HMS Hood memorial service held at St John the Baptist in Boldre

THE Royal Navy ethos of rescue after conflict was the key message as hundreds filled the parish church at Boldre in a service to remember the sinking of battlecruiser HMS Hood in 1941.

Conducted by the Rev Terence Handley MacMath, it was the 75th commemoration service for the Second World War tragedy that took the lives of local warship commander Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland and 1,414 crew, with just three survivors after shelling by German battlership Bismarck, in turn sunk with greater loss of life days later.

In his sermon, the Rev Ralph Barber, chaplaincy team leader at HM Naval Base Portsmouth, focused on how the crews of HMS Rodney and HMS King George V went to the rescue of Bismarck’s crew, following Nelson’s leadership at Trafalgar, with the Royal Navy today rescuing drug traffickers in the Caribbean after capturing and sinking their vessel.

Rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry, president of the HMS Hood Association, led the Act of Remembrance with the the standards from the HMS Hood Association, Royal Naval Association and the City of London Sea Cadets escorting the Hood Book of Remembrance, and a wreath was laid by Admiral Holland’s great neice, Titch Blatchford

The book and several mementos of the Hood, including a painting of the warship by Montagu Dawson, are on public display in a corner of the church of St John the Baptist.

The service concluded with refreshments organised by Anne Henley and provided by members of the congregation in the sunshine by the war memorial where Kym Wilcocks gave an emotional speech presenting the top City of London sea cadet with a memorial award presented by the HMS Hood Association last year in honour of her late husband, Rear Admiral Philip Wilcocks.