HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy Review

Average Reviews:

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

Click Here to see more reviews about: HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy

The sinking of the HMS Hood on May 24, 1941 dealt a major blow to the British Royal Navy. Like Titanic years before, Hood had seemed invincible and much of the hopes of the Royal Navy rested with her as the nation entered the war with Germany. But in just seven minutes after an encounter with Bismarck and her consort Prinz Eugen, HMS Hood sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic, taking the lives of 1,418 men with her. Author Andrew Norman explores the events leading up to the disaster and the legacy it left in its wake.

Click here for more information about HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy