Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...

Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood, (2 October 1870 – 31 May 1916) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

admiral of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, whose lengthy and distinguished service saw him engaged in operations around the world, frequently participating in land campaigns as part of a shore brigade. His early death at the

Battle of Jutland The Battle of Jutland (german: Skagerrakschlacht, the Battle of the Skagerrak) was a naval battle fought between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy ...

in the destruction of his flagship was met with mourning and accolades from across Britain. Hood was a youthful, vigorous and active officer whose service in Africa won him the

Distinguished Service Order The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, as well as formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typ ...

and who was posthumously appointed a

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved Bathing#Medieval ...

in recognition of his courageous and ultimately fatal service in the Battle of Jutland, during which his ship was constantly engaged from its arrival at the action and caused fatal damage to a German light cruiser. 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".Hood, Sir Horace Lambert Alexander
''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', H. W. Richmond, retrieved 18 November 2007

Early career

Horace Hood was descended from one of the most influential and experienced navy lines, being a great-great-grandson of Admiral

Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (12 December 1724 – 27 January 1816) was an Admiral (Royal Navy), admiral in the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of , he drove a ...

, who won numerous actions against the French in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

and the

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...

. His father was Francis Wheler Hood, 4th Viscount Hood and his mother Edith Lydia Drummond Ward.Hood, Rear-Admiral The Hon. Sir Horace Lambert A.
''Commonwealth War Graves Commission'', retrieved 18 November 2007 Born in South Street, London, Hood joined the

aged 12, attending cadet training ship at Dartmouth in 1882. Graduating top of his class in September 1885, Hood joined as a

midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Afr ...

and served on her for a year in the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

Squadron before joining . In 1887 he was attached to , a small cruiser which sailed for the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. It was aboard her that Hood experienced the Samoan Hurricane in which ''Calliope'' was the only survivor of seven foreign warships in Apia Harbour.

African service

Hood gained a record score in his exam for

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

, and qualified first time. He served in for a time before taking three years out to study gunnery and staff duties. On his return to sea, he spent brief periods aboard , , and . He performed well at these duties and, in 1897, was recommended to the Egyptian government, which provided him with a Nile gunboat to command on the Nile Expedition of 1898 in the

Mahdist War The Mahdist War ( ar, الثورة المهدية, ath-Thawra al-Mahdiyya; 1881–1899) was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided On ...

. During these operations, Hood was conspicuous in his duty as second-in-command to Captain David Beatty and saw action for the first time, providing artillery support at the

Battle of Atbara The Battle of Atbara also known as the Battle of the Atbara River took place during the Second Sudan War. Anglo-Egyptian forces defeated 15,000 Sudanese rebels, called Mahdists or Dervishes, on the banks of the River Atbara. The battle proved t ...

and

Battle of Omdurman The Battle of Omdurman was fought during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan between a British–Egyptian expeditionary force commanded by British Commander-in-Chief (sirdar) major general Horatio Herbert Kitchener and a Sudanese army of the M ...

. For his services in these operations, he was promoted to

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

, skipping the intermediate rank. During the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

, Hood was given command of transport ships taking supplies to South Africa. He was later transferred to Admiral

Lord Charles Beresford Admiral Charles William de la Poer Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford, (10 February 1846 – 6 September 1919), styled Lord Charles Beresford between 1859 and 1916, was a British admiral and Member of Parliament. Beresford was the second son of J ...

's flagship in the Mediterranean from 9 September 1901. In July 1903, Hood was given promotion to full

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

and placed in command of , flagship of Admiral

George Atkinson-Willes Admiral Sir George Lambart Atkinson-Willes (13 July 1847 – 25 December 1921) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station. Naval career Educated at Leamington College and at Burney's Royal Naval Academy ...

on the East Indies Station. In April 1904, Hood was given his first independent command as he led a force of 754 sailors, marines and soldiers of the

Hampshire Regiment The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th (North Hampshire) Regiment of Foot and the 67th (South Hampshire) Regiment of Foot. The regi ...

against the Ilig Dervishes of

Somaliland Somaliland,; ar, صوماليلاند ', ' officially the Republic of Somaliland,, ar, جمهورية صوماليلاند, link=no ''Jumhūrīyat Ṣūmālīlānd'' is a ''de facto'' sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, still conside ...

