Good Morning...Raise a glass to HMS Hood

[Okla-homey]

May 24, 1941 Bismarck sinks HMS Hood

65 years ago on this day in 1941, Germany's largest battleship, Bismarck, sinks the pride of the British fleet, HMS Hood.

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/5618/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa14.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Stern view of the Nazi behemoth Bismarck

Bismarck was the most modern of Germany's battleships, a prize coveted by other nation's navies, even while still in the blueprint stage (Hitler handed over a copy of its blueprints to Joseph Stalin as a concession during the days of the Hitler-Stalin neutrality pact).

HMS Hood, originally launched in 1918, was Britain's largest battle cruiser (41,200 tons)-but also capable of achieving the relatively fast speed of 31 knots. IOW, you could water ski behind her with a very long ski rope.

Hood was designed during the post-WWI period in which British naval architects believed warships could be more effective relying on great speed than weighty steel armor. Thus, they traded-off lighter armor for speed. In fact, Hood had hardly any horizontal armor at all beneath her decks and thus the plunging fire she received from Bismarck was hardly prevented from penetrating deep into her vital areas

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/8500/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa13.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Hood photographed during happier days in 1924 enroute to Australia.

The two ships met in the North Atlantic, northeast of Iceland, where Hood and her sister ship HMS Prince of Wales had tracked down Bismarck. Commanded by Admiral Gunther Lutjens, commander-in-chief of the German Fleet, Bismarck sunk Hood, resulting in the death of 1,500 of its crew; only three Brits survived. Prince of Wales took to her heels after witnessing Hood's destruction

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/5618/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa14.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
The death of HMS Hood. She went down with a loss of all but three hands due to a direct 15" main battery Bismarck hit on one of Hood's ammunition magazines which resulted in a catastrophic explosion.

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/5295/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa1.png (http://imageshack.us)
Snapshot by German sailor of Bismarck's engagement with Hood shot on this day in 1941. Those spashes are the impact of Bismarck's 15" guns striking the sea around Hood which can be seen between the plumes.

During the engagement, Bismarck's oil bunker was damaged. The breach contaminated her fuel supply with seawater and made tracking her easier because she left an oily film trail like a garden slug as she made for port and the relative safety Luftwaffe land-based aircover could provide. Lutjens tried desperately to make for the French coast, but was sighted again only three days later.

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9027/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa12.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Flight of Fairey "Swordfish." The rag-wing biplanes proved they could still be effective in modern naval warfare in 1941 when flown by very dedicated two-man crews.

Torpedoed to the point of incapacity by Royal Navy carrier based Fairey "Swordfish" torpedo bombers, Bismarck was finally sunk by a task force of British war ships especially assembled for the purpose of sending the Nazi menace to the bottom. Admiral Lutjens was one of the 2,300 German casualties.

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3853/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Bismarck underway as photographed from the deck of escort cruiser Prinz Eugen.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/9339/insane7zo5wa.jpg

[Vaevictis]

The fiercest serpent can be overcome by a swarm of ants.

(Said by Admiral Yamamoto with respect to the overconfidence of other Imperial Navy Admiral's overconfidence about their Yamato class ships)

[TUSooner]

Great stuff. As a kid, I read ever word I could find about WWII naval war, especially in the Atlantic.
There weren't many survivors from BISMARCK either, as I recall. The Brits were picking some up and supposedly got a report of a U-boat in the area and steamed off leaving hundreds to die of hypothermia in the cold Atlantic.

[Scott D]

The fiercest serpent can be overcome by a swarm of ants.

(Said by Admiral Yamamoto with respect to the overconfidence of other Imperial Navy Admiral's overconfidence about their Yamato class ships)

Yamamoto was a smart man, we're very lucky that nobody in the Japanese High Command woud listen to him.

[royalfan5]

I find it ironic that the Hood met the exact same fact as Adm. Hood did at Jutland on the Invincible.

[picasso]

http://www.audiohead.net/interviews/chadmuska/images/bizmarkie.jpg

[Scott D]

http://www.audiohead.net/interviews/chadmuska/images/bizmarkie.jpg

OH BABY YOUUUUU...YOU GOT WHAT I NEEEEEED...BUT YOU SAY HE'S JUST A FRIEND..AND YOU SAY HE'S JUST A FRIEND.

[picasso]

OH BABY YOUUUUU...YOU GOT WHAT I NEEEEEED...BUT YOU SAY HE'S JUST A FRIEND..AND YOU SAY HE'S JUST A FRIEND.
EXACTLY what I was thinking when I posted it!:D

[Scott D]

Well I did wrestle with making it that or The Vapors :D

[Vaevictis]

Yamamoto was a smart man, we're very lucky that nobody in the Japanese High Command woud listen to him.

