The wooden deck was a major factor as it was the deck that took the direct hit .The deck was weakley armoured and one of Bismarks 15 In shells hit ammunition store .My grandad was there when Hood went down as he was on Ark Royal .
The Ark was not in company with Hood when she was lost.
She was like there is a photo of Hood going down taken from Ark Royal .
Really sad that. Poor bloke.
My Great-uncle was a commando - served in the Aegean on disguised fishing boats which were used to shoot up German supply routes between the Greek islands and raid small island garrisons. Their boat hit a mine and was destroyed - he was one of the only survivors. According to family legend, he was washed ashore on one of the Greek island wearing only one of his deck shoes.
Daily mail article about the 3 survivors has a photo of Hood disappearing beneath the waves as taken from Ark Royal .Looks like they got it wrong .Battle of the Denmark Strait - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Force H including Ark Royal was deployed north from Gib.
In the course of the warship's eight-month career under its sole commanding officer, Captain Ernst Lindemann, Bismarck conducted only one offensive operation, lasting 8 days in May 1941, codenamed Rheinübung. The ship, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was to break into the Atlantic Ocean and raid Allied shipping from North America to Great Britain. The two ships were detected several times off Scandinavia, and British naval units were deployed to block their route. At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the battlecruiser HMS Hood initially engaged Prinz Eugen, probably by mistake, while HMS Prince of Wales engaged Bismarck. In the ensuing battle Hood was destroyed by the combined fire of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, which then damaged Prince of Wales and forced her retreat. Bismarck suffered sufficient damage from three hits to force an end to the raiding mission.
The destruction of Hood spurred a relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy involving dozens of warships. Two days later, heading for occupied France to effect repairs, Bismarck was attacked by 16 obsolescent Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal; one scored a hit that rendered the battleship's steering gear inoperable. In her final battle the following morning, the already-crippled Bismarck was severely damaged during a sustained engagement with two British battleships and two heavy cruisers, was scuttled by her crew, and sank with heavy loss of life. Most experts agree that the battle damage would have caused her to sink eventually. The wreck was located in June 1989 by Robert Ballard, and has since been further surveyed by several other expeditions.
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The Daily Mail.
Say no more mate.
Wrong information from the daily mail aticle.They have photo of Hood sinking saying it was took from Ark Royal .
Wrong information from daily mail article about the 3 survivors .As they have a photo of Hood sinking saying it was taken from Ark Royal.
The media, in general, have been pathetic in recent years when printing or televising images from WW2 as background to some of the major event anniversaries.The Daily Mail.
Hell of an explosion that was.
Isn't there an American cargo ship loaded with munitions sunk in the Thames estuary that, if it ever explodes, will take out a huge portion of London?Hell of an explosion that was.
