger flat out ignored him and as a result took a good number of hits with hardly any trouble.
@@timengineman2nd714 Lighter, yes but had a higher velocity so had a flatter trajectory compared to normal weight 15 inch projectiles.
@@tommatt2ski Which is why Drachinfel noted the reason why the deck armor penetration hit was invalid. At that angle the shell would have ricocheted off of the Hood's deck armor, even if it "nosed in" at that angle, the effective thickness of the armor would have prevented penetration.
My Uncle Percy went down with the Hood aged just 18 years old. Can you really imagine being 18 years old with your whole life in front of you aboard the pride of the British Navy, only to have your hopes, your dreams, and your future snuffed out in a blast of high explosives and an obscene wall of crushing water and tangled metal? I can't, the thought of it has horrified me for decades. Before she died, my grandma told me that on the morning of the sinking she woke very early and needing the toilet, which was at the bottom of the garden, she unlocked the back door to find my Uncle sitting on the back door step. Apparently he looked up at her and said "I won't be coming home, Mum." Thinking that she was still half asleep and imagining things she used the toilet and went back to bed. Later that day she received the telegram and the newspapers hit the streets...
Makes you stop and think, doesn't it? "There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophies." Shakespeare nailed it.
These things are known to happen. Who can say how?
@@stevenpilling5318 From the sounds of the story, it could be that Grandma was going outside just at the time of the Hood blowing up and the young Uncle was thinking of his Mum just as he died and his spirit was able to visit home one last time as went to the bottom of the ocean? Science can't always explain these things and neither can I, but I am prepared to say that strange things can happen and sometimes a hunch or a strange feeling can save you from danger. Other times, sliding door moments can make a huge difference in your life or possible death.
Yep, I realized that when I was 18 years old in the Army and saw my first dead person who was also 18 years old.
And the worst thing about it is we weren't even in a war, it was a training exercise and he'd gotten run over by an M-60 tank, as I stood there looking at that mess the very first thing that went through my mind was "That poor boys mother, she sent her son off to the Army and she's never going to get him back", I immediately realized that instead she's gonna get a telegram that says "The Defense Department regrets to inform you" along with a box marked "Remains non viewable, members missing" and some bullshit folded up flag, and that there's never going to be a monument with his name on in his hometown or anywhere else because neither the Army or anyone else ever wants to talk about or even acknowledge these kinds of military deaths, die in a war and people will celebrate it and build monuments for you, die in peacetime in an accident and everyone wants to sweep it under the rug because no one wants to look at it or even know about it.
RIP uncle Percy 🙏🏻
My grandfather was on the German cruiser Prinz Eugen and was a part with the Bismarck, of the Operation "Rheinübung." He did saw the sinking of the H.M.S. Hood with his own eyes.
Interesting.
I would have loved seeing the Bismarck with my own eyes, I'm not gay nor objectophile but I love him.
Did he told you what was his and everyone's reaction?
@@Yamato-tp2kf From all accounts I read, the crews of both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were jubilent at first, but very quickly turned very solemn as they realized what was happening to the Hoods crew.
One sailor once put it that the real enemy to any sailor is not another sailor, but the sea itself.
@@phil3114 Oh... I see, from what I know is that Admiral Lütjens knew that from that point, the Royal Navy would hunting them down with all the home fleet
My GrandDad didn't have to join the war as he was a farmer and older. But he took the sinking of the Hood personally and left his pregnant wife and 2 young sons and joined the navy. You see my GrandDad, Clifford Hood, was descended from Admiral Hood which the ship Hood was named after I believe. That's the story in our family anyway.
Or he could have been named after the villian in the NES video game, "Thunderbirds". That guy was also named Hood. There's lots of Hoods.
@@Dowell318 There were no video games in 1918 when the ship was built but yes, there are lots of Hoods.
@@estherfischer2188that’s what they want you to think!
*dun dun duuun!*
Sounds like a folk tale if I ever heard one.
@@estherfischer2188 It's entirely possible that your family is part of Samuel and Horace Hood's line. Samuel Hood, the ship's namesake, was an admiral in the 18-19 centuries, and had a large family as did many of the nobility back then.
Very interesting analysis. My Dad, who is 91, was a schoolboy in Canada when the Hood was reported sunk. He has told me that he cried inconsolably at the loss of the Mighty Hood. Thanks for a great video!
Why did a rando schoolboy in Canada cry over this? Did he cry over every lost ship?
@@Weird.Dreams >Did he cry over every lost ship?
Did you forget the whole "Famous iconic ship" line in the video? That it was incredibly beloved by The People?
There was a similar reaction to the Edmund Fitzgerald (Big Fitz) going down as well, i believe...
Here's a bit of trivia for everyone about the movie "Sink the Bismarck!" Captain John Leach of the Prince of Wales is played by Esmond Knight, who actually served on PoW during the battle with the Bismarck! Knight was wounded and blinded during the battle, but sight was eventually restored to one eye. He had a fine acting career in the post-war years as well.
A good film too..
@@pashvonderc381 Nah, the German side were just caricatures of their real selves, especially Lindemann was shown as some kind of primitive brute. None of the dialouge there reflected what was going on on Bismarck at that time.
@@phil3114 If you can get hold of Ludovic Kennedy’s book Persuit and Baron von Müllenbergs book Bismarck , they are great reads, well recommend them..
@@pashvonderc381 I am sure of that, unfortunately that makes the movie still not very representative of reality
Thats true, i read it 20 years ago....muellenheim-rechberg was a survivor of the sinking, He wrote the book "Battleship Bismarck", very informative...He was a real sir, Like mr. Ludovico.
I appreciate the longer videos! The hood is a horrible story that will haunt later generations too. Many forget the tragedy of the Bismarck, many young men died there too.
Scharnhorst December 1943 - a bit more cold/Hardcore?
They followed Kriegsmarine doctrine of never surrendering. When she finally sank, destroyers went in to pick up the survivors, but left early when there were reports of U-boats in the vicinity.
U-Boat captains were known to be brutally ruthless. RN had good intelligence on U-Boat movements so they were right to get out of there.
@@davidelliott5843 Many German U-boat captains provided shipwrecked people with water and food whenever possible before and even after the Laconia incident (in which three U-boats were fired upon by Allied airmen despite flying the Red Cross flag during a joint rescue operation for refugees). In contrast to such captains as the US submarine captain Mush Morton, who shot shipwrecked people in the water with machine guns.
More, as it turned out. She was pummelled to death like a brawler getting their head kicked in in a pub fight, long after any threat she might still have posed to the Royal Navy had gone, as well as her chances of her making it back to France. I accept the Brits might not have been aware of that, (though they did have Lutjen's cables to and from Hitler in their possession), and in May 1941 things weren't going exactly well for them elsewhere so a big, morale-boosting victory was imperative after the loss of the Hood. I never bought into the U-Boat story put out by the captain of HMS Dorset which stopped them taking on survivors. It was revenge, pure and simple. But war is war, and war is a dirty business. Ask any soldier in Bakhmut.
Drachinifel did an extremely good video on the sinking of the Hood. There are two aspects to the lucky hit by Bismark. First, Hood was doing a sharp left turn, which would have rolled the ship to port, exposing more of the starboard hull beneath the armor belt. Second, a peculiarity of Hoods hydrodynamics caused the wake to draw down several feet at exactly this spot, at the engine room adjacent to the 5" magazine. It is likely that Bismarck's shell hit this region of Hood's hull, entered the aft engine room and hit the bulkhead between the engine room and 5" magazine. The 5" propellant charges then "cooked off", and much of it vented upwards, creating the spear of flame seen from Prince of Wales. This preliminary explosion then set off the 15" ammunition in the main magazine directly astern of the 5" magazine.