Yep. If they did what he suggested, Japan would have actually been in a position to have that Asian Empire they wanted.

[picasso]

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/5295/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa1.png
I have never seen that pic before. kind of haunting.

[TUSooner]

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/5295/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa1.png
I have never seen that pic before. kind of haunting.
Agreed.
I think it only took 2 or 3 salvos to get the direct hit that did her in.

[jkm, the stolen pifwafwi]

Yamamoto was a smart man, we're very lucky that nobody in the Japanese High Command woud listen to him.

his death is an interesting story as well. how we purposely targeted him for assassination since we'd broken the japanese naval codes. the british did the same with heidrich in czechslovakia...

[Scott D]

his death is an interesting story as well. how we purposely targeted him for assassination since we'd broken the japanese naval codes. the british did the same with heidrich in czechslovakia...

Even more interesting is that we trained him in the art of Naval Warfare.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h78000/h78628.jpg

[Okla-homey]

The thing that really got Admiral Y's attention was while he was stationed in the US on naval attache duty in the 1920's, he traveled the length and breadth of the US by train and really observed American culture and industry up close.

That is precisely why he believed America could only be defeated by the Japanese Empire by a devastating knock-out blow in the first round. He instinctively understood, based on observing us up close, that if the Japanese were unable to deliver that knock-out in 1942, we'd rebound and the full weight of our industrial might and vast population would ultimately destroy Japan.

He was right.

[Scott D]

and thankfully for us Tojo loved the army far more than he loved the navy.

[Vaevictis]

his death is an interesting story as well. how we purposely targeted him for assassination since we'd broken the japanese naval codes. the british did the same with heidrich in czechslovakia...

The whole breakage of the naval codes is a drama unto itself. Not only did it lead to our assassination of Yamamoto, but it was basically *the* essential component of our victory at Midway.

If we don't have the codes, Midway is a trap from which the USA does not escape, not the other way around. Their battle group was much larger -- something like twice as large in all classes -- and back then, the Navies were of roughly equal parity. Instead, we sink like 2/3 of their carriers, and essentially win the naval war at that point.



That is precisely why he believed America could only be defeated by the Japanese Empire by a devastating knock-out blow in the first round. He instinctively understood, based on observing us up close, that if the Japanese were unable to deliver that knock-out in 1942, we'd rebound and the full weight of our industrial might and vast population would ultimately destroy Japan.

He knew the war was almost certianly lost the day of Pearl Harbor, when he heard that the Japanese diplomats were late severing relations. He figured (correctly) that because of that, the attack would be taken as a cowardly suprise attack, and that we would be out for revenge.

His ultimate strategy was one where he would provide the initial crippling of the American fleet, followed by another offensive decisive battle at Midway to prevent the American fleet from getting a strength advantage. It probably would have worked too, without the cracking of the codes. He hoped that perhaps in doing so, he could force a negotiated peace; on that point, I think he was wrong. I'm pretty sure that even if he managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet a second time, we would not have negotiated a peace.

[Okla-homey]

I'm pretty sure that even if he managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet a second time, we would not have negotiated a peace.

Yep, as Roy D. Mercer would say, we had a pretty good mad on. Personally, i think if the japanese hadn't thrown in the towel after Nagasaki, that nation would have been wiped off the face of the Earth. There was no end to ill will for Japan after Pearl Harbor and news of their atrocities to Allied PW's got back here...and I'm not talking nude snapshots with PFC Lyndie England either. Full-on samurai sword beheadings and such. Just ask anyone you know who was alive in in the 1940's.

[Scott D]

The beheadings were the kind ones. Anyone who was a Japanese POW would tell you that.

[picasso]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Rape-of-nanking-cover.gif
should be required reading for any idiot that's ever thrown goat blood on the Enola Gay.

[Vaevictis]

Just ask anyone you know who was alive in in the 1940's.

Heh, I have. My grandfather, who was a gunner on a bomber of some kind in what I gather was the Indian theatre, on rare occassions is willing to talk about the war. (The reason I say "I gather" is because, as I said, he is only willing to speak on rare occasions -- like 5 times or so in my life, in minimal detail. Except the one story where he mocks "military intelligence" for a particularly stupid thing they did.)

