He believes the true explanation has been hiding in plain sight — in eyewitness testimony from Able Seaman Robert Tilburn that was given at the second inquiry and effectively ignored. Tilburn, a Yorkshireman who was 20 years old at the time of the sinking, said that “after Bismark’s second salvo fell [close to Hood but not hitting] the vessel was shaking with a great vibration.”
According to Lawrence, the only way that a ship as large as Hood‘s 48,000 tons could be made to shake like this was through a serious fault in its propulsion system. In his analysis, this most likely involved a propellor shaft breaking out of its bearing mounts and windmilling about until it broke. In his paper, he writes: “There is just nothing else on the ship with sufficient power to do this and there is no reason for Tilburn to make this up; in the disaster that was about to unfold around him, this was something unusual enough that he specifically remembered it.”
Crucially, Hood‘s inner propellor shafts passed within five feet of the main magazines at the rear of the ship, with their 112 tons of explosive cordite. Lawrence continues: “Each of her four propeller shafts was responsible for pushing some 12,000 tons of Hood along, in a storm, at 28 knots; a quite immense amount of power. Any breakage of these shafts or their bearing mounts, themselves of heavy and solid construction, would cause large and quite massive metal pieces, probably hot from explosively disintegrating, to go flying about. These parts would easily have enough energy to smash through local steel walls and with the magazines so close it is inevitable that these would be penetrated in a shower of red hot sparks.”