It was, as Drach said, a "golden BB shot".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a left turn (to port) would expose less of her starboard side, as the ship heels or rolls to the right as the turn is made. This would logically put the starboard armor deeper in the water, so I'm just trying to figure out the reason why it would be easier for a shell to penetrate on that side...based off what I've seen of courses during the battle, the starboard side was the one exposed to the enemy, so how did a turn to port make the starboard side become more vulnerable?
@@joefullerton1260 No, if a ship does a turn to port, the ship heels to port. Think about a cyclist or motorcycle going around a turn. The bike turns left, and the vehicle and rider lean left. Same effect occurs with runners on a track, airplanes making turns in the air, and ships.
@@nicholasconder4703 the ship TURNS left, but it HEELS or ROLLS OVER to the right as it turns, which is the same for all ships. Look at any video of a ship performing evasive maneuvers at high speed during sea trials and then come back and say that a ship leans to the left as it turns to the left. My entire point regarding this is that if the hood had been in the process of a significant turn to the left, the ship would have heeled over to the right, pushing the armor belt further below the waterline than what it typically would have been had it been continuing on a straight course. You're making it sound as though a ship turning is just like a motorcycle turning, as if it leans into the turn, which is absolutely not the case. The motorcycle leans into a turn by the rider shifting his weight to the side he intends to turn towards; a ship cannot shift it's weight in the direction of a turn. Think about it this way, if you're driving in a tall vehicle, and make a turn to the left, the vehicle will roll to the right until the center of gravity forces the upper part to follow the lower part into the turn. This is also the same reason why there are warnings on taller vehicles especially SUVs about having a higher center of gravity and having the tendency to roll over if they are turned suddenly.
@@nicholasconder4703
Joe is correct. A ship heels in the opposite direction of the turn.
@@jfangm This is interesting. I included a quote from a scientific article (see below) that indicated we are both right. For some reason it got deleted. As the rudder turns, a ship turning to port will initially heel to port, then it will heel sharply back over to starboard. Since Hood had just started her turn (as witnessed by the one survivor from the bridge and the rudders on the wreck confirm), I am suggesting that the ship was hit before the heel back to starboard started. Here is the quote:
"When a ship's rudder is put over to port, the forces on the rudder itself causes the ship to develop a small angle of heel initially to port. The underwater form of the ship and centrifugal force on it cause the ship to heel to starboard. These two forces produce a couple which tends to heel the ship away from the centre of the turn." Barrass and Derrett 2012. Ship Stability for Masters and Mates (pp.145-147)
My father was in hospital when they found the Hood, and he related a story of his good friend telling him he was so lucky to get the Hood, he would be SAFE.
The loss of the hood touch so many people, Such a good looking ship i have a print of her at speed on my study wall.
Just putting this out there for those who don't know. The likely cause of Hood's destruction, being that of a subsurface penetration of the hull, is made more likely by the fact that, when traveling at speed, Hood's wake would expose the unarmored waterline in a trough right near the aft magazines. This would have given Bismarck's shell even more power to punch through the belt and detonate in the hood's magazine. This fact is also proven by pictures and was well known by the Royal Navy at the time. All together great video, 10/10 would watch again.
Only that trough wasn't always there . Also she was in a port turn at speed heeling out to starboard, the side she was hit. No trough
Hood would have been turning while at flank speed, the Hood would have generated a bow and trough which may have coincided with the heel to port which exposed the starboard side of the underwater hull
@@Knight6831 absolutely not a chance. Any trough or area of the underside on show would have been on the unengaged port side which was on the inside of the turn.
I even have the rudder and heel trials .
@@Knight6831 fyi. She heeled to stbd
@@buzzardbeurling That's assuming she was in a turn at all. A relatively shallow turn of 20 degrees had been ordered just before the hit, but it's not clear by any account that it had begun.
Such a tragedy, so many lost not just on the Hood or the Bismarck, but in the whole war. So many, many, lives lost. Never take a moment for granted ladies and gents, for life is so often short.
Bull crap, PEOPLE'S POLITICS is what makes life short NO WAR!!!
?
@@tesmith47 >PEOPLE'S POLITICS is what makes life short NO WAR!!!
Even when you ignore the whole war casualty thing, people's lives are already INCREDIBLY short. Not to mention War is ALWAYS going to happen.
Or was that Funny Sub a wartime casualty too? How about the Titanic? SS Arctic? :V
My Great Grandfather served aboard HMS Hood, but before it left for the Denmark Strait he was granted Paternity Leave and the ship sailed without him, and he survived. I'm not sure which ship he was relocated to but I can only imagine the sheer thought of losing all of your mates in one horrific sinking
Edit: He was relocated to the Middle East
Have you ever researched the USS Texas? She served in both World Wars and is currently a museum ship. I visited her a few years ago before they dry-docked her for repairs. It was an interesting experience, like a trip back in time.
I can’t wait to tour her when she’s repaired.
Hey Mike; here's an interesting bit of trivia for you- there's another survivor of sorts from the Hood who was transferred off the ship just before she sortied against the Bismarck, who became rather famous later on.
His name was John Devon Rowland Pertwee, best known for, among other things, being the third actor to play The Doctor.
And the BEST one, in the wife's and my opinion! No disrepect intended to the others.
@@wayneantoniazzi2706 I'm with you there; Jon Pertwee is 'my' Doctor, and always will be.
British TV show?"
@@dukecraig2402 Yes, a VERY long-running British Sci-Fi series, Google it for the whole story, too much to go into here.
@@TallboyDave The first Doctor we saw was Tom Baker when they began showing "Doctor Who" here in the US around 1979. A British co-worker of mine said "Wait until they start showing the Jon Pertwee programs, Pertwee was the best!" He was right!
Fellow CZcams naval historian Drachinifel proposed a near-identical theory regarding Hood's destruction (to the point that I question why Mike did not credit or at least mention him) with two slight differences. In Drach's theory, Bismarck's one-in-a-million hit was the result of the shell striking Hood's hull while she was turning and thus the trough of her wake left a section of hull right around the aft end of her engine rooms exposed, exactly where the shell would have to have hit to have caused the explosion. Had the shell come in seconds earlier or later, Hood would have completed her turn and the water would have settled and knocked the shell off-target or simply shattered it on impact. The other difference, as I recall from Drach's own documentary, was that rather than going straight into the 15in propellant magazine, Bismarck's shell instead passed through the corner of the engine room and ended up in the 5in secondary gun magazine, causing that ammunition to explode, which in turn tore through the neighboring bulkhead into the 15in magazines. From there on both theories play out the same; rapid internal build-up of pressure ends in Hood popping like a fiery balloon.
She was hit stbd in a port turn. No trough
Thank you - I was looking for a comment that mentioned some of the pertinent specifics from Drach's video on the subject! Your comment really needs more likes - I'd LOVE to see Mike respond to it!
And as for the (admittedly striking) similarities with Drach's theory, I'm going to default to 'Hanlon's razor' here, and say that (hopefully) Mike was just unaware of Drach's video on the subject, or at least on its content (let's face it: Drach is amazing, but he can be a bit... 'long-winded' 😉And this is coming from somebody who is *renowned* for their long-windedness 😅)
All that aside, I think we need to see a collab between Mike and Drachinifel - I feel like that would be a match made in heaven 🤓
I really find it difficult to believe Mike was not aware of Drachinifel’s pretty much definitive Hood video when making this but makes no mention of it
"near identical"
"Striking similarities"
Lol who'd have thought OeLiDe will mention Drach lmao
Yes, thanks! I was just about to write about it. IIRC the wake just around the forward part of aft magazines is evident on photographs as Hood was making high speeds, even when not turning. It makes the most likely theory even more likely.