Interestly, I get both sides of it as my grandmother was Japanese and was around for the war. Maybe Japan would have been wiped off the map -- in fact, I think it would have been after the welcome we would have received on the mainland -- but we would have lost nearly an entire generation of young men doing it. They were teaching young children, male and female (my grandmother being one of them) about hand to hand combat, guerilla warfare, etc. It would have been Iwo Jima, except instead of it just being a few tens of thousands of soldiers, it would have been millions of civilians.

Both sides were very fortunate that the Emporer was a reasonable man and that he was able to wrest control from the military.

[picasso]

they still had an adequate army on their mainland no? not to mention the superior weapons they were devloping like submarine with airplane attachment.

[Vaevictis]

That may be, but long-term we would have won simply because of:
1. Our superior industrial capacity even when Japan's was at it's apex.
2. Their inability to attack our industrial base.
3. Our ability to attack theirs at will.
4. Our superior man power.

(there were other reasons, such as the total impossibility of their army EVER being able to take and hold our mainland, but those are the obvious and immediate reasons)

[olevetonahill]

My Dad was WW2 PTO vet , nuff said
Thank God for the Enola Gay and her payload , nuff said
My hats off to any one who was willing to put his *** on a big hunk of metal, In the middle of miles of water and even hope to survive:eek:
Damn at least in the nam we had our "boots on the ground "
I cant even imagine the hell the sailors went thru .:eek:
Go see that WW2 sub in Muskogee, Tiny little thing .

[Okla-homey]

Maybe Japan would have been wiped off the map -- in fact, I think it would have been after the welcome we would have received on the mainland -- but we would have lost nearly an entire generation of young men doing it. They were teaching young children, male and female (my grandmother being one of them) about hand to hand combat, guerilla warfare, etc. It would have been Iwo Jima, except instead of it just being a few tens of thousands of soldiers, it would have been millions of civilians.

Both sides were very fortunate that the Emporer was a reasonable man and that he was able to wrest control from the military.

Agreed, had invasion been necessary. I was primarily referring to repeated uses of of nuclear devices though. I'm not aware of how many more we had ready, but I'm reasonably certain once we used both prototypes and thus proved the design, we could have cranked out at least half a dozen more in pretty short order, provided we had sufficient quantities of nuclear material on hand.

[Vaevictis]

I seem to recall that the two we dropped were the only two we had at the time; and a half a dozen more wouldn't have cut it. It might have taken out the major industrial centers, but it would not have pacified the place. You need troops on the ground or the ability and willingness to nuke the population into oblivion.

The main issue I see with nuking the place into oblivion is the fact that we did have allies in the area, and the kind of nukage that would be required would not likely be looked upon kindly by those allies. The kind of fallout that one would expect from that volume would certainly effect the Chinese almost immediately, and would soon spread to cause problems for our British allies in India, Australia, Hong Kong, etc, to say nothing of our own holdings in SE Asia, and the USSR's aims for the area as well.

It may have been that we would be willing to do it, but I think it would have been a very complicated and difficult decision.

[Okla-homey]

The kind of fallout that one would expect from that volume would certainly effect the Chinese almost immediately, and would soon spread to cause problems for our British allies in India, Australia, Hong Kong, etc, to say nothing of our own holdings in SE Asia, and the USSR's aims for the area as well.

But the effects of nuke fallout weren't understood in 1945 were they?

[1stTimeCaller]

I saw on the History or Discovery channel where we were had rigged bats with napalm and were planning on releasing them on Japan to incinerate the place. It was a cool story. They shelved that idea when te nukes were availiable.

[picasso]

That may be, but long-term we would have won simply because of:
1. Our superior industrial capacity even when Japan's was at it's apex.
2. Their inability to attack our industrial base.
3. Our ability to attack theirs at will.
4. Our superior man power.

(there were other reasons, such as the total impossibility of their army EVER being able to take and hold our mainland, but those are the obvious and immediate reasons)
the thought of us losing never entered my mind. I was thinking more along the lines of just saving an untold number of U.S. servicemen.

[Vaevictis]

But the effects of nuke fallout weren't understood in 1945 were they?

I think that people involved in the program, and people at the highest levels of government, understood better than the public has been lead to believe. While radiation poisoning effects were not well understood, especially the duration of the threat, people understood that they existed, and it wouldn't take a genius to ask, "Gee, we dropped an atomic bomb, a huge frigging cloud of smoke and debris was thrown up. I wonder how radioactive that stuff is when it comes down?"

Mostly, what I suspect is that we would have dropped all of the bombs we could readily make (say, the extra 6ish you suggested), and we would have had a period where we would have to build more; during that period, our allies would have started to be effected, especially the Chinese and nearby British holdings, and people would have started asking, "WTF?"

