Aboard the 'Mighty Hood'

Sometime around 6am on the morning of the 24th May 1941 Royal Navy Wireman Dennis Charles Broadhurst along with 1,414 other men was lost after a massive explosion ripped apart the most famous British warship of the time - HMS Hood. So catastrophic was the explosion that no trace of the dead men was ever found. Of Hood herself, all that immediately remained was a morass of floating debris and an oil slick 4" deep. It was the single largest loss of life for the Royal Navy during World War II, and it came at the hands of the most formidable enemy battleship of the time - Bismarck.

Dennis was one of 20 wiremen aboard Hood on that fateful day. Wiremen were electricians - responsible for maintaining the electric wiring and electrical equipment aboard the ship. That 20 such men were needed for Hood was not unreasonable- she was the largest British warship afloat, and was older than many other Royal Navy vessels. Her electrical specifications were huge. She had nearly 200 miles of permanent electric cable, 8 primary electric generators, an estimated 360 electric motors, 3874 electric light fittings, and 380 telephones. Other electrical equipment included shipwide loudspeakers, various pumping mechanisms, and numerous searchlights. It is possible that each wireman maintained a particular type of electrical equipment or was responsible for the electrics in one part of the ship.

It was likely that Dennis died in the single catastrophic explosion that virtually tore Hood in half. Most the crew in the hull died in this explosion which wracked the entire aft of the ship. A salvo from Bismarck had penetrated Hood's vitals and detonated the aft magazines.

Dennis was not the only Broadhurst to die in a major WWII naval engagement in the North Atlantic. On the afternoon of the 8th June 1940 Able Seaman Thomas Eric Broadhurst RNVR was killed along with 1,206 others when the carrier HMS Glorious was sunk in the Norwegian sea after engaging the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Little is known of either man's background or genealogy. Dennis was the son of Charles and Rose Broadhurst, of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. He was 25 when he died. Thomas was the son of Thomas and Florence Jane Broadhurst, of Wallasey, Cheshire. He was 23 when he died. Both are commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial to sailors without graves.

Additional Notes:
(1) Only 3 men survived the destruction of Hood - Ted Briggs, William Dundas and Bob Tilburn.  (2) Hood was avenged on 27 May when the crippled Bismarck was finally sunk with the loss of 2,131 lives. (3) The wreck of Hood was located in July 2001 approximately 9,200 feet below the surface of the Denmark Strait. The condition of the wreck confirmed the assessment that the aft magazines blew up and split the ship in half.

Principal Sources:
www.cwgc.org
www.hmshood.com