As a fellow maritime historian, although I’m much much older I just love to see young people keeping the torch burning. You do a great job and I can tell a great passion for maritime history. I helped on documentaries and a variety of books in my life especially on the Great Lakes and ww1 and 2. I have 3 generations of officers on the Great Lakes starting in the 1880’s. I have many great first hand accounts passed down from the “White Hurricane” over the Great Lakes in 1913. A great idea for a video for you. If you want some accounts from written record of my great grandfather I have descriptions from his actual diary as he was out in that storm and his bulk freighter, which was over 500 ft was tossed aground and later repaired to sail another day. His account is nothing less than horrifying. So much so he got a day job for 2 years after before the lakes called him back for 15 more years. Let me know. PK
Is that so? As another youngin', thank you for your hard work in bringing histories to light! Are there any projects you worked on that stay a favourite? I'd love to see if my library have any!
As a note, I had heard of the White Hurricane some weeks ago in a podcast, and subsequently the numerous ships at the bottom of the Great Lakes. I hope to see a video on that too someday here!
Very very good production. You deserve your own series on a major network - your stuff is far better than the rubbish we usually get. My grandad was in the Royal Navy during WW2 and served on the Russian convoys, at D-Day and in the mediterranean. He never really talked about his experiences on the convoys unless he'd had a drink or two, or three and I can only imagine the horrors of what the brave men of all sides experienced.
Are you ready for your injection Hector? Ready to look me in the eyes?
I've watched a documentary covering HMS Hood and the historian summed about this, "Why is it that only 3 men survived? When you consider the whole ship exploding, no wonder only 3 survived. "
They were three men assigned to deck watch and were blown over the side when the explosion happened.
Losing all hands, or close enough, isn't that uncommon when a capital ship sinks. Check out the losses from the the British battlecruisers at Jutland. Capital ships don't sink easily, so when they do, something bad has happened. These ships are buttoned up tight when in battle. The pressure from the blast was strong enough to burst welds in thick steel. No one survived if the blast reached them before the ship tore apart; they were dead when the shockwave touched them. Then, consider the ship probably moved unexpectedly when this happened, up down, left right, who knows. Men are bounced around like peas in a can. Now they are injured, stunned, or incapacitated. And what was left of Hood sank fast. Survivors have to be rescued fast of course in the North Atlantic, and the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen are still shooting - not a great time for rescue operations.
I believe the waters are very cold in that region
My question was why didn't they even find bodies of the dead crewmen. I mean, no one. There had to have been some people topside that survived the blast and made it off before she went down. 🤷♂
@@c.j.cleveland7475 Would the people topside have had flotation devices on them, life vests or similar? If not, then their bodies would have sunk.
Bodies don't start to float by themselves until at least a couple of days later, when internal decomposition produces enough gas that they become buoyant. In very cold water I'd guess it takes longer. Probably nobody was looking anymore, or if they were, the bodies had drifted too far to be seen from the original location.
Fantastic Mike, such a tragic story. Oceanliner Designs just keeps getting better & better. Well done.
Love your videos.
My uncle was supposed to go on the Bismark but he had caught the flu and was in a German hospital. He survived the war along with my other uncles.
Another was on the Russian front and he was installing field telephone wire on a telephone pole & he told me he looked out upon the horizon and where moments before their was nothing suddenly he saw what looked like all the Russian T34's in the world from horizon to horizon when suddenly one of the Russian tanks fired a tank shell at the phone pole his equipment was attached to at the waist.
It blew the pole out from under him and that was the last thing he knew until he woke up in a field hospital.
Shrapnel from the shell took a large chunk of his skull off and doctors put a metal plate in his head. He was sent back to Germany to recuperate and that was the end of the war for him.
He wound up going to Germany after the war as did my other uncle and he worked as a truck mechanic for 20 years, had a retirement dinner and went home, sat down on the couch and had a massive heart attack that killed him instantly in front of his family.
My other uncles were in the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. One became a high ranking official in the German government after the war. The other became a vice president of a retail store chain.
My Mother married a Wehrmacht officer and he was lost missing in action in Poland. I have an email from the German state military archives of his service record but I have not gotten it translated into English.
After they were married he and my Mother went to Berlin and they met Adolf Hitler. My Mother was a very astute woman and told me she was NOT impressed with the Fuhrer and when I pressed her further all she would say was :
That Man ! "
With a tone of total disgust.
Our family on her side came from Tilsit, East Prussia and were very Prussian.
My Mother was a nurse for 50 years.
When the Russians moved into Tilsit, Russian soldiers came into her home and got mud all over the marble entryway floors.
She was a forceful woman and told them to get out of her house.
Shortly afterwards a Russian officer who knew German came to the house and rang the bell and when she opened the door he apologized and said this no further intrusions on her privacy would be made and that his soldiers would not enter her home again.
Realizing that eventually the Russians would confiscate her home she gathered up family papers and what valuables she could and took her and my sister and WALKED the rail lines into Poland and then Berlin and it was around 600 miles.
She later moved to Nurnberg and met my Father there when he was a master sgt in the US Army after the war, married him and he, my sister and her moved to the US in 1950.
My grandfather on my Mother's side was an officer in the Kriegsmarine in WWI. He was a gunnery officer on a ship & I have a picture of his which is very old style showing the guns, him in his uniform and his ship. He died in 1959.
Members of my family served in their respective armed services tracing back 800 years.
My Father enlisted in the US Army in 1937.
On my Fathers side we also had Japanese relatives.
We found out after the war that one of our relatives was in the IJN and his plane bombed my Father at Pearl Harbor while he was supervising food supplies being removed from a truck for the kitchens and the plane blew blew up the truck with people running for their lives but he was unhurt.
He had just been transferred from the Phillipines shortly before the war began and he said it was the best duty he ever had and he hated the Japanese for starting the war and never forgave them.
His first job in the Army was taking care of mules.
He told me years later that the one regret he had was that he missed his mules and he treated them very well and they acted more like beloved pets than beasts of burden.
He took artillery training at Fort Lewis Washington but decided he wanted to go to cooking school as he was a very good cook. He completed those courses after his time in artillery school and became a very good cook and was promoted to Master Sgt. and was then sent back stateside, then to England.
His services as a personal cook were wanted by various generals and in England he would cook meals for them and he cooked a meal for General Patton.
He was in on the invasion of North Africa, then Sicily, D Day and once Patton''s 3rd Army Patton asked for him to be one of his personal chefs and he would cook for him and also supervised the kitchens of the 3rd Army. He went across Europe and was one of the men who moved to relieve Bastogne. He told me that he was cold in the Bulge but he froze his ass off in Korea.
In the Bulge his jeep hit a land mine and he was sent to a field hospital and had a huge gash in his forehead and one of his fingers was hanging by a thread and they sewed it back on but the only painkiller they had were APC's which was basically aspirins. He had the scar on his finger and the gash wound on his forehead for life.
He was one of the German occupation troops in Bavaria after the war and supervised kitchens there and also had something to do with the former SS Kaserne there and met my Mother and married her.
In 1950, he was sent to Korea and said it was terrifying with waves of troops coming from everywhere & said he was scared to death.
He returned to the US in 1951 suffering from combat fatigue and after a time he retired from the Army with a 100% service disability and later got a job as a civilian at Fort Belvoir but kept up contacts with those he knew high up in the Army. He was in the Army for 17 years as they called him up briefly during the Cuban Missle Crisis & he was assigned to the Pentagon. We lived at that time at an apartment building on 16th Street about 2 miles from the White House. In the garage there had been constructed a fallout shelter. It was full of supplies but was only intended to really protect residents from fallout and there was wooden cage made out of chicken wire. A friend of mine and I climbed the structure and being curious we broke open one of the cases of food there and found out the rations were already stale. During the crisis things came very near to nuclear war so much so that at one point we were at Defcon 1 and he called my Mother and told her that the crisis had escalated so much that he knew we were likely to go to war and that there was no reason to try to take me and her and flee to another city as DC was the number one target for attack and we would be dead. It got so bad that we were 15 minutes from nuclear war before Kennedy and Kruschev made peace.
