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HMS Rodney (29)

HMS Rodney was one of two Nelson-class battleships built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1920s. The ship entered service in 1928, and spent her peacetime career with the Atlantic and Home Fleets, sometimes serving as a flagship when her sister ship, HMS Nelson (28), was being refitted. During the early stages of the Second World War, she searched for German commerce raiders, participated in the Norwegian Campaign, and escorted convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. Rodney played a major role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in mid-1941.

After a brief refit in the United States, she escorted convoys to Malta and supported the Allied invasion of French Algeria during Operation Torch in late 1942. The ship covered the invasions of Sicily (Operation Husky) and Italy (Operation Baytown) in mid-1943. During the Normandy landings in June 1944, Rodney provided naval gunfire support and continued to do so for several following offensives near the French city of Caen. The ship escorted one convoy through the Arctic to the Soviet Union in late 1944. In poor condition from extremely heavy use and a lack of refits, she was reduced to reserve in late 1945 and was scrapped in 1948.

Background and description
The Nelson-class battleship was essentially a smaller, 23 kn battleship version of the G3 battlecruiser which had been cancelled for exceeding the constraints of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. The design, which had been approved six months after the treaty was signed, had a main armament of 16 in guns to match the firepower of the American Colorado-class battleship and Japanese Nagato-class battleshipes in the battleline in a ship displacing no more than 35000 LT.

Rodney had a length between perpendiculars of 660 ft and an overall length of 710 ft, a beam of 106 ft, and a draught of 30 ft at standard load. She displaced 33730 LT at standard load and 37430 LT at deep load. Her crew numbered 1,361 officers and ratings when serving as a flagship and 1,314 as a private ship. The ship was powered by two sets of Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, each driving one shaft, using steam from eight Admiralty 3-drum boilers. The turbines were rated at 45000 shp and intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 23 knots. During her sea trials on 7 September 1927, Rodney reached a top speed of 23.8 kn from 45614 shp. The ship carried enough fuel oil to give her a range of 7000 nmi at a cruising speed of 16 kn.

Armament and fire control
The main battery of the Nelson-class ships consisted of nine breech-loading (BL) 16 in guns in three triple-gun turrets forward of the superstructure. Designated 'A', 'B' and 'X' from front to rear, 'B' turret superfired over the others. Their secondary armament consisted of a dozen BL 6 in Mk XXII guns in twin-gun turrets aft of the superstructure, three turrets on each broadside. Their anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of six quick-firing (QF) 4.7 in Mk VIII guns in unshielded single mounts and eight QF 2-pounder (40 mm) guns in single mounts. The ships were fitted with two submerged 24.5-inch (622 mm) torpedo tubes, one on each broadside, angled 10° off the centreline.

The Nelsons were built with two fire-control directors fitted with 15 ft rangefinders. One was mounted above the bridge and the other was at the aft end of the superstructure. Each turret was also fitted with a 41 ft rangefinder. The secondary armament was controlled by four directors equipped with 12 ft rangefinders. One pair were mounted on each side of the main director on the bridge roof and the others were abreast the aft main director. The anti-aircraft directors were situated on a tower abaft the main-armament director with a 12-foot high-angle rangefinder in the middle of the tower. A pair of torpedo-control directors with 15-foot rangefinders were positioned abreast the funnel.

Protection
The ships' waterline belt consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 14 in thick between the main gun barbettes and thinned to 13 in over the engine and boiler rooms as well as the six-inch magazines, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. To improve its ability to deflect plunging fire, its upper edge was inclined 18° outward. The ends of the armoured citadel were closed off by transverse bulkheads of non-cemented armour 8 and 12 in thick at the forward end and 4 and 10 in thick at the aft end. The faces of the main-gun turrets were protected by 16-inch of KC armour while the turret sides were 9 to 11 in thick and the roof armour plates measured 7.25 in in thickness. The KC armour of the barbettes ranged in thickness from 12 to 15 in.

The top of the armoured citadel of the Nelson-class ships was protected by an armoured deck that rested on the top of the belt armour. Its non-cemented armour plates ranged in thickness from 6.25 in over the main-gun magazines to 3.75 in over the propulsion machinery spaces and the secondary magazines. Aft of the citadel was an armoured deck 4.25 in thick at the level of the lower edge of the belt armour that extended almost to the end of the stern to cover the steering gear. The conning tower's KC armour was 12 to 14 in thick with a 6.5 in roof. The secondary-gun turrets were protected by 1 - 1.5 in of non-cemented armour.

Underwater protection for the Nelsons was provided by a double bottom 5 ft deep and a torpedo protection system. It consisted of an empty outer watertight compartment and an inner water-filled compartment. They had a total depth of 12 ft and were backed by a torpedo bulkhead 1.5 inches thick.