. Landing his men on an opposed beach in the dark, Hood led from the front, personally engaging in hand-to-hand combat and driving the dervishes into the hinterland, for which he was awarded the

. Distinguished by his action, Hood was given command of the

armoured cruiser The armored cruiser was a type of warship of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was designed like other types of cruisers to operate as a long-range, independent warship, capable of defeating any ship apart from a battleship and fast eno ...

in 1906 and the following year was made naval attaché to the

British Embassy in Washington D.C. The British Embassy, Washington D.C. (alternatively in the US, Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C.) is the Charles III, British sovereign's diplomatic mission to the United States of America, representing the interests of the United ...

It was there he met Ellen Touzalin Nickerson, a widowed mother, whom he married in 1910. The couple had two sons,

Samuel Hood, 6th Viscount Hood Samuel Hood, 6th Viscount Hood, (15 October 1910 – 13 October 1981) was a Foreign Office official and diplomat for the United Kingdom. Early life and education Hood was born the first son of Rear Admiral Sir Horace Hood and American social ...

(1910–1981) and Alexander Lambert Hood, 7th Viscount Hood (1914–1999). In 1908, Hood was given command of the

pre-dreadnought battleship Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built between the mid- to late- 1880s and 1905, before the launch of in 1906. The pre-dreadnought ships replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s. Built from steel, prote ...

, in which he served for a year before receiving a shore appointment to command the

Royal Naval College, Osborne The Royal Naval College, Osborne, was a training college for Royal Navy officer cadets on the Osborne House estate, Isle of Wight, established in 1903 and closed in 1921. Boys were admitted at about the age of thirteen to follow a course lasting ...

, where he stayed until 1913 when he was raised to

flag rank A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which the officer exercises command. The term is used differently in different countries: *In many countries ...

. For three months Hood raised his flag in the

dreadnought battleship The dreadnought (alternatively spelled dreadnaught) was the predominant type of battleship in the early 20th century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's , had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her ...

before becoming

Naval Secretary The Naval Secretary is the Royal Navy officer who advises the First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff on naval officer appointing (and General Officers). Their counterpart in the British Army is the Military Secretary. The Royal Air Force equiv ...

to the

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

, in July 1914.

First World War

HMS Invincible (1907) British Battleship

At the outbreak of the

, Hood's experience with coastal operations recommended him to serve with a small flotilla of s on the Belgian coast, bombarding German positions and troop formations during the Siege of Antwerp and then the

Battle of the Yser The Battle of the Yser (french: Bataille de l'Yser, nl, Slag om de IJzer) was a battle of the First World War that took place in October 1914 between the towns of Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide, along a stretch of the Yser River and the Yperlee C ...

, assisting Belgian forces to hold the coastline during the

Race for the Sea The Race to the Sea (; , ) took place from about 1914 during the First World War, after the Battle of the Frontiers () and the German advance into France. The invasion had been stopped at the First Battle of the Marne and was followed by the ...

. Later in the year, Hood became

Commander-in-Chief, Dover The Commander in Chief, Dover was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Dover Command. History First World War Dover Patrol In late July 1914, with ...

and commander of the

Dover Patrol The Dover Patrol and later known as the Dover Patrol Force was a Royal Navy command of the First World War, notable for its involvement in the Zeebrugge Raid on 22 April 1918. The Dover Patrol formed a discrete unit of the Royal Navy based at Dove ...

, tasked with preventing German ships and submarines passing through. He was transferred to command of Force E at Queenstown by orders of Churchill and Fisher, for his perceived failure to do this as submarines continued to pass the Channel to threaten shipping in the Irish Sea. Force E consisted of obsolete cruisers and boarding vessels whose task was to patrol the area south west of Ireland to give instructions to arriving merchant vessels and guard against attacks by armed merchantmen. In February their operating area had been moved 200 miles further west as they were considered in themselves to be tempting targets for submarines. After his transfer, intelligence reports based on intercepted messages from German submarines showed that they had indeed had extreme difficulty passing the Channel, and as a result their orders were changed to travel around Scotland instead. Before Churchill was replaced as First Lord he corrected his mistake by appointing Hood to command of the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron operating out of

Rosyth Rosyth ( gd, Ros Fhìobh, "headland of Fife") is a town on the Firth of Forth, south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to the census of 2011, the town has a population of 13,440. The new town was founded as a Garden city-style suburb ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Hood's command was the three battlecruisers of the : , and his flagship . In late May 1916 came the only opportunity for the British battlefleet to engage the German main force at the

. Hood's squadron was attached to Jellicoe's main battlefleet and thus had not witnessed the destruction of two British battlecruisers at the guns of their German counterparts. Arriving as the action was well underway but ahead of the main fleet by advantage of their greater speed, Hood's force's first action was to rescue the

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to thi ...

