This is a good book. A REALLY good book.

Hood, indisputably the most famous of British battle cruisers, has generated, probably, more books than all of her lesser-known sisters combined. These have, to put it charitably, been of variant quality, and few readers have the resources or the interest to attempt to purchase them all. One no longer need attempt to do so; so far as history is concerned, this new book on Hood is definitive.

This is primarily a book about people. And, because Hood was largely representative of the fleet as a whole, this narrative also provides a useful insight into the entire inter-war Royal Navy within which she served so long and faithfully. The author knows his limits and wisely refrains from detailed analysis of ‘nuts and bolts’ issues — which have been in any case well covered in other publications, most notably John Roberts’ well known Anatomy of the Ship – Hood — and concentrates instead on the story of Hood as a floating city — a ‘community of men’. In that regard this book may be seen as a greatly expanded, heavily illustrated (and equally readable) version of Ernle Bradford’s The Mighty Hood published in 1959. The writing style is informative, informal, and enjoyable, with not an ounce of repetition or ‘padding’. The footnotes are excellent, the bibliography is complete (and obviously well read) and the author provides a number of useful, interesting, and in this reader’s experience, unique, appendices, including a virtual day-by-day chronology of the ship’s activities throughout her career. The book also contains a complete listing of those lost when the ship exploded, and a comprehensive index. The binding is outstanding, the quality of the paper is high, the photographic illustrations are — considering the originals from which they are derived — crisp and clean, and the captions are a pleasure to read. The balance between the size and number of illustrations has been well worked out, and the eye-catching diagrams by Thomas Schmid are extremely well presented.

The main body of the text consists of nine chapters revolving around the personal history of Hood, from conception all the way through to her tragic loss in 1941. The first two chapters describe the ship as a physical entity, with the first describing Hood’s genesis and design, and the second — beautifully illustrated — describing the ship’s geometry and layout. Taylor concludes “Put simply, the Hood did not have an armoured deck and in this lay the fatal weakness of her design, however superior her arrangements to previous construction. Though occasionally classified as a fast battleship, by later standards the Hood failed to make the transition from a battlecruiser and ultimately proved incapable of meeting the requirement that had sooner or later to be made of any warship: the ability to withstand punishment from ships armed to the same standard as herself.”

In Chapter Two (A Tour of the Ship) Taylor really hits his stride. Taylor uses a 1926 visit of the journalist George Aston as a framework to literally walk us through the interior of the ship, along a path liberally illustrated with diagrams and photographs. Photographs of the interiors of warships are relatively rare, and this selection of internal shots is particularly welcome, covering everything from the Admiral Field’s cabin to the (in this case) sparkling new boiler rooms. The detailed explanation of the handling of ammunition and the working of the guns is one of the most detailed this reader has seen in a generally published book.

Chapters Three through Five depict Hood’s activities in her early days, while at the same time explaining the day-to-day routine of typical members of the ships company, both on and off duty. Chapter Three (Glory Ship) begins with a detailed portrayal of the ship’s sports and recreational activities, which ranged from football to boxing. The anecdotal accounts in this section, selected from a staggering range of primary and secondary references, are excellent. The well-known World Cruise of 1923–1924 is covered in detail, and — as usual — the selection of photographs is outstanding, including many never-before-published views. Chapter Four (Routine, Work and Rest) describes in detail the daily working routine of Hood — and undoubtedly most of her sisters. Again, the emphasis is on the ordinary recollections of ordinary men usually doing rather ordinary jobs. Especially welcome is the extensive description of Hood’s seakeeping characteristics. Chapter Five (Life Aboard) concentrates on the daily “off-duty” routine of the ship’s company; the social life and inter-personal relationships, including — for the first time in this reader’s experience — a frank and detailed discussion of shipboard sexuality, the sometimes desperate search for a bit of privacy, the problems of shipboard crime, and difficulties with disease and hygiene.

Chapters Six through Nine describe and illustrate the activities of the ship from the 1931 Invergordon mutiny through to her tragic end in the Denmark Strait. Chapter Six (Disaster and Recovery, 1931–1936) provides a rather complete story of the disastrous Invergordon Mutiny of September 1931 and Hood’s subsequent — and slow — recovery to normalcy. Chapter Seven (War Clouds, 1936–1939) and Chapter Eight (To War) concentrate on the desperate, valiant, and often futile, attempts to return Hood — then an old ship having suffered years of neglect at the hands of inadequate budgets — back to fighting trim, both literally and figuratively. These chapters also describe the transition between the relative comforts of peacetime steaming, and contrasts these with the relatively relentless strain and discomfort of war operations in what was, by then, a rather cramped and ill-ventilated ship. Chapter Nine (The End of Glory) narrates the actions leading up to the loss of this ship in the Denmark Strait. This reader, who visited the wreck of Hood in 2001 as a technical expert representing the Society of Naval Architects and Engineers, is glad to see that the author has eschewed some of the more recent speculations regarding Hood’s loss, and has chosen to cleave to the much more conservative (and reasonable) findings of the original Boards of Inquiry. In a work as widely read as this one will be, that is important.

Is the book perfect? Only nearly so. As any author or editor knows, books are never error-free, but this volume contains far less than its share of minor typographical and factual mistakes. I found only three, and frankly it would be nit-picking to mention them.

The Battlecruiser HMS Hood: An Illustrated Biography, 1916–1941 is a definitive work, unlikely to be surpassed — or even equalled — in the future. Anyone interested in this magnificent ship should by all means beg, borrow, or steal the money to buy a copy.

Bill Jurens