HIS MAJESTY’s BRITISH BATTLECRUISER HOOD, Captain Ralph Kerr CBE RN, the Flagship of Vice Admiral Lancelot Ernest Holland CB, together with His Majesty’s Battleship PRINCE OF WALES, Captain John Catterall Leach DSO MVO RN, engaged at the Battle of the Denmark Strait. HMS HOOD is depicted at the instant she was engulfed in a straddle of 38cm shellfire resulting from DKM BISMARCK’s 5th salvo - with the signal “TWO-BLUE” for “TURN TOGETHER TWO POINTS TO PORT” still streaming and the slightest inclination of a roll to Starboard, indicating that she is just initiating her final turn. The probable smoke from what would have been HOOD’s only salvo from Y-turret curls over and obscures the air-warning aerials further aloft at the maintopgallant mast as two last rounds of 15-inch armour-piercing ammunition are flung down range toward the enemy. HOOD’s displacement hullform heaps tens of thousands of tonnes of seawater into mounds of foaming wake as 144,000shp are transmitted into the cold depths of the North Atlantic Ocean. Her turbines scream as the ship’s stokers coax nearly every available knot from the complex and delicate machinery from deep within the ship. In the seconds that followed a series of catastrophic events unfolded whereby a magazine explosion engulfed the ship. HOOD would be lost, with a toll of 1,415 lives. PRINCE OF WALES would continue alone in the fight, inflicting serious damage to the enemy but in doing so receiving serious damage herself. A further 13 lives would be lost in PRINCE OF WALES during the action – with one more dying of his wounds the following day. The time of completion of this painting marked the 80th anniversary of the event, and the combined loss of 1,429 lives from both ships. As a mark of remembrance the work was named "The Final Sacrifice", after a line from Cecil Spring-Rice’s poem I Vow to Thee My Country. The glow of the boatdeck fire on HOOD reflects a holy cross in her maintopmast & yard, giving title to the painting.