, which had been separated from the main fleet to provide a signal relay but was then ambushed by four German cruisers and was in danger of sinking. Hood's timely arrival scattered the German ships and caused fatal damage to , which sank later that night with 589 of her crew. Hood's intervention had far greater effects than were realised at the time however. In diverting his squadron to the North-West to aid ''Chester'', Hood had inadvertently confused the German battlecruiser commander Admiral Hipper into believing that the main British force was approaching from the North-West and prompting his withdrawal to the main German fleet, an act which has been claimed saved the British battlecruiser fleet from destruction. Hood meanwhile attached his squadron to the British battlecruiser squadron of Admiral Beatty and with them formed the vanguard of the British battlefleet, which was now heading directly for the approaching Germans.Who's who – Sir Horace Hood
''First World War.com'', Michael Duffy, retrieved 10 December 2007

Destruction of HMS ''Invincible''

The vanguards of the battlefleets, made up of battlecruisers and smaller ships, collided just before 18.00. The German fleet, possessing better gunnery and range-finding equipment, had the better of the early exchanges; , an old

which was the flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, was blown up with all 903 hands, and the fast battleship was badly damaged and forced to limp back to Britain. Hood's squadron was heavily engaged, ''Invincible'' facing the combined batteries of and and inflicting damage on ''Lützow'', which would force her abandonment and scuttling during the night. At this, Hood called through the voicepipe to the gunnery officer, "Keep firing as quickly as possible. You are doing splendidly; every shot is telling." The combination of the two ships proved too much for Hood's flagship, however, and a shell from ''Derfflinger'' penetrated the "Q" turret of ''Invincible'', the same mortal wound which had destroyed a few hours before and almost claimed . The unstable

cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burni ...

ammunition carried by ''Invincible'', coupled with the weakness of her turret design and armour, resulted in a catastrophic explosion from "Q" turret's magazine, which blew the ship in half. The ship's remains sank rapidly, settling on the shallow bottom while the bow and stern protruded from the sea. Of ''Invincible''s crew of 1,021, there were just six survivors, pulled from the water by attendant destroyers. Hood was not amongst them. The Battle of Jutland was ultimately an expensive stalemate; both sides suffered further losses during the night action but the strategic situation remained unchanged. The Royal Navy had suffered over 6,000 fatal casualties, three times the German losses, but remained in control of the North Sea while the High Seas Fleet was forced to retire to harbour.

Remembrance

As with his lost shipmates, Hood's body was never recovered and remains in the wreckage of HMS ''Invincible'' at the bottom of the North Sea. The wreck is now a protected war grave, although it has suffered from the attentions of looters. Hood's name, with all those lost on ''Invincible'', is inscribed on the

Portsmouth War Memorial The City of Portsmouth War Memorial, also referred to as the Guildhall Square War Memorial, is a First World War memorial in Guildhall Square in the centre of Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the south coast of England. Portsmouth was and remains a po ...

administered by the

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...

. Admiral Hood was posthumously appointed a

. He had previously been made a

Member of the Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, or ...

. His collected papers were donated by his family, with those of his ancestor Samuel Hood, to the

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers of ...

in 1967.The Papers of the 1st Viscount Hood of Catherington and of Rear Admiral Horace Hood
Archivespace, retrieved 7 October 2021 In 1918, Hood's widow was asked to launch the ill-fated battlecruiser , named after Horace Hood's ancestor. The ship was lost in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, sunk by an explosion occasioned by a shell detonating an after magazine with 1,415 hands fighting the . Hood's name is inscribed on the War Memorial at St Botolph's Church,

Barton Seagrave Barton Seagrave is a large village and civil parish in the North Northamptonshire, England. The village is about south-east of Kettering, town centre. The older part of the village is known for its Norman Church and attractive buildings. The v ...

, Northamptonshire.

Notes

References

* * * * , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Hood, Horace Lambert Alexander 1870 births 1916 deaths Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College British military personnel killed in World War I Captains and Commandants of the Royal Naval College, Osborne Royal Navy personnel of the Mahdist War Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Members of the Royal Victorian Order Royal Navy admirals of World War I British military personnel of the Fourth Somaliland Expedition

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

Younger sons of viscounts Military personnel from London People from Barton Seagrave