He was retired again and became a supervising chef in a major Washington hotel near the White House. In 1964, the Army briefly called him back to active duty but by that time his health had suffered due to years of smoking and he was sent home. They were short of NCO''S' and wanted to send him to Vietnam.
We moved back to Pittsburgh, then San Francisco and he died at the age of 62.
My Mother worked as a nurse in San Francisco and injured her arm and shoulder and had to retire. He loved being a nurse and was a very good one. She died at 94 in 2014.
On my Father's side his family can trace their ancestry back to 1820 when a member of the family came to the US from Sendai Japan, became a butler for a rich family and married the maid. Members of my Fathers family still live in Pittsburgh and my Fathers 3 brothers all worked in the steel mills. My sister and her children and I am an uncle and great uncle to their children and I hope to finally to be able to return to my beloved Pittsburgh next year.
Go Bucs.
Thanks Mike. My Dad was in Britain during that time - he signed up not long after - and he told me how the entire nation gasped at the loss of Hood.
A very similar take to one of Drachinifel, though there is one difference in that Hood had a bow wave which meant such an under waterline hit much more likely.
This is a difference between the hit that PoW took and Hood likely took: The one that hit PoW hit too short, of the fuse had not been a dud then it would have exploded before it hit the ship.
But unfortunately, in just the right place, a shell would have had to hit the water much closer or might not even have had to hit the water at all.
All told a very good video for a non-warship channel especially! You clearly learned your stuff and I do enjoy that you spent such a time discrediting the myths around the event
I thought of the Drachinifel video as soon as I saw the title.
Great video, I’ve known a lot about the Battle of the Denmark Strait since I was 7.
Some facts: a British Spitfire photographed Bismarck in Bergen, Norway, the German ships did not top up their fuel and oil reserves in Norway, if they had then Bismarck could have stayed in the Atlantic longer before having to turn to France, according to survivor Ted Briggs, as he left the Compass platform when the bow was lifting vertical, he saw Admiral Holland sitting in his chair, making no attempt to abandon ship and the squadron Navigator was about to leave the platform but stepped alongside to allow Briggs exit first and he never saw the Navigator again.
Actually, Prinz Eugen topped off it's fuel tanks in Norway but for some reason Bismarck didn't, and that extra fuel was sorely missed later. The Royal Navy always topped off their fuel tanks when the opportunity permitted without fail and couldn't understand why the Germans didn't, especially in Bismarck's case.
@@wayneantoniazzi2706 If i remember right, Lutjens got an order to repaint the ship to another camouflage, thats why they didnt had time to get all fuel.
@@kovacsj7823 Well, I don't know about that, I've never read it anywhere. But on the other hand it'd be a bold man indeed who says he knows everything about the Bismarck and Operation Rheinubung. A refueling would have been a lot more practical than a repaint, you repaint the whole ship when in port, not deployed.
@@wayneantoniazzi2706 Yes, logically you would do that in port. However, as i read, Lutjens was the kind of military officer who followed orders to the letter. So when he get the order to repaint, he instantly stopped everything else to complete the order as fast as possible.
He had almost no initiative on his own. Lindemann begged him to sink the PoW too, but he strictly followed orders about avoid conflict, so Lindemans request was denied.
@@kovacsj7823 Maybe. However the only plausible reason I can think of for not refueling was the Germans were capable of refueling at sea (the British couldn't at the time) and as such they had tankers "obiting" in mid-ocean far off the shipping lanes. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could have done their convoy attacks, broken away and rendezvoued with one of the tankers, refuelled and gotten back to business. Bismarck's discovery and tracking by Norfolk and Suffolk made any contact with a tanker impossible, they'd have given the tanker away, so they had no choice except a run to a French port after their fuel loss.
You're right about Lutjens, he was practically a zombie during the whole operation, he'd made up his mind he wasn't coming back from this one and it affected all his decisions, making one mistake after another.
Later after the German naval code was broken (not too long afterward) the British hunted down all the tankers and sunk them. There was no possibility of German warships engaging in commerce raiding after that.
In elementary school, I read Robert Ballard’s scholastic book about finding the Bismarck, which also included stories from some of the Kriegsmarine sailors and how even they were shocked that the Hood had so dramatically exploded and sunk. There were plenty of expedition facts and wreck images.
No matter what the exact cause was, Bismarck scored a lucky hit that tore through the Hood and detonated a magazine. Will always be the most famous engagement of warships during the first half of the second world war.
I remember hearing of the 'below waterline hit' theory from Drachinifel. He did a really good job explaining it.
A brilliant series from you Sir. Education is the best cure for a lack of wisdom. Thank You.
this is one of the most heartfelt videos on the Battle of the Denmark Strait i’ve ever seen. your coverage and knowledge on this subject baffles me as always mike. May all those who perished aboard both Hood and Bismarck rest in peace.
If you would show the picture of Hood at full speed, you’ll see a trough forms right where the shell hit was received, which is how the shell was able to impact below the belt and not encounter much water first.
It should also be mentioned that the Hood was currently making a course correction. The centrifugal force caused the hull to tilt to the side, lifting the vulnerable area even further out of the water.
The Prince of Wales' First Lieutenant, whose job was to watch the Hood for the signals from the Admiral, testified during the Court of Inquiry that he saw a hit on the Hood in the area of the main mast, with debris flying in the air. This is the area where a fire was raging from the previous hit.
At the same time Bismarck's gunnery officer also saw the same hit through his rangefinder. On the intercom with his Assistant Gunnery Officer in the Secondary Fire Control he wondered if the shell was a dud. He said: It certainly clawed its way aboard. Just as he said it, the Hood exploded.
My great great grandfather was part of the aerial reconnaissance crew keeping tabs on the Bismarck. Somewhere, my grandma has a photograph he took of the Bismarck somewhere I believe in the Denmark Strait shortly before her engagement with the HMS Hood.
I believe they concluded that the shell that hit the PoW would have armed when it hit the water and detonated before penetrating the PoW if it had not been a dud. A shell hitting the side of the Hood should have done the same, but imo a hit below the belt is still the likely culprit.
I enjoyed this as my dad always told me stories of the Hood when I was a lad. My Great Grandfather was lost on the Hood - he was a chief petty officer stoker. Albert George Frederick Assirati.
Other descendents of your G Grandfather have been in YT comments over the last few years. I've spoken with 2 of them. Respects to his memory, service & sacrifice.
Rest in peace crew of HMS Hood and as the song goes “The mighty Hood went down”
Excellent video as always. If anyone watching wants a lot more detail in this incident, Drachinifel does a wonderful video which explains how the underwater hit is the most likely theory in great detail.
I kept scratching my head at the end as to to how he didn’t refer to Drachinifel’s recent video while relaying it’s hypothesis?!
@@simonwilliams4514 Almost as if he thought "nice theory, i'll use that one aswell".
@@sirmalus5153 lmao
@@sirmalus5153 "YOINK!!!" 😜
For me, This video is probably one of the most understandable theory I've ever watched, and I truly appreciated your graphics Sir when it comes to between history and theories. Your animations of Warships like Hood, Bismarck, and others are far more realistic. :)
@@Ansset0 That doesn't matter, but still his graphics are awesome
The case could be made that Hood was the first 'fast battleship' of which classes like South Dakota, North Carolina, and Iowa in the USN. They had similar displacements and had speeds close to or over 30 knots.