Design deficiencies
The Nelson class was an innovative design, but limited by the constraints of the Washington Naval Treaty. The decision to use 16-inch guns combined with the 35,000-ton displacement limit made saving weight the primary concern of designers. The Director of Naval Construction, Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, informed the ship's designer, Edward Attwood, "In order to keep the displacement to 35,000 tons, everything is to be cut down to a minimum." The emphasis on saving weight resulted in deficiencies which affected the performance of Rodney during the Second World War. The design compromises had less negative consequences for Nelson because that ship underwent a number of refits immediately before and during the war. Naval architect and historian David K. Brown stated, "It seems likely that in the quest for weight saving, the structure was not quite strong enough." Unlike Nelson, which exceeded the design specification for machinery weight, the lighter machinery of Rodney resulted in chronic problems. The ship's endurance declined substantially in the decade after her launch; in her 1941 action against Bismarck, Rodney was nearly forced to abandon the pursuit because of a lack of fuel. British designers cited the poor endurance of the ship when establishing the endurance requirements for the battleship HMS Vanguard (23). Throughout the war Rodney was plagued with leaks as a result of panting, and the ship required repairs because of serious leaks in 1940, 1941 and 1944. During one storm, the leaking was severe enough to overwhelm a 50-ton pump. Leaks, defective riveting, and other problems continued to affect Rodney even after a 1941 refit in Boston, Massachusetts. By 1943 officials concluded that she required a complete modernization to extend her service life. The ship never received the necessary upgrades and as a result was unfit for service by the end of 1944.

Modifications
The high-angle directors and rangefinder and their platform were replaced by a new circular platform for the High Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director by March 1930. By July 1932, the single two-pounder guns and the starboard torpedo director were removed and replaced by a single octuple two-pounder "pom-pom" mount on the starboard side of the funnel and a 9 ft rangefinder was added at the rear of the bridge roof. The port side mount was installed several years later in the position occupied by the port torpedo director and anti-aircraft directors for both mounts were added to the bridge structure. In 1934–1935, Rodney was fitted with a pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers 0.5 in AA machineguns that were positioned on the forward superstructure. The ship was fitted with an aircraft catapult on the roof of 'X' turret and a collapsible crane abreast the bridge was also added in 1937 to hoist the aircraft in and out of the water. A floatplane version of the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber was first used aboard, but it was soon replaced by a Supermarine Walrus amphibian. In October 1938 another octuple "pom-pom" mount was added on the quarterdeck and a prototype Type 79Y early-warning radar system was installed on Rodney's masthead. She was the first battleship to be so equipped.

During a brief refit in HM Dockyard, Rosyth, Scotland, from 24 August to 10 September 1940, the Type 79Y radar was upgraded to a Type 279 system and two 20 mm Oerlikon light AA guns were installed on the roof of 'B' turret. While Rodney was refitting in the Boston Navy Yard in the United States in June–August 1941, the Oerlikons were replaced by a quadruple two-pounder mount and a pair of octuple two-pounder mounts were fitted in lieu of the aft six-inch gunnery directors. In addition a full suite of radars were added. A Type 281 radar replaced the Type 279, a Type 271 surface-search radar was installed as was a Type 284 gunnery radar on the roof of the forward main-gun director. The ship's light AA armament was heavily reinforced during a refit in February–May 1942 with seventeen 20 mm Oerlikons in single mounts added to turret roofs, the superstructure and the decks. The quadruple 0.5-inch mounts were replaced with Mk III "pom-pom" directors and three additional Mk IIIs were installed to control the aft octuple two-pounder mounts, all of which were fitted with Type 282 fire-control radars. The HACS Mk I was replaced by a Mk III director and four barrage (anti-aircraft) directors with Type 283 radars were added for the main guns. In addition her radar suite was upgraded: the Type 271 radar was replaced by a Type 273 system, a Type 291 early-warning radar was added and a Type 285 fire-control radar was installed on the roof of the HACS director.

While under repair at Rosyth in August–September, four additional Oerlikons were added on the quarterdeck. In May 1943 gun shields were added to the 4.7-inch guns and the catapult on the roof of 'X' turret was removed. Many more Oerlikons were installed during this brief refit, specifically 36 more single mounts and 5 twin mounts, which gave Rodney a total of 67 weapons in 57 single and 5 twin mounts. In preparation for her role providing naval gunfire support during the Normandy landings, two more Oerlikons were added as was a Type 650 radio jammer in January–March 1944. These additions increased the ship's deep displacement to 43100 LT and her crew to 1,631–1,650 men.