Obviously, it's all speculation on my part. But I do know that it would take more than 8 bombs to nuke Japan into the stone age -- 8 would not likely manage Honshu, much less Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku -- and the period between us running out of fissionable material and having enough to build a new round of weapons would have provided for the "WTF?" scenario.

[Vaevictis]

the thought of us losing never entered my mind. I was thinking more along the lines of just saving an untold number of U.S. servicemen.

Well, in that case, it's not the superior weapons you mentioned that are the issue. Those are easy enough to deal with by bombing their industrial base and thus preventing them from making them. (Keep in mind that towards the end of the war, we had airbases in range of the main Japanese islands, and it would have been possible for us to level all of their cities like we did to Germany)

Nor is it the army that is the issue. Armies can be decapitated, and their supply lines cut, and because they're centrally organized, it is not terribly difficult to do so when you control the skies as we would have.

The real issue is the fact that the *entire* civilian populace would have been armed and quite ready and willing to fight to the death on behalf of their emporer. I mean, look at how the Vietcong bled us in Vietnam and how the Iraqi insurgents are bleeding us now. That's nothing compared to the resistance the Japanese civilian populace could have mounted; in Vietnam and Iraq, we had some amount of local support. It would not have been so in Japan.

Long term we win, but it would have cost us nearly that entire generation of men.

[BeetDigger]

I cant even imagine the hell the sailors went thru .:eek:



My father in law served on the Flint, a destroyer, during WWII. He joined the navy at 16 SPECIFICALLy to avoid having to march. He figured that whatever hell he had to go through on a ship was going to be better than marching all over Europe. As it was, he had to load the guns from down below. The Flint was in a convoy that encountered a number of battles. Down below it was hot, there were live shells, the work was done mostly bent over and you never knew if you were going to get hit by an incoming shell or torpedo. Amazingly, he never complained about having to do it however. He never bragged about it either. He was just matter of fact in talking about it.

[Harry Beanbag]

Long term we win, but it would have cost us nearly that entire generation of men.


Yep. After fighting from Normandy to Bavaria, my grandpa was sitting in Germany just waiting to be shipped to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. Thank God and Harry Truman it never came to that.

The casualty estimates of that operation were mind boggling, around 1 million, and that was just on the American side. Japanese casualties would have been ten times that.

Not to mention that the Soviets were absolutely obliterating the Japanese Army in Manchuria at the time...

[TUSooner]

Several members of the Hood family have served as admirals in the Royal Navy:

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (1724–1816)
Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport (1726–1814)
Sir Samuel Hood (1762–1814)
Arthur Hood, 1st Baron Hood (1824–1901)

[Okla-homey]

Several members of the Hood family have served as admirals in the Royal Navy:

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (1724–1816)
Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport (1726–1814)
Sir Samuel Hood (1762–1814)
Arthur Hood, 1st Baron Hood (1824–1901)

Yep, and I think the Napoleanic-era Hoodie is the one for whom she was named.

They Brits also did a very wierd thing (architecturally speaking) when they laid down the Nelson class of battlecruisers in the 1920's e.g. HMS Rodney. She and King George V took part in that final Bismarck death-match. Check her out, she was real oddity:

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2884/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa17.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

In 1921 the Admiralty had plans for battlecruisers in their final stages, but these breached the Washington Treaty on total displacement tonnage. It was decided at the time to build scaled-down versions of the garden-variety battle cruiser, using the same main guns, but reducing the armour dramatically. The need to economize on armour was the main reason to have all main guns facing forward (within the same armour section). The Nelson class became the first British ship to have 16" guns and triple turrets.

[TUSooner]

Neato Homey. I've heard of that "all guns forward" design. Oh well, the big guns were all but obsolete anyway by the end of the war (not quite, but almost).

[Harry Beanbag]

Neato Homey. I've heard of that "all guns forward" design. Oh well, the big guns were all but obsolete anyway by the end of the war (not quite, but almost).

I'd say they were basically obsolete when the war started. but very few people knew it yet. Submarines in the Atlantic and aircraft in the Pacific made the battleships into lumbering albatrosses good for little more than fire support for beach landings.

[TUSooner]

I'd say they were basically obsolete when the war started. but very few people knew it yet. Submarines in the Atlantic and aircraft in the Pacific made the battleships into lumbering albatrosses good for little more than fire support for beach landings.

Big guns still played a role in sea-land ops (you said that), even though there were relatively few ship vs ship big gun actions once folks realized that even string-bag biplanes could sink zillion-ton battleships