...ALL OF THE USN BATTLESHIPS YOU MENTIONED, WERE EITHER UNDER CONSTRUCTION, OR STILL ON THE DRAWING BOARD!!!
@@daleburrell6273 Not entirely true North Carolina had been commissioned on 6 April 1941. Washington was commissioned on 15 May 1941.
@@ph89787 and both had much more armor
I could watch content about the Bismarck and Hood all day and night. To magnificent ships that took down mighty men
The historian Drach came to the same conclusion and added that the shell may have hit in the bow trough as Hood was at speed - the shell skipping under the armor belt
-The penetration tables of the German SK37 gun suggest it could penetrate the Armour belt of the Hood (by a fair margin) so long as it struck a reasonably flat angle. The 15 inch shells may not have been the biggest but they did have a very high velocity and flat trajectory. For some reason exploring this possibility is completely ruled out by British naval historians?
-The Bismark had a state of the art fire control systems using its K37 computers and 10.5m base stereoscopic range finders and FuMo 23 radar which could spot shell splash and range to within 70m. The K-37 could analyze the motion and synthesize i.e. predict the position of its target at any time in the future. It has a ballistic computer to provide time of flight information, range and super elevation and could calculate a firing solution so that the shells would arrive where the ship would be in about 30 seconds time.
-The German shooting went exactly as per their drills. The Germans fired in semi salvo pairs: first Anton and Caesar then Bertha and Dora 10 second latter to aid shell splash spotting.
-Salvo 1 was a warm up for the guns. Salvo 2 and Salvo 3 were ranging shots. Salvo 4 was a straddle. Salvo 5 Struck the Hood and caused the Magazine Explosion. Salvo 6 was in the air as Hood erupted. Special optical systems measured the distance between target and shell splash to correct.
the shape of Hood's Hull was great for speed however once at speed, it was a risk as parts under the waterline were very exposed, it just happened that the parts of the armor belt and the underside of it was under the 2nd turret, aswell as just before the 3rd turret
@@williamzk9083 Don't forget that after Salvo 1, the Bismarck's state-of-the-art fire-control radar broke from her own muzzle blasts, and they couldn't use it anymore.
@@dylandarnell3657 this was before the battle though, during the initial engagement with Norfolk etc.
@@dylandarnell3657 The Bismarck’s radar was repaired. The Prince of Wales Type 284 radar also failed in the same battle for the same reason, from shock. It was a problem everyone had. The Tirpitz, which entered service 4 months latter had the FuMO 23 radar replaced by the far more powerful FuMO 26 whose TS6 triodes were far more shock resistant than the TS1 triode on the FuMO 23. The new radar also had full blind fire capability with an accuracy of +- 0.25 degrees.
Fantastic Mike ....you should do more warships .. I have watched and read a lot about the Hood over the years as I'm fascinated by her ...both her amazing size and speed but especially her grace and style.
I was under the misapprehension that she was sunk by plunging fire to the magazine ....your well researched presentation has set me right ..
Off to watch your equally good film on the Sydney again now ...
PS love your liner stuff too ❤️❤️❤️💕💕
One of my Dad's clients was on the "Bismarck" and at first they thought it was a battle exercise. His battle station was in the ship. When their Officer said No it's for real and it is 'unbelievable" she just blew up.
No he wasn't on the "KMS Bismarck" no such prefix exists in the German navy.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684. True the German Navy in WW2 didn't use KMS ; I found the KMS designation in some source material . But the FACTS remain that he Was on the "Bismarck" and you were Not.
@@gerhardrichter8626 I did not say that the gentle man was not on the Bismarck... I said he was not on the KMS Bismarck.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 You could have just suggested a correction stating KMS wasn't used. I have since corrected my original comment. I have to check the source material I use in the future.
Certainly put a lot of effort into making this video. Thank you very much, it's truly fascinating.
I was surprised just how much this video affected me: the Hood/Bismarck battle had fascinated me for years and I understood most of the content of this already. However: the last few minutes of this seemed to bring home the reality. Well written, well presented.
Superbly detailed production, Mike, with really great visuals.
The final hypothesis about the shot penetrating below the armour belt is given weight when looking at photographs of Hood travelling at very high speeds - many of those pictures show that the dynamic of Hood's wake created a deep declivity , or dip, just in the region of the mainmast, which partially exposed the area below the waterline, so the fatal shell may not even have had to hit the water, but just gone straight in. Still the "chance in a million", but like you say, it seems like the most likely scenario.
At 14,000 meters, Hood was outside of her immune zone against Bismarck's main guns. The shortest range at which the belt could NOT be penetrated was estimated at 22,500 yards (20,580 meters), so at 14,000 meters, it was entirely plausible that a shell impacting Hood's main belt could have punched through and detonated at or near a magazine--probably the 4-inch magazine just forward of the the after main gun magazines.
Yes, the penetration tables for the Bismarck's 15 inch guns are easily available and the Hood could be penetrated from 16000-18000 yards even allowing for inclination of her Armour. It's impossible to get anyone from Britain to acknowledge the possibility. No one German or American will do it either.
I think that the most eerie thing about wrecks whether it's the Hood, the Bismarck or Titanic etc., is the boots and shoes on the seafloor!
Your history videos are always compelling and interesting. Your videography is wonderful and your voice, as narrator, is superb. I love to watch your work. And, as a side-note, I enjoy the suit and tie.
Great video as always! Fanatic work on making the visuals, incredible effort. The fact that Prince of Wales was hit in the same location under the armor belt is pretty much a solid case here. THE USS Boise took a hit under the water line and it hit one of the front turrets which started a powerful powder fire that disabled all 3 front turrets and caused large damage, perhaps this is what happened to Hood, a turret hit and large power fire leading to strange smoke coming out of the front turret. The fire may have been raging for a while before it reached the magazine. The USS Boise as usual for the US navy had a powder hoist system using an endless conveyer belt that is offset that is probably what saved USS Boise.
What Mike doesn't mention is that the shell found in PoW went in backwards and it's fuse had snapped off when it hit the water, preventing it from detonating. So that is unlikey NOT the cause. Drachinifel has an excellent video that goes over the most likely cause of the explosion.
What a powerful video on such a huge piece of old Empire history. New Zealand was proud to have a position in the Royal Navy during WWII.
A magnificent analysis of this tragedy..my grandfather was Royal Navy during WW2 and I remember him talking about the sinking of the Hood . The horrific loss of life is very sobering and subsequently the large scale loss German sailors on the Bismark .
When we put the politics aside ,the majority were just ordinary men ,doing their duty for their country,and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
This channel has quickly become one of my absolute favorites. Thanks for all the interesting history Mike. Can’t wait to see what else your channel has in store. Keep it up my friend👍
My Grandad was on the King George VI when it sunk the Bismarck after it had sunk the Hood! He was in the Royal Marines during WWII. He told me funny things that would happen on the ships, but never the bad stuff. I know they had to sail through any survivors as they weren't able to take on POW's as it made them a target themselves, and this weighed heavy on them. I can't even imagine being in a position where you have to knowingly take another person's life and I am immensely proud of my Grandad. (I'm also proud of my Great Uncle John who was in the Navy at the same time. He was my Nan's brother and that's how my grandparents met! Also my Great Grandfather, my Nan's dad, was in the trenches in WWI. He went on to become a Chelsea Pensioner! This bit isn't really relevant to your video but I would feel remiss if I didn't mention my pride for them too!)
KING GEORGE V NOT VI
Sorry to say ,but Bismarck was sunk by her crew.that and sinking HMS Hood made her the most hated ship in britain.
@@michaelpielorz9283 Bismarck was rendered combat ineffective by the Royal Navy, was ablaze and already flooding by the time Bismarck's crew scuttled it. Bismarck would have sunk overnight or early the next morning given its condition. The Royal Navy sank Bismarck, it's crew just put the ship out of its misery.
