Guest wrote:
EJ Foeth, Joseph R, Cag and Chuck,
As fascinating as the investigation into whether or not the 'midships wave trough had anything to do with HMS HOOD's demise is, I have some doubts as to what it will prove. I assume that all will be aware that HMS PRINCE OF WALES (PoW) suffered an underwater hit below the belt during the Denmark Straits action: I have never seen any claim in print that a trough had anything to do with it. That aside, it was known by the Germans as early as 1933 that diving shells had the ability to travel like an un-powered torpedo below the surface of water but whether or not a wave trough, would have had any bearing on the matter is debatable.
If an under-water hit was a factor in HOOD's demise, surely a shot falling "short" would have received comment during the investigation afterwards. However, I can't recall reading about such a thing in Mr Jurens's article on the HOOD website. What interests me is the somewhat mysterious comment attributed to Captain Leach that he had the impression that something had arrived onboard the flagship early in the action, there was then a massive fire aft followed thereafter by the loss of the ship.
Concerning speed gained/lost as a result of weather/wave action. Yes, it can happen but I doubt if it had much, if any, effect on the action in the Denmark Strait that day. The sea appears to have been relatively calm from photographs/film that I've seen, thus the wind speed will have been fairly low: nowhere near enough to have affected the speed of the formation. A ship does lose speed in a turn but I doubt if this had any effect on the factors involved either.
Hello again Guest,
Apologies for repeating myself but concerning wake form I am really only interested to understand exactly how HOOD would have appeared in her final turn - because I am a maritime artist and I am just finishing a painting of exactly this, which I only want to ensure is as accurate as I can possibly make it..
I would agree with you that the midship trough probably mattered little given the diving shell which found its way into POW, as you correctly point out. In defence of Drachinifel however he did present an argument whereby a shorter distance of underwater travel may have resulted in a higher probability of the fuse actually arriving intact and triggering.. I am neither agreeing or disagreeing with this theory - which is probably academic anyway given that nobody will ever know exactly what led to the demise of this beautiful ship. I think that the theory, while obviously novel, stands as nothing more than an interesting piece of conjecture against the myriad of other equally credible possibilities. Personally I am just as inclined to believe the 'dreadful fluke' was achieved by something more akin to a Kennedy bullet - given that the kinematics and inherent instabilities of high energy collisions are very given to a shell actually changing direction after it enters a ship. We know this for certain from damage reports from surviving ships describing heavy shells crashing through and changing directions several times before eventually coming to rest. But again, this is also just conjecture.
With respect to your anecdote about "something arriving early in the action" - was this not just a reference to the boat deck fire observed on HOOD's shelter deck? I recall there was another eyewitness report from POW (Captain J.C. Leach?) which mentioned HOOD was hit badly and was likely out of action, by this same series of events resulting in the R/U ammunition fires on HOOD's boatdeck [which were actually non-critical] ..
Given the variance across surviving accounts I would heavily doubt that everything that happened, especially concerning fall of shot etc, was actually witnessed in the final seconds.
Lastly, concerning sea state and wind etc - I think a Beaufort 3 from Starboard with slight swell was correct. "A grey sea under a grey sky".. Ted Briggs also mentioned some swell and enough of it to wet the upper decks at speed. I agree not enough to affect ship speed; and that photographs from the German side don't appear to show a high swell - however this can be difficult to judge given that the ships involved were obviously very large.
Regards,
Joseph
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