我想，從1932年8月到1939年11月，在“胡德”號的最后四段服役期內(nèi)都有駐艦服役經(jīng)歷的官兵中，我一定是最后一個健在者。

從學(xué)員到軍官候補生，再到中尉和上尉，我用崇敬的目光注視過詹姆斯、貝利、布雷克、坎寧安、萊頓和惠特沃斯等將領(lǐng)。我的上級們還包括賓尼、塔爾、普里德姆、沃克及格倫尼等各位艦長，麥克拉姆、奧康納、奧爾-尤因及戴維斯等各位副艦長，以及輪機部門的桑基、伯松及格羅根等各位輪機長，其中格羅根與艦共沉。每人都是獨樹一幟的偉大人物；其中個別人尤其偉大。

很少有人曾經(jīng)像我這樣一直幸運，有機會見識這么多有感召力的指揮官。那時的人們在創(chuàng)造歷史，盡管我自然沒意識到。一戰(zhàn)中的種種不成功導(dǎo)致皇家海軍在一屆屆海軍部委員會的無能領(lǐng)導(dǎo)下，毀掉了費舍爾勛爵的許多努力，無情地令軍官退役，并由于處理降薪問題失當(dāng)，在1931年引發(fā)了1797年后第一起大規(guī)模海軍兵變。

我有幸在凱利、查特菲爾德、亨德森、巴克豪斯、拉姆齊、德拉克斯、W.W.費舍爾、弗雷澤及其他數(shù)十名我從未認識的軍官手下工作過，他們僅用了8年，就在精神層面上帶領(lǐng)皇家海軍及這個錯綜復(fù)雜的系統(tǒng)中的每一分子從因弗戈登兵變的低谷走出，進入了戰(zhàn)備狀態(tài)。正是他們把皇家海軍打造成我們的作戰(zhàn)部隊中如此堅不可摧的一部分，使它的兵力從1939年的161000人增加到了1945年的750000人。

“胡德”號被譽為建成過的最偉大的軍艦，它是一件象征。從她誕生的翰·布朗船廠到1939年，近20年里，她被馬不停蹄地被當(dāng)作一顆政治棋子使用并展示出自己的全部美麗和力量，來維持英國主導(dǎo)下的和平，之后，她在歷經(jīng)數(shù)年的戰(zhàn)火后被送進了沉寂的墳?zāi)埂?/p>

1939年和1940年冬季，在她奉命履行自己作戰(zhàn)職責(zé)，作為艦隊中堅去風(fēng)暴頻發(fā)的北方海域巡曳時，她的乘員組經(jīng)受了十分不堪言說的艱辛。

“胡德”號于和平時期的職責(zé)導(dǎo)致她沒能接受恢復(fù)水密的改裝，以及抵御垂直下落炮彈的改造。于是，當(dāng)她投入戰(zhàn)斗后，不過幾分鐘便不復(fù)存在了，1418名艦員中只有3人生還。而從她1939年8月最后一次離開樸茨茅斯時，也就是海軍部發(fā)出“對德全面作戰(zhàn)”總信號的3周后開始，這些艦員們一直憑著沉穩(wěn)的精神與風(fēng)浪抗?fàn)帯?/p>

克里特島戰(zhàn)役中的損失一小時一小時地上升，“胡德”號也被擊沉了，故1941年5月可能是整場戰(zhàn)爭中海軍傷亡最慘重的月份。已經(jīng)被空襲攪亂的樸次茅斯、德文波特(Devonport)、查塔姆(Chatham)三座造船城在快要進入夏季時一片寂靜，人們淚如雨下。

“堅持住，皇家海軍一定不能讓陸軍失望。建造一艘軍艦需要3年，但建立一種傳統(tǒng)需要300年?！笨死锾貚u戰(zhàn)役中，坎寧安在手下的航空母艦、戰(zhàn)列艦、巡洋艦和驅(qū)逐艦一艘艘在空襲中被炸沉炸傷后，他這樣號召著。雖然當(dāng)時沒有人能預(yù)見，但正是1941年5月這場從格陵蘭到地中海東部同時進行的海陸空戰(zhàn)役致使德國輸?shù)袅藨?zhàn)爭。

在西部，雖然“胡德”號犧牲了，但“俾斯麥”號沉沒后，德國在大西洋上再未發(fā)起水面作戰(zhàn)行動。

在地中海東部，英軍和殖民地軍隊在希臘和克里特島進行抵抗，飛行員們駕駛著不論型號的飛機與強大的軸心國空中力量搏斗，皇家海軍承受著艦船和人員的慘重損失而奮戰(zhàn)，這一切延緩了不可避免的失利，并重創(chuàng)了希特勒手下唯一完整的空降師。

大西洋上敵方水面艦艇威脅被解除后，百萬美軍得以安全地前往位于英國的登陸行動出發(fā)點。爭奪希臘和克里特島的戰(zhàn)役導(dǎo)致德國進攻蘇聯(lián)的“巴巴羅薩”行動被推遲了6周。按“巴巴羅薩”計劃，德軍將首先攻占莫斯科，進而消滅蘇聯(lián)，但德軍如拿破侖一樣，沒能在俄羅斯的嚴冬來臨前到達莫斯科。