@@airplanenut89 I always wonder why the Germans have this fixation on scuttling, why is this the Bismark went down fighting her corner same as the Hood is that not enough ? setting scuttling charges is simply helping the ship under nothing more than that.
@@davidmcintyre998 Fear of their ship being captured for one. It wouldn't be the first time a ship had been damaged, and captured. In Bismarck's case however, the Royal Navy was so out for blood that supposedly reports reached the RN commanders that there were German sailors trying to signal from Bismarck that they surrender. The response was basically "They have not struck their colours, now do not bring these claims of surrender anymore. I do not want to hear them." Not an actual quote but the RN seemed to have found that they had misplaced all of their surrender acceptance paperwork on HMS Hood.
To this day, the loss of the HMS Hood and that 3 men survived still shocks me today.
Your videos seem to only get better and better. The WOW CGI adds a lot to the presentation. This particular subject has been my personal favorite since 1960 when I first saw "Sink the Bismarck," narrowly edging out R.M.S Titanic from then on. You and Drach should partner up and do a series for the BBC, or perhaps The History channel. Your historical accuracy is absolutely matchless, and it continues to present me with facts I didn't know about after studying them for years. Thank You and keep up the great work! George B. White, Scituate, MA, USA
Can you please do a video on the career of hms warspite? Things like her damage history and battle honors. Truly an incredible story
Including holding thr record, together with Scharnhorst, for the longest ever hit on another ship in combat: 24km.
Warpsite v Guilo Cesare. Scharnhorst v Glorious.
Mike, great video. I really enjoy your presentation style. Thank you for sharing the stories of these ships and those who served aboard them.
That was brilliant, once again. The popularity of your channel is good for everyone it helps lay some of these misconceptions of history to rest. Your case for a lucky shot below the belt armour certainly seems most sensible. Hard to imagine the effect losing the PoW in the same way in the same engagement would have had. At this point, the admiralty still knew very little about the exact power of Bismarck (little beyond her size, as I recall), and if they'd lost two of their most powerful ships in a single engagement with her, they may not have continued with the hunt as they did, who knows. Thanks for the video!
Great channel mate. Cheers for the awesome content :)
I'm a Melbournite too mate and it was great to see the military aspect of the ships. More of these would be great.
HMS Prince of Wales’ forward gun turret wasn’t quite completely out of action from the start as you state, if I recall correctly. It was having some pretty severe problems but did give off intermittent fire.
The only gun which fired only one round was the first gun, A1, of PoW, where as the whole A turret wasn’t completely out of action
I believe you are correct, as the telling from Drachinifel's channel mentions that guns would be in and out of action thanks to the efforts of dockyard contractors who were deployed onboard Whales as it hadn't finished testing yet.
I absolutely cannot get enough of your channel. I love your descriptions and your research of these great vessels. You have piqued my interests on this topic. So I must thank you for that! THANK YOU!!!!
I absolutely love your channel. I have a perticular love for longer form content, today with scroll algorithm setups we've been training out attention span to reduce under 15 seconds now. So I embrace the deep dives trying to counter some of the attention span I've lost. I'm sure there's a ton of rabbit holes to travel down. If you ever consider longer form content, I'll be there immediately sir. I know these videos take a ton of work and it's mostly thankless. So, thank you for your content and hard work sir and I look forward to seeing more.
Wow: WARSHIP videos! This is quite a departure from the usual format and subject matter, but a worthy and fascinating tale, all the same.
Hood's loss is indeed pretty dreadful to hear about: they took almost as many people down with her as the Titanic, but faster, and with fewer survivors by far. It was a deeply tragic day at sea, now matter how you look at it.
Thank you Mike, another compelling piece of history told with stunning animations. Your talents and hard work ate greatly appreciated.
Drachinfel had a video about Hood as well, and brought up the way the ship's bow wake affects the waterline further down the hull. It seems plausible that the part of the hull that Bismarck's shell hit was actually exposed to open air, not underwater.
He also discusses a theory that the shell didn't hit the magazine directly but started a fire in a neighboring compartment which spread to the magazine, as an explanation for the delayed blast.
I watched several documentaries on the Bismark vs Hood battle, but this is the best one yet.
Excellent presentation. Did you use Drachinfel's piece on the Hood for a reference?
Couple of myths to dispel. There was no way that Bismarck could have chased down the Prince of Wales. The hit to the fuel tanks induced a 7° list and there was a second hit to the engineering spaces. This was discovered in the Cameron expedition (this is a correction). These two hits reduced Bismarck's maximum speed to 27 knots and she no longer had a speed advantage over Prince of Wales. While Prince of Wales A turret went down during the engagement it was back on line short thereafter and she traded salvos with Bismarck through the morning hours. Lutjens made the correct call because another penetrating hit doomed the ship. I think a lot of commentators take this position because they know the final outcome but it was by no means certain that Bismarck would be caught at this point.
The Bismarck's reputation is a product of British propaganda. How else could she have destroyed the mighty Hood unless she was the most powerful battleship afloat? In May of 1941 the USS North Carolina and USS Washington were the most powerful battleships in commission, sporting 9 16"/45 caliber guns firing the 2700lb Mk 8 AP shelll and was better protected than the Bismarck. The North Carolina took a Long Lance hit it approximately the same location as Bismarck and was still in better fighting shape afterwards.
Hood was the victim of an unfortunate lucky shot. In comparison the IJN Battlecruiser Kirishima, which was similar to the WWI Lion Class, took 20 Mk 8 hits from USS Washington without suffering a catastrophic explosion until she had slipped beneath Iron Bottom Sound.
Being a member of the Kongou class, Kirishima was more similar to HMS Tiger. Apart from that, your comment looks dead on accurate. I didn't consider how the damage would have prevented Bismarck from pursuing POW, but I think Captain Lindemann was vastly overstating his ship's capabilities when he suggested they continue the fight.
@@waverleyjournalise5757 I said that without specifying the class.
Ironically it was probably this very encounter that led people to get an impression of Bismarck being some kind of monstrous powerhouse despite how, as pointed out, many of its contemporaries actually outperformed it.
Some American contemporaries like the North Carolinas outperformed it, and maybe even the Japanese Nagato class (the Yamato wasn't ready yet), but she was dramatically better than anything the British had at the time. The problems with the British ships were multifaceted, but it all came down to compounding design issues. The King George V class, at that time, had systems defects and were not combat-reliable, so-so guns, so-so armor, and radar that was good for only detecting targets instead of actually aiming the guns. The Nelson-class had powerful guns, but she also damaged herself so severely when firing that she required an immediate trip back to the shipyard for repairs in addition to the same radar limitations; she was also slow by WW2 standards (23 knots vs. the Bismarck's 30). Pretty much the only Allied battleship that had a real chance against her 1 on 1 at that time was the USS North Carolina. Fairly comparable speed (27 vs. 30 knots), but MUCH better gunnery range and accuracy due to radar rangefinding. Bismarck did out-armor her, but North Carolina's substantial range and accuracy advantage meant that North Carolina's guns were at medium range even as Bismarck's were just getting into range.
Essentially, any 16-inch US battleship from the North Carolina onwards can take out the Bismarck. Had she encountered say, one of the Iowas...well...
@@WardenWolf I’d dispute the argument of “so-so armour” on the KGV’s. The only battleships ever built that had thicker armour belts were the Yamato’s.
@@kristoffermangila Tirpitz could have encountered Washington or Iowa as they both spent separate tours in the North Atlantic. Sadly though the Kriegsmarine was a bit shy for some reason by that point in the war.
