-H.M.S. Hood Crew Information-
H.M.S. Crew List

It is estimated that as many as 18,000 men served aboard the 'Mighty Hood' during the operational portion of her 21 year career. Unfortunately, there is no surviving official single listing of ALL men who served in her. Here you will find our attempt at creating such a listing. We are using the few, fragmentary crew lists known to exist, Navy Lists, various official reports, public records, and most importantly of all, inputs from the families of former crew.

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John Gregory Crace

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Date of birth: 6 February 1887
Place of birth: Gungahlin, New South Wales, Australia
Parents: Edward Kendall Crace and Kate Marion Crace
Previous occupation: Schoolboy
Service: Royal Navy
Rank: Lieutenant-Commander (T)
Service Number: Not known
Joined Hood: 8th October 1918
Left Hood: 1st September 1926






Biographical Information: A torpedo specialist, John Gregory Crace served in Hood as a Lt Cdr (T), before and after her commissioning in May 1920. Crace was an Australian, born to Edward Kendall Crace and his wife Kate Marion Crace at Gungahlin, a property about 8 miles from where Canberra came to be located as national capital. Part of his education took place at the Kings School, Paramatta. Then, at the age of 12 he decided he wanted to join the Royal Navy. He spent a year in London with special tutoring to get his maths up to scratch then joined the Service, appointed first to the training ship HMS Britannia, a hulk moored in the river Dart. Every morning, winter and summer, the cadets had a cold bath. Crace later recalled the hulks being horribly draughty in winter as none of the ports and scuttles would close properly.John Craces time in Hood followed service in the battlecruiser HMAS Australia during World War I, and included Hoods initial commissioning into the Royal Navy and the Scandinavian cruise of 1920. Crace travelled back and forth to Australia during the interwar years, and served in a series of sea and shore positions, of increasing seniority, before being promoted to Rear Admiral and assigned command of the Allied Naval Squadron ANZAC Force in September 1939. In this role he commanded the Australian / New Zealand component at the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. Returning to the UK as a Vice-Admiral shortly after, he took command of Chatham dockyard. He was placed on the retired list in 1945, but remained in command at Chatham until July 1946. John Crace died in Hampshire, England, on 11 May 1968.Today, Craces birthplace, Gungahlin, is part of a suburb of Canberra and the adjoining suburb Crace now has a memorial to the Battle of the Coral Sea in its hilltop park.


Additional Photographs
None at this time.




Memorials
No known memorials



Sources
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
'Register of Deaths of Naval Ratings' (data extracted by Director of Naval Personnel (Disclosure Cell), Navy Command HQ, 2009)
Navy Lists, and relative James Warrand.