Construction and career
Rodney, named for Admiral Lord George Rodney, was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. Given the yard number 904, she was laid down on 28 December 1922 as part of the 1922 Naval Programme at Cammell Laird's shipyard in Birkenhead and was launched on 17 December 1925 by Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, after three attempts at cracking the bottle of Imperial Burgundy. She was completed and her trials began in August 1927 and she was commissioned on 7 December under the command of Captain Henry Kitson. The ship cost £7,617,799. The Nelson-class ships received several nicknames: Rodnol and Nelsol after the Royal Fleet Auxiliary oil tankers with a prominent amidships superstructure and names ending in "ol", The Queen's Mansions after a resemblance between her superstructure and the Queen Anne's Mansions block of flats, the pair of boot, the ugly sisters and the Cherry Tree class as they were cut-down by the Washington Naval Treaty. Rodney's trials resumed after she was formally commissioned and continued until she entered service on 28 March 1928. The ship was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet (renamed as Home Fleet in March 1932) and remained so, aside from refits or repairs, until 1941. On 21 April, Kitson was relieved by Captain Francis Tottenham. The following month she headed north to Invergordon, Scotland, to join the rest of the Atlantic Fleet in the annual exercises. Rodney returned to the south in August, where she was the Royal Guardship during Cowes Week where the ship hosted King George V and Queen Mary of Teck on 11 August. The battleship then sailed to HM Dockyard, Devonport, to participate in a charity fund-raising Navy Week which saw 67,000 visitors come to the dockyard. Rodney had some work done on her hull in Glasgow's Gladstone Dock in early October.

At the beginning of 1929, the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets combined for their annual fleet manoeuvres in the Mediterranean Sea. While visiting Torquay, Devon, for a fleet rendezvous in July, Rodney was ordered to go to the assistance of two submarines that had collided off Milford Haven, Wales, on 9 July. Ordered to steam at full speed, the ship arrived at Pembroke Dock the following morning to load rescue and salvage equipment. Delayed for a day by weather too bad for diving, she arrived at the site the following evening but it was too late for any survivors of HMS H47 and Rodney set sail for HM Dockyard, Portsmouth. The ship's propulsion machinery was proving troublesome by this time and she was docked there in late September for a refit that took the rest of the year. Captain Andrew Cunningham, later First Sea Lord, relieved Tottenham on 15 December.

Aside from the usual schedule of exercises, 1930 saw Rodney visit Portrush, Northern Ireland in June, which named a street after the battleship and a voyage to Iceland to commemorate the thousandth year of the Icelandic Parliament. Cunningham was relieved by Captain Roger Bellairs on 16 December. In mid-September 1931, the crew of Rodney took part in the Invergordon Mutiny when they refused orders to go to sea for an exercise, although they relented after several days when the Admiralty reduced the severity of the pay cuts that prompted the mutiny. Unhappy with how Bellairs had handled the crew during the mutiny, the Admiralty ordered that he was to be relieved by Captain John Tovey on 12 April 1932.

After Nelson ran aground while leaving Portsmouth in January 1934, Rodney became the temporary fleet flagship when Admiral Lord William Boyle, commander of the Home Fleet, hoisted his flag aboard her for the winter cruise to the British West Indies. The fleet visited two Norwegian ports before returning home. Captain Wilfred Custance relieved Tovey on 31 August. The 1935 winter cruise saw the ship return to the West Indies, before visiting the Azores and then Gibraltar between 15 January and 17 March. The ship participated in King George V's Silver Jubilee Fleet Review at Spithead on 16 July and then again served as the Royal Guardship during Cowes Week. Captain William Whitworth replaced Custance on 21 February 1936 and he was relieved in his turn by Captain Ronald Halifax on 25 July.

Some of Rodney's crew travelled to London to participate in King George VI's Coronation on 12 May 1937 and the ship took part in the Fleet Review at Spithead on 20 May. She again became the temporary fleet flagship when Nelson began a lengthy refit the following month and Admiral Sir Roger Backhouse hoisted his flag aboard her. Rodney visited Oslo, Norway, in July. Nelson's refit ended in February 1938 and the sisters made a port visit to Lisbon, Portugal that same month. Captain Edward Syfret relieved Whitworth on 16 August, shortly before Rodney began her annual short refit in September. After the completion of her post-refit trials in January 1939, Rear-Admiral Lancelot Holland hoisted his flag aboard the ship as the commander of the 2nd Battle Squadron. She fired a 21-gun salute in honour of the French President Albert Lebrun's arrival in Dover in March for talks with the British government. As the Home Fleet was assembling in Scapa Flow when tensions with Germany rose in August, Rodney developed steering problems and had to proceed to Rosyth for repairs and a bottom cleaning.

