[sinanju]

Especially notable as he was the last of only (Three!) survivors of the crew of 1,418.

Unfortunately, HMS Hood was a bastardized camel-designed-by-committe that was riddled with conceptual flaws and outdated ideas and glaring vulnerabilities. There was a serious move in the Admiralty to scrap her even before she was completed.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Someone wrote that the Hood had extra armor added during her last refit. The extra weight contributed to her riding much lower in the water and clumsy handling.

[Vanders9]

All warships are compromises on design to some extent. The problem for poor old Hood was that the concepts and ideas behind her construction were perfectly valid in 1918 and even right into the thirties, but were totally invalidated by the introduction of fire control and ranging radars, fast battleships, and of course air power. It takes a long time to design, build and commission warships, especially large warships, and technology advances are so rapid that they are all obsolescent.

The curious thing about the Hood is that I dont think anyone is exactly sure why she sank. The classic explanation is that she took a magazine hit, but the problem is none of the survivors or the witnesses remember an explosion.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks sinanju, so it was three. I remember seeing an interview with one of the survivors, perhaps this man who just passed; he said he felt he was going to be drawn down by the sinking of the ship (which he no longer was touching by that point), but then was pushed up to the surface. It was explained that this was due to one or more of the boilers blowing up, if memory serves.

Briggs, Dundas and Tilburn were the only survivors from a crew that totaled fourteen hundred eighteen.