StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ted Briggs
Last survivor of the sinking of HMS Hood

At the age of 12, in 1935, Ted Briggs saw the great battlecruiser HMS Hood at anchor off the river Tees. He volunteered for the Royal Navy the next day - only to be told to come back when he was 15. He did, and was delighted to be posted to the pride of the navy and flagship of the fleet in June 1939. But less than two years later the ship was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. Briggs, who has died aged 85, was then one of just three survivors of the warship known below decks as "the mighty 'Ood".

As the largest and most famous capital ship in the interwar fleet, the Hood, commissioned in August 1918, was so busy showing the flag round the world that it missed out on modernisation and thus lacked improvements made to other British ships, many of which dated from the first world war. Fully laden the Hood, armed with eight 15-inch guns, displaced about 46,000 tonnes and had a design speed of 31 knots with a crew of 1,421 men.

The Bismarck, commissioned in April 1941, was no faster, but was then the world's strongest serving warship, displacing 50,000 tonnes fully loaded, with eight of the latest 38cm (15in) guns. It also had a full belt of modern armour and enjoyed the usual German superiority in rangefinders. The plan was to send the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen into the north Atlantic to attack the allied convoy route between Britain and north America.

They emerged from the Baltic on May 20, and RAF coastal command located them south of Bergen, Norway, the next day. Vice Admiral LE Holland set sail to intercept the pair with the Hood, the new battleship Prince of Wales and six destroyers, hoping to attack the Germans in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland.

British cruisers spotted the Germans off the west coast of Iceland on May 23, heading south-west. Holland raced on a converging course, sighting them 23 miles to starboard. To engage them he had to attack in line abreast, which meant that only the guns capable of firing over the bows could be brought to bear, while the Germans could fire their entire broadsides at the British.

The British side thus lost its large potential advantage in firepower, while the Hood (under Captain Ralph Kerr) and the Prince of Wales (Captain JC Leach) were sailing close together, conveniently for the German gunlayers. At 13 miles the enemy opened fire, sending plunging shot through the Hood's thin deck armour. Holland mistakenly concentrated his fire on the Prinz Eugen until Leach realised the error, and opened fire on the Bismarck. The Germans, concentrating on the Hood, caused a fire amidships.

It was 6am on May 24 when Holland turned his two ships broadside on in order to bring the maximum number of guns to bear. It was too late. Another broadside from the Bismarck straddled the old battlecruiser and a shell set off the ammunition in the main magazines in a huge explosion. The ship rolled over to port and sank in three minutes. Briggs was sucked under but, caught in an air pocket, was able to get out and swim to a safe distance. He saw the bow of his ship pointing vertically out of the water before disappearing altogether. For the rest of his life he suffered from nightmares. The Prince of Wales escaped - to be sunk by Japanese bombers that December.

Briggs was born at Redcar, Yorkshire. As a youth he was an officer's messenger on the Hood. He stayed on in the service, leaving in 1973 as a lieutenant with the MBE. He was president of the HMS Hood Association, and when the wreck was located in 2001 he released a commemorative plaque over the spot.

After the disaster, which affected the British public more than any other wartime naval setback, the Royal Navy sought revenge. Unlike the Hood, the Bismarck took a long time to die, withstanding attacks by aircraft, destroyers, several battleships and finally cruisers.

After 109 minutes of unremitting bombardment at shrinking ranges, the German flagship went down, only 110 out of a crew of more than 2,000 surviving. When the wreck was found half a century later, evidence suggested the ship may have been scuttled. Briggs worked for an estate agent's until retirement in 1988. Clare, his second wife, survives him.

• Albert Edward Pryke Briggs, sailor, born March 1 1923; died October 4 2008

• This article was corrected on Thursday October 16 2008. The obituary above said the warship Hood had not fired a shot in anger before sailing to intercept the Bismarck. It had done so many times. The commander of the battlecruiser squadron, LE Holland, was a vice (rather than rear) admiral. These errors have been changed.

Sea Skimmer wrote:Funny that they mention Bismarck’s belt armor though; Hood had quite equal protection with nearly equal thickness but sloped rather then vertical. Both ships wasted a good deal of tonnage on intermediate upper belts, but Hoods mid upper belt was thicker then that of the Germans.