Our Navy in Wartime is a multi-segment short mostly filmed aboard the battlecruiser HMS Hood apparently during the first few months of the Second World War. It features several famous Royal Navy ships including HMS Ark Royal, HMS Nelson and HMS Repulse sailing in her company during various patrols and exercises from September to December 1939 along with footage of her crew engaged in various activities such as signaling by lamp and flag, exercising her anti-aircraft guns and playing hockey on her quarter deck. Target practice with naval guns, pom-pons and torpedoes is shown including retrieval of practice torpedoes, and delivery of mail at sea. A paravane is also shown being deployed.

There is dramatic footage taken aboard Hood in both moderate and heavy seas with waves crashing over her notoriously wet quarter deck, drenching her aft 15-inch turrets making it abundantly clear why she was called “the largest submarine in the fleet”!

Her virtually life-long companion, the battlecruiser Repulse, features prominently, steaming astern or on either quarter. There is footage of the carriers Ark Royal and Furious conducting air operations, and of the battleships Nelson and Rodney steaming off her starboard bow. In one instant, at about 10:55 in the film, there is a glimpse of the battleship Valiant astern in heavy seas.

A few destroyers are featured, two of which can be identified by their pennant numbers, HMS Tartar (F 43) and HMS Punjabi (F 21).

HMS Hood was the Royal Navy’s largest warship – the “Pride” of the navy – from her commissioning in 1920, until her tragic loss in May 1941. She had a very active wartime career – constant patrols and convoy coverage in the North and Norwegian Seas and the Atlantic. Her first taste of action came on September 26, 1939 when she and Ark Royal were bombed by German aircraft. Hood was hit by a 500 lb bomb on her port side which failed to penetrate but caused a concussion which almost put her ailing condensers out of action.

In June 1940, with the fall of France, she was sent to Gibraltar as flagship of Force H. Tragically, the first action carried out by that squadron was the bombardment of former allies – the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. It is possible that Hood’s very first salvo fired in “anger” hit the battleship Bretagne which blew up and sank in a magazine explosion. Her subsequently salvos scored four crippling hits on the Dunkerque.

Hood spent less than months with Force H. During this time, the fleet was unsuccessfully attacked by Italian aircraft on multiple occasions. On August 2, Hood escorted Ark Royal for a night-time air attack on the Italian air base of Cagliari as a diversionary operation to cover the carrier Argus’ sortie towards Malta to fly off needed Hurricane fighters, both successfully concluded. With invasion of Britain threatening, Hood was recalled to the Home Fleet to more endless patrols and convoy coverage.

On May 21, 1941, Hood was dispatched, along with the new battleship Prince of Wales to cover the northern exits to the Atlantic against a breakout by the new German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. On May 24, in the Denmark Strait, the British ships intercepted the Germans and in one of the most dramatic engagements of the war, Hood was struck by one of Bismarck’s 15-inch shells and suffered a magazine explosion that sank her in 3 to 4 minutes, leaving only 3 survivors of a crew of 1,418. Prince of Wales broke off the action damaged, but had succeeded in scoring 3 hits on Bismarck which set in motion the famous and dramatic sea chase that culminated in Bismarck’s sinking 3 days later.

The loss of Hood was a shock to not only Britain, but the world. For 20 years she had been the embodiment of British sea power, her combination of size, speed, firepower and exceptional beauty endearing her to many. Deficiencies in her armour protection, which made her particularly vulnerable to high velocity, armour piercing heavy shells, were known to only a few.

(Description courtesy Paul Cadogan June 2016)

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com