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HMS Hood 1918
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Launched in August 1918, after being christened by the widow of Admiral Sir Horace Hood (a Jutland casualty and distant relative of the famous Lord Hood for whom the ship was named), and seen here about 1932, HMS Hood is reputed to be one of the most beautifully designed capital ship of its time. A battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. She was one of four Admiral-class ships ordered in mid-1916 under the Emergency War Programme, but her sisters were never completed, and Hood was to be Britain's last battlecruiser. Construction of Hood began at Clydebank, Scotland, in September 1916. Following the loss of three British battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland, 5,000 tons of extra armour and bracing was added to Hood's design. Construction on her sister ships (Anson, Howe, and Rodney) was stopped in March 1917, but work continued on Hood.
During the Battle of Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941, she was hit by a shell fired by the Bismarck which caused the catastrophic explosion of her aft magazines. Of the 1,418 aboard, only three survived. The dramatic loss of such a well-known symbol of British naval power had a great effect on many people; some later remembered the news as the most shocking of World War II.
The wreck of Hood was discovered in 3,000 metres of water in July 2001. In 2002 the UK government designated the site a war grave.
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