1939
When Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939, Rodney and the bulk of the Home Fleet were patrolling the waters between Iceland, Norway and Scotland for German blockade runners and then did much the same off the Norwegian coast from 6 to 10 September. The Home Fleet was already at sea when the submarine HMS Spearfish, on patrol in the Heligoland Bight, was badly damaged by German depth charges on 24 September. Unable to submerge, she requested assistance and the fleet responded with two destroyers escorting her home and the balance of the fleet providing cover. The Germans spotted the bulk of the Home Fleet and it was attacked by five bombers from the first group of Bomber Wing 30 (I./KG 30). Rodney's radar provided timely warning and the aircraft inflicted no damage on the British ships. The following month the ship was part of the covering force for an iron ore convoy from Narvik, Norway.

Syfret was relieved by Captain Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton on 21 November. Following the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi two days later by the German battleships GERMAN BATTLESHIP Scharnhorst and GERMAN BATTLESHIP Gneisenau off Iceland, Rodney and the rest of the Home Fleet were sent to look for them but heavy weather allowed the German battleships to evade their pursuers and return to Germany. The battleship developed serious problems with her rudder on 29 November and was forced to return to Liverpool, steering only with her engines, for repairs that lasted until 31 December.

1940
With Nelson damaged by a mine on 4 December, Rodney served as the temporary fleet flagship until her sister's return in August. She mostly spent January and February 1940 at anchor with occasional missions to provide cover from commerce raiders for convoys. During one such sortie on 21 February in heavy weather, her steering problems resurfaced and forced her return to Greenock, Scotland. Six days later, the ship was visited by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their morale-boosting tour of Scottish shipyards. The Prime Minister Winston Churchill boarded Rodney for a voyage to Scapa Flow on 7 to 8 March. Despite the danger of aerial attack by the Luftwaffe, most of the Home Fleet was now based there; Rodney was near-missed during an attack on 16 March.

Receiving word that the Royal Air Force (RAF) had attacked north-bound German warships in the North Sea on 7 April, Admiral Sir Charles Forbes, Commander-in-chief Home Fleet, ordered most of his ships to put to sea that evening. Rodney was hit by a 500 kg bomb on 9 April off the south-western coast of Norway. The bomb broke up after hitting the corner of a armoured 4.7-inch ready ammunition box on the upper deck aft of the funnel; its fragments penetrated through several decks before bouncing off the four-inch armoured deck and started a small fire in the galley. Three men were wounded by the bomb and another fifteen suffered electrical burns when water being used to fight the fire poured onto a junction box. The crew made temporary repairs and the ship remained at sea until she dropped anchor at Scapa Flow on 17 April. Upon receiving notice that German ships had been spotted in the Norwegian Sea on 9 June, Forbes ordered the Home Fleet, including Rodney, to sea to protect troop convoys evacuating Allied forces from Norway.

Nelson returned from the dockyard on 24 July and reassumed her role as the Home Fleet flagship. Rodney was transferred from Scapa Flow to Rosyth on 23 August with orders to attack the German invasion fleet in the English Channel when Operation Sealion began. She returned to Scapa on 4 November to begin convoy escort duty. After the armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay was sunk the following day by the heavy cruiser GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Scheer, the sisters were deployed to the Iceland–Faeroes gap to block any attempts by the German cruiser to return home. The following month Rodney was detailed to rendezvous with Convoy HX 93 from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and escort it home. The ship encountered a strong storm with gale-force winds from 6 to 8 December that caused leaks in her hull plating with a moderate amount of flooding. Repairs at Rosyth began on 18 December that included structural reinforcement of the hull plating and general reinforcement of the forward hull structure.

1941
After finishing her refit on 13 January 1941, Rodney joined the hunt for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, without success and then escorted Convoy HX 108 from 12 to 23 February. On 16 March, the ship spotted the latter battleship while escorting Convoy HX 114 in the North Atlantic; Gneisenau was rescuing survivors from the independently steaming reefer ship, MV Chilean Reefer, when Rodney steamed over the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun. Partially hidden behind the burning merchant ship, the gunnery officer estimated that the intermittently visible German ship was 15 or away, close to maximum range for Rodney's guns. Dalyrmple-Hamilton declined to pursue Gneisenau when she turned away at her top speed of 31 kn and was able to rescue 27 survivors and 2 dead seamen from one lifeboat before returning to her convoy. Troop Convoy TC 10 departed Halifax on 10 April with a strong escort that included Rodney. While steaming south out of  the River Clyde in the early hours of 19 April, the battleship accidentally rammed and sank the armed trawler Topaze; only four survivors could be rescued by nearby destroyers  (other sources state two survivors or no survivors).

