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HMS Hood, a 42100-ton battlecruiser built at Clydebank, Scotland, was completed in March 1920. For more than two decades, she was the World's largest warship and, with her long, low hull and finely balanced silhouette, was to many the embodiment of big-gun era sea power. During her travels in European waters and far away, Hood actively represented Great Britain throughout her career. Her first cruise, in 1920, was to Scandinavia. The next year she went down to Gibraltar and Spain and in 1922 visited Brazil and the West Indies. After a brief call on Denmark and Norway in 1923, Hood was flagship on an eleven-month cruise around the World, accompanied by the smaller battlecruiser Repulse and a number of light cruisers. In 1925, she called on Lisbon to help commemorate Portugal's contributions to navigation and exploration. For ten years after 1925, Hood was assigned to the Royal Navy's Home and Atlantic Fleets, operating primarily around Europe, with a visit to the West Indies in 1932. She served with the Mediterranean Fleet in 1936-39, protecting British interests during the Spanish Civil War. She was back with the Home Fleet after mid-1939.

For her war service see the 'events section' below.

In May 1941, HMS Hood (Capt. Ralph Kerr, CBE, RN, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Lancelot Ernest Holland, CB, RN) in company with the new battleship Prince HMS Prince of Wales, were sent out to intercept the German battleship Bismarck, which had left Norway with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for the Atlantic. On the morning of 24 May, the two British capital ships found the enemy to the west of Iceland. In the resulting Battle of the Denmark Strait, one or more of Bismarck's fifteen-inch shells got into Hood's after magazines. They erupted in a massive explosion. The great ship sank very quickly about 260 nautical miles west-south-west of Reykjavik, Iceland in position 63°20'N, 31°50'W with all but three of her large crew, an event that shocked the Royal Navy, the British nation and the entire world. HMS Hood's remains were located and photographed by a British deep sea expedition led by David Mearns in July 2001 with funding from Channel 4 and ITN.

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