@@WardenWolf I've heard it said that the KG V herself was fully combat ready however due to being a flagship of its own fleet, the RN didn't want to send it in case it was needed elsewhere. Thus Prince of Whales was deployed despite not having completed testing. As such, Whales was deployed with an attachment of dockyard contractors to service the guns/turrets in combat. While this video says the forward turret was out of action after its first salvo, it was more of an on/off sort of thing for the guns. A gun would malfunction, go down, be serviced, and if possible put back in the fight. This just happened enough that it certainly had an effect on the battle, and caused Whales to disengage rather than waiting for Norfolk and Suffolk to catch up to the fight after Hood was sunk.
Expertly explained nice clear speaking voice. Keep up the good work Mike.
Excellent and most revealing thru your animation of events. Well done indeed sir!
Your production quality is better and better every video, keep it coming!
I think a video on the sinking of the SS Pendleton and the subsequent rescue would be interesting. Perhaps also explaining the engineering behind the T2 tanker's habit of breaking in two.
When I was a kid, my dad gave me an illustrated book about the history of Bismarck and the sinking of Hood always fascinated me. It still does today. All that to say I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Well done.
Odd, tragic and eerie historical coincidence. Admiral Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood was the last in a long line of British admirals. At the battle of Jutland, he was in command of a squadron of 3 battle cruisers. He died on May 31, 1916 when his flagship, the HMS Invincible, was hit by German fire and catastrophically exploded. There were only 6 survivors. On Aug 22, 1918 HMS Hood was christened by the Admirals widow. The ship was named after the admiral's great-great-grandfather, Admiral Samuel Hood,
My father was born in Motherwell, Scotland and was very upset when he learned of the sinking of the Hood. My German uncle was having a party with his nazi friends and my father grabbed him by his lapels and said things I can't write here. Revenge came a week later. Seven months later we were attacked at Pearl Harbor and the rest is history. Thanks, Mike.
Tremendously well done and respectful video!
A nicely done video! And I really loved your footage of Hood and Bismarck. Great job!
The explosion of the WW1 era Queen Elizabeth class battleship HMS Barham is worth watching if you are not familiar with it. This was a 32k ton ship suffering a magazine explosion. Regardless of what you think for Hood, by all accounts it was still an explosion of similar scale.
addendum: Barham was sunk in 1941. So the film of its demise is of decent quality. There is also footage of USS Arizona suffering a magazine explosion as well. It too is worth watching.
edit: I should point out that Arizona was upright while Barham had rolled over at the times of their respective magazine explosions. So both provide unique glimpses into the ridiculous amount of power in one of these.
Absolutely tragic bit of footage but I cannot take my eyes off it every time I watch!
I'm not sure it was a magazine as much boiler/steam detonation that then triggered ammunition elesewhere
@@thehandoftheking3314 Evidence please. More, i.e. stronger, evidence than supports a magazine detonation.
@@whyjnot420 when you watch the film back its iafter she hits the tipping point, water has direct ingress to the boilers via the exhaust and funnels. Also on the film we see the detonation is almost exactly from the center of the ship which is the Engineering spaces rather than main or secondary magazine spaces.
Thirdly if you slow down the footage it appears that a boiler or other Engineering machinery is ejected from the ship in the detonation.
Fourthly the smoke. Cordite tends be more yellow in smoke. The explosion is black and white which indicates fire smoke and steam, most common in Engineering spaces.
Great video! One small correction: the water would have also triggered the fuse or destroyed it as the shell travelled through the water, as even if the shell didn't fuse, the water would have caused the shell to violently pivot and enter rear first. Drachinifel talks about this on his channel, he also thinks that the shell passed under the belt, but Hood had a very distinct bow wave at speed. This caused the water to dip below the typical waterline... right where you think the shell hit.
Thank you - I was looking for a comment that mentioned some of the pertinent specifics from Drach's video on the subject!
We need to see a collab between Oceanliner Designs and Drachinifel - I feel like that would be a match made in heaven 🤓
Well, also she was in a turn to port....what does that to the ship? Yes, the through in her wake wouldn't be as severe as depicted, because it gets weaker on the outside, and stronger on the inside! But the ship also leans a few degrees to starboard, giving that extra few degrees of angle of attack for a shell to pass above the main Belt, and hit the MAD below it's joint where the angled portion gets to the horizontal! If a 380mm shell would hitting there, around midships in a portion around 2x5 m in size, with its angle (from the horizontal, and the angle it flew to the lenght-axis of the hood), it had only to pen the 7" belt and the MAD....then it would had a free passage to the 4" magazines adjacent to the 15" magazines! It didn't even need to reach the magazines at all, if the shell would explode, the hot fragments would be more than fast and big enough to penetrate the bulkhead separating the machinery spaces and the magazines, and hot enough to ignite the stored ammunition!
And if the fuze failed....well a shell devastating the inside of a ship gets really hot, as well as the punched out fragments! Would also be more than enough energy to ignite the magazines
Great vid Oceanliner Designs! Another fascinating look at what doomed the Mighty Hood.
Such an elegant warship for sure.
Great video. Thank you. One of favorite movies growing up was Sink the Bismarck. Now almost 60 years later I am still obsessed and learning more about this tragic time in history.
I believe the plunging fire theory was more to do with Admiral Holland wanting to close the range as quickly as possible to avoid the plunging fire of Bismarck. Also if you read Alarm Starboard by Geoffrey Brooke, a survivor from the Prince of Wales, you will see how close the Prince of Wales also came to being sunk. After the battle the ship entered drydock in Rosyth where a 15 inch shell was found to have penetrated the armour and laded close to a magazine in the bilge keel. They had to cut the ship open to take it out.
Ironically the Prince of Wales was sunk along with another battlecruiser(Repulse) a relatively short time later by land based aircraft. I think it was Dec 8 1941.
there is a photo of HMS Hood from the air going at speed and it becomes very obvious, the shape of Hood's Hull leaves a dip of water just forward of the 3rd turret, this means that bismarcks shell would hit below the armor belt without going through water
By British calculations, it could have penetrated the belt at a range of 14,000 yards.
Having just found this channel and watched this and the Scharnhorst video's, I'm mightily impressed with your excellent production quality and mature views and opinions. Thank you. CGI has come a long way; oh I'd love to see you producing a multi episode covering the Battle of Jutland. An event never presented in any depth before. Better hurry, as I'm 70 and running out of time!
I've watched three videos from you so far, and I am quite impressed. You provide good detail and information. I am quite pleased with all the different ships you cover;
you earned a subscriber today!
Great video!
I saw a theory on National Geographic that the Bismarck hit an AA ammo storage (retrofitted into Hood during interwar years) and it was powerful enough to detonate the main ammo storage.
That was a popular theory, but much like the torpedo theory it has been thoroughly disproven (for many of the same reasons).
I disagree that the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were well-suited to attack convoys. They were tied to their supply ships for ammunition, food, fuel, and repairs. They could certainly sink a few ships, disrupt a few convoys, but they'd have to refuel once a week, resupply once a month, and those supply ships were extremely vulnerable. If Britain really wanted to render the German ships useless on the cheap, all they had to do was sink their supply ships, and send British battleships snooping around; the Germans had to avoid battle at all costs, as the Hood/Prince of Wales battle showed.
They were the most inefficient way possible for Germany to attack merchant ships.
Bismark could sink a whole convoy and her escorts in probably half an hour with her 8 pairs of 150mm guns and 4 pairs of 15 inch guns and chase down anything that got away. She was fast and accurate. The only solution was to disperse the convoy. This happened to Convoy PQ17 when it was feared Tirptiz was out. Most of the convoy (80%) was easily sunk by the Luftwaffe and u-boats.
When a ship turns violently to port, It suddenly creates an "empty space" at starboard. Water rushes in to fill that void, creating large waves. As Hood was turning to port those waves at starboard were exposing parts of her hull that should be underwater in normal conditons. It was at one of those sections under the waterline, just below the armor belt, exposed by one of the waves, that Bismark's shell struck. Not even the Best ship designers could have foreseeen that.
