The Mighty Hood by Ernle Bradford

Author:Ernle Bradford [Bradford, Ernle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, WWII, Military History, Naval History, H M S Hood
Published: 2011-03-29T23:00:00+00:00

“Westcountry born, Westcountry bred—

Strong in the arm, and weak in the head—”

they found the old city a fine place. Dance halls were still open, there were sailors’ bars and restaurants, and red-cheeked girls. During the day those of the crew who were not on long leave were kept busy. The ship clanged and hissed with riveting and welding, and the clumping feet of “dockyard mateys” cheerfully disregarded the scrubbed corticene and teak, over which thousands of sailors in the past had spent long hours of labor. By night she was silent, with most of her crew ashore. She was alive only in a few places—where the gangway staff drank their cocoa and nattered together; or where an urgent all-night job kept specialist workmen busy, installing new cable or relaying another of the hundred miles of leads which formed the network of her nerves.

The evacuation from Dunkirk had begun by the time that the great ship put to sea again and headed north for Liverpool. It was a wet day in a gray world as she sliced through St. George’s Channel and into the Irish Sea.

“Where we off to now, Stripey?”

“Flogging the same bit of ocean, I expect. You’d better get your warm clothing out of the scran bag.”

“Wish we was down in the Med—taking the sun in jollay old Montay Carlo, what?”

In June that wish came true. The usual “buzzes” and “canteen” rumors had been circulating round the messdecks: they were to be based on Iceland; working from the Azores; going bade to Devonport for a “proper refit this time”; sent to Singapore; or through the long rollers off the Cape to work from Durban. Now they were told—the Hood would rendezvous at sea with Ark Royal and would proceed to Gibraltar. There she would form the kernel of the new striking force that had just been called into being—Force H. The Admiralty had decided that our convoy routes between Sierra Leone and Gilbraltar should be covered by a powerful, independent force, which could also operate in the western basin of the Mediterranean when need arose. Force H would be under the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville

in the Hood. It was to be a detached squadron responsible direct to the Admiralty, and not coming under the orders of Admiral Sir Dudley North, the flag officer North Atlantic, whose base was also at Gibraltar. -

On June 18 the Hood sailed for Gibraltar. The weather was fine as they ran through the Bay of Biscay. The long level panels of the Atlantic dovetailed into one another, as the swell lifted over the continental shelf. Shortly after 2 p.m. one afternoon they sighted the broad shoulders and swaggering flight- deck of the Ark Royal, wearing the flag of Vice-Admiral L. V. Wells, as she lifted out of the sea ahead. On June 23 the two ships secured in Gibraltar.

Hundreds of the Hood’s sailors stepped for the first time in their lives on to an unfamiliar shore. But the Rock was never entirely foreign.

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