于康沃爾郡圣圖迪

2004年情人節(jié)

以上節(jié)選自《英國皇家海軍戰(zhàn)列巡洋艦“胡德”號圖傳》，即《The Battlecruiser HMS HOOD：An Illustrated Biography》的序章部分

其完整原文如下：

I suppose I must be the last of Hms Hood's ship's company to have served in part of each of her four final commissions between August 1932 and November 1939. From Cadet through Midshipman,Sub-Lieutenant and Lieutenant, I gazed with reverence at Admirals James, Bailey, Blake, Cunningham, Layton and Whitworth. And I served Captains Binney, Tower, Pridham, Walker, Glennie, and Commanders McCrum, O'Conor, Orr-Ewing, Davis and, in the Engineering Department,Commanders (E) Sankey, Berthon and Grogan, the last of whom went down with the ship.Each one in his own way was a great man; some greater than others.

Few can have been so consistently lucky as I at being permitted to watch such a posse of inspirational leaders. I did not recognise it, of course,but history was being made. As a result of failures in the First World War the Royal Navy,led by poor Boards of Admiralty, reversed much of Lord Fisher's work, ruthlessly discharged officers, and by inept handling of pay cuts created in 1931 the first major naval mutiny since1797. The officers under whom I was so lucky to serve, together with Kelly, Chatfield, Henderson, Backhouse, Ramsay, Drax, W.W. Fisher, Fraser and dozens of others I never knew, led the Navy and all its intricate elements spiritually from its nadir at Invergordon to war readiness only eight years later. It was they who made it such an unconquerable element of our fighting forces as its numbers rose from 161,000 in 1939to 750,000 in 1945.

Crowned as the greatest warship ever built,HMs Hood was an icon. For two decades from her cradling at John Brown's until 1939 she was used unsparingly in all her beauty and power as a political pawn sustaining the Pax Britannica before two years of war took her to a silent grave. It was when she was called on to fulfil her fighting role and ride the stormy northern seas as the backbone of the fleet in the winters of1939 and 1940 that her company suffered such unspeakable hardship. Hood's peacetime role had denied her the refit that would have made her watertight and the reconstruction that would have made her proof against plunging fire. And so when battle was joined she was gone within a few minutes leaving just three of the 1,418 men whose equable spirit had defied the elements since she left Portsmouth for the last time in August1939, three weeks before the Admiralty made that general signal TOTAL GERMANY.

With the losses in the Battle for Crete mounting by the hour and the Hood sunk,May 1941 was probably the worst month for naval casualties in the whole war. The three Dockyard Towns of Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham,already reeling from air bombardment,became very quiet as summer drew near and many tears were shed.‘Stick it out. Navy must not let Army down. It takes three years to build a ship but three hundred to build a tradition'signalled Cunningham in the Battle for Crete as one after the other the carrier, battleships,cruisers and destroyers of his fleet were lost or damaged by air attack. Though none could have foretold it, it was this simultaneous naval, land and air battle stretching from Greenland to the Eastern Mediterranean in May 1941 which cost Germany the war. In the West it was the sinking of the Bismarck, at the expense of the Hood, which put an end to German surface operations in the Atlantic. In the Eastern Mediterranean it was the resistance of British and imperial troops in Greece and Crete, of pilots who flew what aircraft could be found against the might of Axis air power, and of the Royal Navy which, at terrible cost in ships and men, delayed the inevitable and decimated Hitler's only complete airborne division.The removal of the Atlantic surface warship threat gave safe passage to a million Americans to their D-Day jump- off position in Britain.The battles for Greece and Crete caused Operation ‘Barbarossa,the German attack on the Soviet Union, to be postponed by six weeks.‘Barbarossa' planned to destroy the Soviets by first taking Moscow but the Germans, like Napoleon,failed to reach the city before the terrible Russian winter set in.

HMS Hood lies 9,000 feet at the bottom of the Denmark Strait and through the marvels of technology her wreck has been filmed and shown to a worldwide audience. Nevertheless, the cause of her disintegration remains shrouded in mystery. Perhaps in another decade or so closer inspection will determine how came the end. There have been many books about HMs Hood but until man can exist and move 9,000 feet down on the ocean bed I doubt if there will ever be such a history, such a biography, such an obituary as Bruce Taylor has written.The astonishing volume of research he has managed to achieve brings alive not only Hood's irreplaceable years of service in the cause of peace,but also the neglect to update her fighting potential and the pattern of her operations in war that led to almost unbearable conditions for her gallant company who somehow kept her going against all odds.

It has been a privilege watching Dr Taylor knit together a vast and varied theme into what must surely be,for many years to come,the definitive account of an awe-inspiring piece of Britain's naval history.

St Tudy, Cornwall

St Valentine’s Day, 2004

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