HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. Commissioned in 1920, she was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood. One of four Admiral-
class battlecruisers ordered in
mid-1916, Hood had design limitations, though her design was revised after the Battle of Jutland and improved while she was under construction. For this reason, she was the only ship of her
class to be completed. Despite the appearance of new and more modern ship designs over
time, Hood remained the largest and most powerful warship in the world for 20 years after her commissioning, and her prestige was reflected in her nickname, "The Mighty Hood".
Hood was involved in several showing-the-flag exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939, including training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the
Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to
Britain in 1939 for an overhaul. By this
time, advances in naval gunnery had reduced
When war with
Germany was declared, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and she spent the next several months hunting for German commerce
raiders and blockade runners between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea.
