Special thanks to the late Ted Briggs for allowing us to post his half of the book "Flagship Hood. Alan wrote the first half of the book, called "The Frightener," and Ted wrote the second half, "The Frightened.
Chapter A Boy Goes to War There she lay - the 'Mighty 'ood' , as sailors called her, the world's most famous and powerful warship, which had been the impetus of my ambition to join the Royal Navy. It was 29 July , early, bright and sunny. The Hood was to be my home for the next two years, and the war, which was to bring her disastrous demise, was just thirty-six days away. I had signed on as a signal boy just a week after my fifteenth birthday, on 7 March During sixteen months in the whitened sepulchre of HMS Ganges , the boys' training ship at Shotley Gate, Ipswich, I had hardly dared to hope that I would be sent to the ship of my dreams at the end of my 'apprenticeship ashore'.
Then came the joyous listing of my name with twelve other boys from Ganges as a draft to the Hood. We were packed off to Portsmouth, where disappointment awaited us. The Hood had just completed a six-month refit and apparently could not accommodate in her bulk thirteen eager, bumbling amateurs.
Instead we were dumped on board the old battleship Iron Duke , which was acting as a depot ship. For a fortnight we were cooped up in this veteran of the First World War, and with each day our enthusiasm drained away. But then, at 8 a. As the lorry dawdled along the wharves, cruisers and destroyers came into view, and we chanted out each name as we passed them.
Then ahead there loomed a long forecastle with three gigantic gun turrets at the end. Ship identification had not been of paramount importance in our training: this was HMS Nelson.
