Horace Lambert Alexander Hood
Rear-Admiral Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood, K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O. (2 October, 1870 – 31 May, 1916) was an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War. An officer of undoubted ability, he died leading the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron in action at the Battle of Jutland.
Early Life
Hood was born at 40 South Street, London, on 2 October, 1870, the third of five sons of Francis Wheler Hood, fourth Viscount Hood (1838–1907), and his wife, Edith (d. 1911), daughter of Arthur W. Ward, of Tunbridge Wells. He was a descendant of Samuel, first Viscount Hood, whose younger brother was Alexander Hood, first Viscount Bridport—names famous in British naval history. He joined the Britannia as a naval cadet at the age of twelve, and left her, after the customary two years' training, with the highest classes obtainable in all subjects. He served in the Téméraire, of the Mediterranean Squadron, from September, 1885 to June, 1886, then in the Minotaur until January, 1887, when he joined the Calliope, and in her was present at Samoa in the hurricane of 16 March, 1889. In the examinations for his promotion to Lieutenant in 1890 he set what was then a record of 4398 out of a possible 4600 marks. He has been described as ‘the beau ideal of a naval officer, spirited in manner, lively of mind, enterprising, courageous, handsome, and youthful in appearance … His lineage was pure Royal Navy, at its most gallant’.
Career
Hood had a year's service in the Trafalgar (June, 1891 – September, 1892), and then spent three years ashore studying gunnery and acting as a staff officer; he next served successively in the Royal Sovereign, Wildfire, Sanspareil, and Cambrian. In June, 1897 he was lent to the Egyptian government for the Nile campaign, where he had his first experience of active service, in command of a river gunboat. He was present at the battles of the Atbara and Omdurman, and at the end of the campaign was promoted to Commander (1898). On the outbreak of the South African War he was employed for three months on transport duties. After serving as commander (1900–03) of the Ramillies, flagship of Lord Charles Beresford, second in command in the Mediterranean, he was promoted captain, and in July 1903 was appointed to the Hyacinth, flagship of Rear-Admiral G. L. Atkinson-Willes in the East Indies. He led the force sent against the Dervishes at Illig, Somaliland, in April 1904, when 627 officers and men of the Hyacinth, Fox, and Mohawk, with a detachment of 127 men of the Hampshire regiment, dislodged the Dervishes after landing in a heavy surf in the dark. He took a prominent part in the hand-to-hand fighting, and was appointed D.S.O. for his services. Hood next commanded the Berwick (1906–7) and, after serving one year as naval attaché at Washington, the battleship Commonwealth (1908–9). On 19 January, 1910 he married Ellen (d. 1950), daughter of A. E. Touzalin and widow of George Nickerson, of Dedham, Massachusetts. They had two sons.
After commanding the Royal Naval College at Osborne from October, 1910 to January, 1913, Hood was promoted to Rear-Admiral (May, 1913) and hoisted his flag on board the Centurion for three months. In June, 1914 he became naval secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
First World War
In October, 1914 Hood was placed in command of a small naval force assisting the British and Belgian armies in stemming the German advance towards the channel ports. In May 1915 he took command of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet, with his flag on board the Invincible.
Jutland
On 30 May, 1916 Hood's squadron sailed with the main body of the fleet from Scapa Flow, and on the 31st, during the preliminaries of the Battle of Jutland, was stationed 25 miles ahead of the battle fleet. When news arrived at 3.40 pm that Admiral Beatty's cruiser squadron was engaged, Hood was detached to the east-south-eastward at full speed to support. Two hours later he came into action in support of the light cruiser Chester, which, hard pressed by Konterdmiral Friedrich Bödicker's second scouting group (light cruisers), was retiring under heavy fire to the westward. Hood, hearing the gunfire to the north-west, turned towards it. His appearance surprised Boedicker, who, abandoning chase of the Chester, gave his commander-in-chief, Admiral Scheer, information by wireless that the British main body was to the north-eastward. At the same time, Vizeadmiral Hipper, with the German battle cruisers, believing himself headed by the whole British fleet, turned south-west to rejoin his own battleships. This was a decisive moment in the battle, and it has been said that by his intervention ‘Hood was the magician that pulled off the trick’ that prevented the near destruction of the British fleet. Hood found Beatty's squadron, and turned to form the vanguard of the Battlecruiser Fleet. Within a few minutes he was closely engaged with Hipper's battle cruisers, now coming up again from the southward.
After about ten minutes of battle, in which the flagship had been hit several times, Hood called to his gunnery officers: ‘Your fire is very good. Keep at it as quickly as you can; every shot is telling’. Five minutes later (6.34 pm) a shell from the Derfflinger burst in the Invincible's Q turret. The flash went down to the magazine, which immediately exploded, and the ship, breaking in half, sank in a cloud of smoke, leaving her bow and stern standing out of the water to mark where she lay. Hood, and all his ship's company save six, perished.
In Hood the navy lost an officer of exceptional quality. A remarkable seaman and ‘one of the best brains in the service’, Arthur Marder has suggested that ‘had he lived he would have been practically certain of reaching the rank of Admiral of the Fleet’. He was posthumously appointed K.C.B.
