IT WAS 100 years ago this week that the Clydebank shipbuilding yard of John Brown's received written confirmation from the Admiralty that it was to build one of the country's mightiest warships. If the Navy was Britain's arm at sea, then this warship would be its fist.

Its plans were still being created when the order was placed, as naval architects wrestled with the conundrum of how to make a battlecruiser far faster than previous lethargic battleships, but with enough heavy plating to withstand attack. The drawings later arrived and on September 1 the keel of ship number 460 was laid at Clydebank, with 1000 steelworkers riveting the ship. On August 22, 1918, it was launched as HMS Hood by the widow of Rear Admiral Sir Horace Hood, a great-great-grandson of Admiral Samuel Hood, for whom the ship was named.

Britain was still at war with Germany, and for security reasons the launch was not publicised. The next day's Glasgow Herald made no mention of it, although it had room for the trivia of war – a discharged soldier, it reported, was charged with the reset of a turnip stolen from a farmer's field at Stirling Sheriff Court. He had been hungry and ate it. The Sheriff admonished him.

If it had been allowed, The Herald would have recorded the launch of Britain's longest warship at 859.5ft (262 metres) – a record that would stand until the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier two years ago. It was a long, sleek boat which carried a great deal of menace. Its main armaments were eight 15-inch guns, with an astonishing range of up to 17 miles. Many a captain of foreign navy ships felt distinctly unwell when a gun with a diameter of 15 inches was trained on them.

The public, once they learned of it, called it The Mighty Hood. Crew members were less kind, calling it HMS Wobbly due to its handling. It weighed 42,100 tons and had a speed of 31 knots. There are lighter destroyers today that would be happy with that speed.

It had a crew of more than 1400 sailors. Fuel consumption at full speed was three yards to the gallon. Breakfast alone consisted of 100 gallons of tea, four sides of bacon, 300 pounds of tomatoes, 600 pounds of bread, and 75 pounds of butter.

Yet for all its speed and firepower, HMS Hood, still operating in the Second World War, became one of Britain's worst naval disasters when it was attacked between Greenland and Iceland by Germany's equally awesome Bismarck 75 years ago next month, and sank in only three minutes. Of the crew of 1415 souls, only three survived, such was the speed of its sinking. One of them, William John Dundas, was from Edinburgh, and only a teenage midshipman when the ship was sunk. He was a hero hat day, but never spoke in public about it, and died in a car crash near Tyndrum in 1965.

But back to Hood's earlier, grand days. By the time it was fitted out, the First World War was over, and Hood spent the twenties and thirties throughout the world, a symbol of Britain's naval power. Simply turning up was sufficient. During the Spanish Civil War, Franco's ships fired on British cargo ships taking food supplies to the republicans in Bilbao. Hood, on patrol, merely trained its guns on the attacking Spanish warship and it immediately stood down.

It could be argued that Hood was showing its age when the Second World War broke out, but all hands were needed on deck, as the saying goes, and she continued in service, becoming involved in 1941 in the search for the German battleship Bismarck which was trying to sail from Norway to the Atlantic where it hoped to cause havoc on the vital Atlantic supply lines.

Bismarck was discovered in terrible weather, west of Iceland. Battle was engaged. As Bob Tilburn, one of the three survivors from HMS Hood later recalled: "Everyone was prepared as far as they could be. Everyone knew that there would be casualties – but it would be someone else, not you. No one thought that the Hood would be sunk – no one gave it a thought."

Salvoes of fire boomed out from Hood, but they were returned. A shell from the Bismarck penetrated the ship's armour and blew up the Hood's aft magazine where a mountain of shells and flammable cordite was stored. It sank within minutes with a horrendous loss of life.

Only Ted Briggs, William Dundas, and Bob Tilburn bobbed to the surface of the sea. Clinging to buoyancy aids, Briggs and Tilburn could feel themselves slipping into a sleep which would have finished them off. They were saved by Dundas who kept singing popular songs and urging them to join in until a ship came to their rescue. As Jack Taylor on the rescue destroyer Electra recalled: "We made ready to pick up hundreds of injured and wounded men from the grey cold sea. Blankets, medical supplies, hot beverages and rum were got ready. Scrambling nets were flung over the ship's side, trailing into the water. Men were lining the side ready with hand lines, eyes straining into the greyness ahead.

"It was only what seemed like a matter of minutes when we broke out of a mist patch into the clear. And there it was. The place where the Hood had sunk. Wreckage of all descriptions was floating on the surface. Hammocks, broken rafts, boots, clothes, caps. Of the hundreds of men we expected to see there was no sign.

"We nosed our way slowly amongst all the pitiful remains of books, letters, photos, and other personal effects floating by and a shout went up as a man appeared clinging to a piece of flotsam a little further away. Two more were seen.

"We searched for a long time among what remained of this once proud ship but there was no one. Not even a body."

Ted Briggs later wrote his memoires of the loss and stated: "I swam as best I could in water four inches thick with oil and managed to get on one of the small rafts she carried, of which there were a large number floating around. When I turned again she had gone and there was a fire on the water where her bows had been. I saw Dundas and Tilburn on similar rafts. There was not another soul to be seen. We hand-paddled towards each other and held on to one another's rafts until our hands became too numb to do so.

"The Prince of Wales [battleship] had apparently reported, 'Hood sunk, very little hope of survivors'. The commander in chief however, had refused to believe this and ordered two of Hood's destroyer screen to close the area and search for survivors. Thus it was that three and a half hours later we saw the very welcome sight of Electra's bows as she headed towards us."

Recalling the moment he found himself underwater, Ted wrote: "I was not making any progress. The suction was dragging me down. The pressure on my ears was increasing each second, and panic returned in its worse intensity. I was going to die. I struggled madly to try to heave myself up to the surface. I got nowhere.

"Although it seemed an eternity, I was under water for barely a minute. My lungs were bursting. I knew that I just had to breathe. I opened my lips and gulped in a mouthful of water. I was not going to reach the surface. I was going to die.

"As I weakened, my resolve left me. What was the use of struggling? Panic subsided. I had heard it was nice to drown. I stopped trying to swim upwards. The water was a peaceful cradle. I was being rocked off to sleep. There was nothing I could do about it – goodnight, mum. I was ready to meet God. My blissful acceptance of death ended in a sudden surge beneath me, which shot me to the surface like a decanted cork in a Champagne bottle. I trod water as I panted in great gulps of air. I was alive."

The loss shocked the whole of Britain which had also believed the Hood was unsinkable. It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Bismarck. Hood's destruction spurred a relentless pursuit by all available Royal Navy warships, and two days later it was hit by an old Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bomber launched from the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. Bismarck lay vulnerable in the water, its steering gear inoperable, as all ships sped towards the stricken ship with guns blazing. It was scuttled by its crew with a heavy loss of life.

Today the HMS Hood Association is still active. As the association's secretary Jackie Miller told me: "Hood has remained iconic and alive in the hearts of our veterans, members and the families of the men who were lost. Whilst we still have a small number of veterans who served on her their numbers are now in single figures. Our focus now is to perpetuate the values and aspirations of all those men lost by supporting young people in the cadet groups linked to our association."

Apart from John Brown's and survivor William Dundas, there is another link to Scotland. Above Loch Eriboll, the name HOOD is picked out in white stones which were set there by crew members in 1935. Ever since, the site has been maintained by locals, including children from Durness Primary School.

In this small part of Scotland, the name HMS Hood will never be forgotten.