Rare artefact from sunken WW2 ship ends up in Shropshire
More than 80 years ago, tragedy hit as a Second World War ship was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck, killing more than 1,400 people.
Who’d have thought a piece of that ship would have ended up in sleepy Shropshire all this time later ... although it won’t be for long. A rare piece of propeller shrapnel from the HMS Hood has been accepted into the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
Graham Watson, from Shrewsbury, has the artefact from the ship, which was sunk in the Battle of the Denmark Strait after being bombarded on May 24 1941. He came by it because his dad, Chief Petty Officer Harry Whitfield Watson, was on board the HMS Renown when the two ships collided six years earlier, causing the propeller to break.
Harry and his family ended up in Shropshire when he got a job as the local recruiter for the Navy after the war, in the 1950s.
Graham, who used to live in Portsmouth, where the Navy museum is, said: “I’m going down on September 21 to meet the curator. I’m taking this piece of propeller to be inducted into the museum. I’m looking forward to going down – it’s a place I know quite well.
“Because the ship sank, anything from that ship is extremely rare. It was a terrible tragedy. Only three of the crew survived.”
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.
After a brief overhaul of her propulsion system, she sailed as the flagship of Force H, and participated in the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Relieved as flagship of Force H, Hood was dispatched to Scapa Flow, and operated in the area as a convoy escort and later as a defence against a potential German invasion fleet.
In May 1941, Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, which were en route to the Atlantic, where they were to attack convoys.
On May 24, early in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded and sank within three minutes. Due to her public image as a major force, the loss damaged British morale.
