THE SINKING OF THE HOOD
HMS Hood is destroyed by her adversaries, the Prinz Eugen and Bismarck, when a massive explosion breaks her in two on May 24 1941. By never having been modified, the British battlecruiser lacked substantial horizontal armour and had no defence against the plunging shells from the German ships. Strangely, witnesses in the accompanying battleship Prince of Wales report that the huge explosion, with a towering red flame, carried no sound across the water.

With the Hood parted into two abaft the funnels, the front section continued onwards, losing speed until the bows rose up and the vessel capsized. Incongruously, a forward gun turret still fired a salvo. The stern section, with its forward momentum, ploughed into the sea. In her death throes, the ship's forward section stood vertical out of the sea, before the whole, towering mass slid down, the bows the last to be seen.

From her crew of 1,026 only 3 survived the catastrophe.

Printed with lightfast inks on Archival Matte Art Paper (largest print on Fine Art Watercolour Paper).