ON May 26, 1941, in the school logbook immediately below an entry about how the children had raised 6s 9d during War Weapons Week, the headteacher of Applegarth Primary School in Northallerton wrote in copperplate handwriting: “It is with great regret that I record the loss of our adopted ship, HMS Hood.”
The Hood (below) was once the largest ship in the world, the pride of the nation and symbolic of how Britain ruled the waves.
But a fluke shell fired by the pin-up of the German fleet, the Bismarck, penetrated the deck of the “Mighty Hood” and exploded inside an ammunition store, triggering a blast so enormous that the 46,000-ton battlecruiser was blown out of the water. It snapped in mid-air into two, and sank within three minutes.
In those minutes, the school lost 1,415 of its “friends” – it knew some of the sailors personally, and many of them went down with a good luck prayer composed by the children inside their caps.
Forty-nine of the fatalities were from Yorkshire; 47 were from County Durham and at least seven were from Darlington. There were only three survivors, one of whom, Ted Briggs, was from Redcar. The sinking of the Hood remains the greatest loss of life in a single incident in the history of the Royal Navy.
This week has been heritage week at the Applegarth, and the theme has been the Hood. The story of the ship runs through the school like writing through a stick of rock – just as the sailors had the Hood prayer in their caps so the children today all have the Hood’s anchor on the school badge emblazoned on their red shirts.
A letter from the Hood to the Northallerton headteacher, Miss Margaret Weighell
Landlocked Northallerton does not have much of a nautical tradition but at the start of the Second World War, the headteacher, Miss Margaret Weighell, applied to the RN War Comforts Committee to adopt a ship. It seems that by chance, the school was allocated the superstar Hood.
It seems likely that other schools were also allocated the Hood, but Applegarth is the only one known to the HMS Hood Association whose chairman, Barry Roberts, came over from his home in Liverpool to introduce the children to the ship.
Barry Roberts, chairman of the HMS Hood Association, with some Year 5s from Applegarth Primary School at the North Yorkshire County Record Office on Monday surrounded by artefacts, pictures and plans relating to HMS Hood
It – well, “she”, said Barry, while Germans and Russians call their ships “he” – was built in 1916, and named after a family of admirals. As Britain’s flagship, when the Hood wasn’t on active service, she toured the British Isles, appearing at coastal towns as a PR exercise. She even had a souvenir shop, and Barry brought HMS Hood candlesticks and trinkets for the children to handle.
He was impressed by the children’s knowledge and interest, and said his two favourite questions of the day were a tricky one about the difference between a battlecruiser and a battleship and a real poser about whether the Hood was bigger than Godzilla.
A battlecruiser is generally faster and lighter (with less protective plating on it) than a battleship, and while the pupil knew that Godzilla was 130 metres high, Mr Roberts knew that HMS Hood was 860ft long – or 262 metres – and so the ship trumped the sea dragon.
The crew on HMS Hood on a photo in the school archive
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the public regarded the battlecruiser as invincible, although in truth she was showing her age, and Applegarth pupils must have felt they’d hit the jackpot when they were allocated her.
The logbook and letters, now in the County Record Office, give sketchy details of how the relationship developed. For example, the ship presented two cups to the school; a sailor visited on April 1, 1940, and the ship’s mascot, Billy the dog, wrote a chatty letter to the children.
Two sailors and Billy the mascot on board HMS Hood. The picture is in the school's archive and probably came when Billy wrote the pupils a letter
In return, the school collected money and sent presents, cigarettes, a handmade purple elephant, and letters. “The most important thing to any crew is mail,” said Barry.
The Hood was sunk off Iceland on May 24, 1941, in the Battle of Denmark Strait, while trying to stop the Bismarck – Germany’s newest and largest battleship – from attacking the Atlantic convoys which were keeping the country supplied, and two letters sent to the school in the months afterwards shed more light on the depth of the relationship with the ship.
The last known picture of HMS Hood, taken from HMS Prince of Wales on May 24, 1941, as the Hood went into battle against the Bismarck
One is from the captain of the SS Boniface, a supply ship, which says that four packages from the school arrived for distribution to Hood’s sailors two days after it had sailed on its final voyage. The captain told the headteacher: “The children will be glad to know that, far from being wasted, their lovely presents have been disposed of in such a way as to give the greatest pleasure to perhaps the most lonely group of sailors in the Fleet.
“The letters addressed to individual members of the crew of HMS Hood which accompanied the gifts are returned herewith.”
The Applegarth was allocated the new flagship, HMS King George V, which, infuriated by the sinking of the Hood, led the air and sea chase which resulted in the sinking of the Bismarck 400 miles off Brest, on the French coast, three days later. The school kept up its relationship with George V, regularly sending gramophone players – bought from George Williams in Tubwell Row, Darlington – and records as well as presents, comforts and Christmas treats.
The second revealing, and poignant, letter that the Northallerton school received after the loss of the Hood was written on December 8, 1941 by George and May Clout, of East Thurrock, in Essex, whose 21-year-old son, Able Seaman Cecil Clout, had died on the ship.
They wrote: “While looking through his treasured belongings, we came across a scarf which was knitted by infants in your school. Also in a letter, he stated that a prayer which was sent from the school was worn in the cap of all the crew, so would you oblige us (by sending us) the same prayer that they carried?
“Thanking you, and will you thank the children on our behalf and may God bless them for what they have done.”
The prayer composed by the Applegarth schoolchildren read: “Almighty God, bless and guard my loved ones at home. Give me grace and strength to do my duty in what I believe to be a righteous cause. Make me strong of heart and fearless in danger, and, whether I live or die, keep me in Thine Almighty keeping.”
Updating the prayer is one of the tasks for Heritage Week.
Barry Roberts, chairman of the HMS Hood Association, and Applegarth headteacher Justin Peoples with the school's large model of the battlecruiser which was made in 2006 to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the sinking
Headteacher Justin Peoples said: “The Hood is symbolic of Britain being forward thinking as it was in its day the biggest in the world, and it is symbolic of the bravery and the sacrifice that others made for us.
“The Hood is on the school badge and we hope now the children will have a better understanding of what it means.”
- With thanks to Lynne Cross, the heritage lead at Applegarth school
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