Another absolutely top-notch video! Thank you for your careful research and respectful handling of these tragedies at sea.
Nice info with the Bismark broadside tonnage and armament. The Ship gets so much hype as the best in class but it was purpose built for a specific niche.
It could certainly take a hit though, the Battle of Denmark Strait proved it, but as firepower goes it wasn´t anything out of the ordinary for the day. It was basically a RPG tank, standard damage but great survivability.
One could be tempted to describe Hood more like a rogue, faster and with higher damage output (DPS) in mind yet more vulnerable, at least for WWII standards. But at the time it was built (almost 20 years before) it was properly best in class among warships, she was just unfortunate time had moved on and lessons were learned. However, the fact the explosion is still a mystery probably tells us armor thickness itself may not have been the issue.
Bismarck could have packed more firepower if it had used fewer turrets with triple or quadruple guns like some of the British, French and U.S. battleships. But the German shipyards and navy had no experience of large caliber guns in multiple turrets (which could be problematic to get right) and they were in a hurry to build Bismarck and Tirpitz. So it was easier to revert to the proven twin 15" gun layout they used in world war one.
@@philiphumphrey1548 Indeed.
Being unable to properly rebuild and mantain a navy during the interwar period really hampered their efforts. If they could have kept their WWI numbers they could have been a headache for the allies but really the surface fleet was dead weight after 1941
A lot of that can be attributed to her extreme beam. As for her armor, in the final engagement, with Rodney and KGV closing to less than 10,000 yards, it was just as vulnerable as any other. A nice 16-inch hole in the main belt photographed on a recent survey of the wreck puts paid to the notion that the Bismarck's belt was impenetrable.
Ah Bismarck… Last year I was standing on the fantail of North Carolina, BB55, when I struck up a conversation with another guest. He made a comment about Bismarck being the most powerful Battleship ever built. I bit my tongue as I wanted to say “Yamato or Iowa might have something to say about that” or point out that he was literally standing on a ship more powerfully armed than Bismarck. Instead, I tried to politely offer that while Bismarck had strengths, other ships did too.
To be fair you can't really compare ships built for the Atlantic to those built for the Pacific, and I could be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure both Pacific and Atlantic ships had different armor aswell
@@pfcallen8728 valid point. As Mike states, Bismarck was designed for a close range North Sea fight. Had Washington somehow managed to meet Tirpitz while BB56 was serving with the British Home fleet in 1942, I am not at all sure the US ship would have prevailed, but I am not sure to at she would not have. Washington made short work of Kirishima later that year.
@@pedenharley6266 true I personally think they would be evenly matched so to say but at the end of the day they are very beautiful ships
Bismark (& 4 months latter the Tirpitz) was the most Powerful in 1941 at the time of Bismark's maiden voyage and the phrase stems from that. The Iowa class were only launched 2 years latter and would have been contemporary of the H-class battleships under construction at the same time. At the time that the Iowas were on the slipway Germany had two H-class battleships on the slipway as well with 8000 and 4000 tons of steel laid down. These two H class ships were scrapped and the steel and workforce used for building u-boats. Had they have been built they would have been undergoing sea trials the same time as Iowa. The H-class's their 16 inch guns and 65,000 ton displacement would be more than a match for the smaller Iowas 16 inch guns and Armour and likely the Yamato as well.. If you want a comparison in the same time period the Bismark versus the North Carolina would be about right. High velocity 15 inch guns versus bigger lower velocity 16 inch guns.
@@williamzk9083 Yeah no absolutely not. Iowa's had 9 guns to the 8 of H Class, better speed, fairly comparable armor and better guns overall with superior penetration backed up by a ridiculously accurate fire control system. And Yamatos' yeah no Yamato's would have crushed H even harder with way more powerful guns and thicker armor, and although the IJN didn't have radar Gunnery their optical systems where very good.
This is the biggest problem with WW2 German naval construction is that their ships where very inefficient bloated messes. Bismarck's on paper stats are very very close to the French Richelieu class, despite the latter being 7,000 tons lighter due to Bismarck's incredibly inefficient design, and the H's where even worse than that. Same is true of the Hipper class cruisers which despite being nearly as heavy as a Des Moines class, had capabilities more on par with the British County class cruisers, despite being 6000 tons lighter. And again the French Algerie, the IJN's Mogami and Myoko classes or the USS Wichita, all contemporaries of hipper managed to be superior on several ways despite being thousands of ton's lighter lighter. And the less said about a hipper trying to go up against a Des Moines the better.
As it turns out the Nazi's replacing competent ship designers with hacks promoted for their political loyalty over actual ability was a massive detriment to german shipbuilding. In fact a lot of German engineering during WW2 was pretty terrible and a lot of it can be traced back to Nazi's promoting engineers based on political loyalty and racial purity over actual ability.
Excellent work once again Mr. Brady, I salute you for tackling one of the most closely examined and controversial incidents in modern naval history in your own confident and comfortable style. I like that you gave a suitable amount of context regarding the design intent of the combatants and the strategic situation for those unfamiliar with the battle, but without falling into the trap of waffling for too long about "big picture" stuff only tangentially related to this specific engagement. Nice tight scripting and editing, good technical analysis/explanation, very nice looking as always. Great job Mike, cheers!
Excellently done as always! I really enjoy listening to you cover battle action. I'd watch a WW2 series from you 100 times.
Hood is by far one of my favorite British Fast Battleship/Battlecruiser (depends who you ask) designs, while future British Battleships sacrificed more armor for speed (like their Cruisers) Hood was well balanced akin to an Iowa at the time, she certainly would have been called a Fast Battleship in the U.S. Navy. Popular opinion is if the crew actually followed safety precautions and had all the magazines shut, she probably would have survived to limp away then possibly modernized. And given how Hood was one of the most cherished ships in the Royal Navy, she might have also been saved as a museum ship. But if Warspites fate and how hard the Royal Navy fought the British Government to preserve Belfast are anything to go by, Hood being preserved as a museum if she survived is a bigger debate.
She was a fine ship... my respects to her and the men that served on her
Renown, which received a full modernization overhaul in 1936, the saw her provided with additional armor and underwater protection, a new tower superstructure, a secondary armament of 20 x 4.5-inch dual purpose guns in ten twin mounts, and additional light anti-aircraft guns. Wartime saw her light AA battery greatly expanded, while the ship also received the latest in air search, surface search and fire control radars, which made her a very effective unit of the fleet.
Hood was supposed to receive a similar upgrade, but was always in such great demand that there was no time. One wonders how she would have fared against Bismarck if she had.
Warspite, Ilustrious, USS Saratoga and Enterprise had been preserved as museum ships, they would always being very popular...
@@Yamato-tp2kf A significant effort was made to preserve Enterprise, led by Admiral William Halsey. Unfortunately, fundraising fell short, and the ship went to the breakers in 1958. After World War II, it seemed as if the British just wanted to forget, and Warspite, along with other famous battleships, were scrapped in the 1950s and early 60s. Today, HMS Edinburgh, docked on the Thames, is one of only a handful of Royal Navy ships left over from World War II.
@@StuartKoehl Yes indeed, many Big E veterans said that their heart was broken when they got the news that the Big E CV6 was going to be scrapped
HMS Belfast as the HMS Edinburgh was sunk in 1942 i believe
Prediction going in: probably had something to do with the German shell
Well done Mike. The background leading to the battle was very informative. The loss of life on both Hood and Bismarck was staggering.
This is the first video I've watched on your channel, I've seen quite a few video's regarding this subject, but this is an absolute gem, great job man. Subbed.