Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The Battle of Jutland - Clash of the Titans - Part 1 (Beatty vs Hipper)" video.
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Beatty was extremely wealthy, married to an even more wealthy American heiress, and very well connected. Subsequently, as First Sea Lord, he was able to 'doctor' the official report on Jutland.
In his favour, however, as FSL, he argued strongly, though ultimately in vain, against the foolish decision to hand over control of naval aviation to the Royal Navy's most intransigent enemy, the Royal Air Force. As a result, the RAF systematically destroyed the Fleet Air Arm between the wars.
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@ffsForgerFortySeven.9154 Your first post said :- 'This is what happen on the Hood ...someone left the door open on the rear AA mag'
Your second post said :-
'The door and the fire seal was open. I have a few accounts of the door being left open and that... pressure and fire from the explosion.' I asked for details of the sources of these accounts. All you have done since is made vague references to observers, rather than witnesses to 'open doors.'
Of course, there were hundreds of witnesses to Hood's sinking. I have read them, from both the text of the first Inquiry, of 30 May, and the subsequent, more detailed, Inquiry, of 27 August. None of them contain the slightest suggestion that any doors were left open, largely because the only witnesses who could have confirmed or denied this died aboard their ship.
Are you really going to suggest that observers from Norfolk, Suffolk, Prince of Wales or even (at the second Inquiry) Bismarck could have had any knowledge whatsoever. All they were able to do was to give their varied interpretations of Hood's destruction, and no-one has ever doubted that this came about because of an explosion in the 4 inch magazine, which detonated the 15 inch magazine. You are going much further than this, in that you are attributing the loss of Hood to slipshod procedures aboard the ship. As no Royal Navy capital ship had stored cordite in such a manner since the battlecruisers at Jutland, and as the Grand Fleet battleships had never used this method of storage at any time, you will need to prove your allegations. Can you produce any statement by a credible witness that such actions took place aboard any Royal Navy capital ship in WW2? Perhaps a crewman who had been transferred away from Hood a few weeks before she sank, or someone who saw this happen aboard one of the other RN capital ships? As to Anthony Preston, I have a copy of the book in which he made this statement ( Sea Power: A Modern Illustrated Military History, 1979) in which he makes the (unsubstantiated) claim in order to justify his belief that Hood was sunk by Prinz Eugen. Needless to say, he was, and is, in a minority of one where this opinion is concerned.
As to: 'Please bear in mind the crew of the Hood was an Older crew They or some of may have been stuck with bad habits.'
They would have to have been an old crew indeed, as Jutland took place 25 years earlier. Do you really believe that the crew of a warship, in the middle of a war, wandered around ignoring safety procedures aboard the ship? Do you really believe that their officers would have tolerated such behaviour?
Please feel free to present your 175 sources, by the way.
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@ffsForgerFortySeven.9154 Where in the Report does it state that explosion of 4 inch rounds stowed outside the magazine was a 'possible factor?'
Have you read the evidence of Dr. Godfrey Rotter, the Director of Explosives Research at Woolwich, given on 2 September, 1941? (Admiralty Record ADM 116/4352, pages 364 - 369). Dr. Rotter was asked a number of questions on the nature of cordite explosions, and what their effects might have been on the structure of the ship. He gives particularly detailed information on the effects of an explosion of the 4 inch magazine.
As part of the evidence, the detailed stowage of 4 inch ammunition is stated, as follows:-
'The 4” magazines in the after group contained the number of rounds, and the weight of cordite, indicated. The stowage was in bottle racks
Hold 280 – 290 539 rounds 2.17 tons.
Hold 290 – 302 830 rounds 3.32 tons
Lower Platform 280 – 296 1001 rounds 4 tons
Lower Platform 296 – 302 540 rounds 2.17 tons
Upper Platform 280 – 294 467 rounds 1.88 tons
Upper Platform 296 – 306 1232 rounds 4.96 tons
Total about 18 ½ tons.'
What isn't here is any suggestion that rounds were stowed outside the magazine.
Have you read Jurens, Garske & Dulin, 'Battleship Bismarck: A Design and Operational History' published in January, 2019, which states 'Hood's destruction was most likely caused by a 380-mm shell from Bismarck that penetrated the deck armor and exploded in the aft 102-mm magazine, igniting its cordite propellant, which in turn ignited the cordite in the adjacent aft 381-mm magazine. Rapid expansion of the resulting combustion gases from the conflagration then caused structural failure, passing out through the sides of the ship as well as forward and upwards via the engine room vents, expelling the aft main battery turrets and causing the stern to be detached from the rest of the hull at the aft armored bulkhead.' I don't see any reference to 4 inch munitions being stored outside the magazines here, nor in either Admiralty report. In fact, the only reference I have ever come across is a single, uncorroborated claim by Anthony Preston in 1979, in support of his pet theory that Hood was sunk by Prinz Eugen.
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