Bismarck
On 22 May 1941, Rodney and four destroyers were part of the escort for the ocean liner MV Britannic (1929) as she set sail for Halifax. The battleship was scheduled to continue onwards to Boston for repairs and a refit. To this end, the ship carried some of the materials, such as boiler tubes and three octuple "pom-pom" mounts intended for use in her refit; other cargo included three or four crates of the Elgin Marbles. She also carried 521 military passengers bound for Halifax, as well as an American assistant naval attaché conveying important documents back to the United States. Britannic was taking civilians to Canada and would be bringing Canadian troops and airmen back to Britain.

After Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood (51) during the Battle of Denmark Strait on the morning of 24 May, Rodney was ordered by the Admiralty to join in the pursuit of the German ship, leaving the destroyer HMS Eskimo (F75) to escort Britannic and taking HMS Somali (F33), HMS Mashona (F59) and HMS Tartar (F43) with her in the search. After the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk (55) radioed that she had lost radar contact with the Bismarck at 04:01 on the morning of 25 May, Dalrymple-Hamilton, after consulting his senior officers and the American attaché, decided that the German ship was probably heading for Brest and so set course to the east to head her off, at some stages reaching twenty-two knots, which exceeded her then theoretical maximum speed by 2 kn, although this caused several mechanical failures. Later that morning, Admiral Sir John Tovey in the battleship HMS King George V (41) ordered all ships to head north west due to a misinterpreted signal from the Admiralty but Dalrymple-Hamilton knew that his ship was too slow to catch up to Bismarck if she was headed in that direction and disregarded Tovey's order. The Admiralty informed Dalrymple-Hamilton that they believed that Bismarck was probably headed to Brest or Saint Nazaire at 11:40. The captain subsequently altered course further south east to cover the approaches to Spanish ports where the German ship might intern herself but this was countermanded by an Admiralty order to turn north east at 14:30. Dalrymple-Hamilton continued south east for several more hours before he decided to obey the order at 16:20; during this time Bismarck passed his position just under the horizon, about 25 nmi away. Not having spotted the German ship by 21:00, Dalrymple-Hamilton decided to turn south-east again, heading directly for Brest.

Bismarck was spotted by a RAF Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat at 10:35 on 26 May and the two battleships were able to join up as Tovey had realised his mistake and doubled back. Despite the heavy weather, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (91) launched her first attack, by 14 Swordfish torpedo bombers, against the German ship that afternoon. The pilots mistook the light cruiser HMS Sheffield (C24) for the Bismarck and attacked, although the cruiser was able to evade the six of eleven torpedoes dropped that did not detonate when they hit the sea due to faulty magnetic detonators. Around dusk, Ark Royal launched an attack by 15 Swordfish, whose torpedoes had been fitted with contact detonators. Despite the heavy anti-aircraft fire, the Swordfish hit Bismarck with three torpedoes. Two of them struck forward of the aft gun turrets and caused no significant damage; the last struck the stern, disabled the battleship's steering and caused her to significantly reduce speed. That evening Tovey detached Mashona and Somali to refuel and had Rodney fall in behind King George V for the battle against Bismarck. Although his ships could catch the German ship that night now that her steering had been disabled and her engines damaged, Tovey decided to reduce speed to save fuel and wait until dawn to allow his ships the maximum amount of time in which to sink the German ship.

Rodney spotted Bismarck at 08:44 on 27 May, one minute after King George V and was the first to open fire at a range of 23400 yd three minutes later with Bismarck replying at 08:49. The initial salvos from both ships were off but Rodney straddled her opponent with her third salvo and hit her twice with her fourth at 09:02, knocking out the forward superfiring turret, disabling the lower turret and severely damaging her bridge. In her turn, Bismarck scored no hits, although she managed to damage Rodney with shell splinters before her forward guns were knocked out. As the British ship manoeuvred to bring 'X' turret to bear while closing the distance, she exposed herself to fire from Bismarck's aft turrets, which only managed to straddle Rodney. As the range diminished, she began to fire torpedoes, although shock waves from near misses caused the door for her starboard tube to jam at 09:23. At 09:31, the ship blew off the left barrel of the Bismarck's lower aft gun turret and started a fire inside the turret that forced its evacuation. Around this time the combined fire from Rodney, King George V and the heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk (78) and HMS Dorsetshire (40) knocked out all of Bismarck's main guns. Rodney closed to point-blank range and continued to engage, starting to fire full broadsides into Bismarck on a virtually flat trajectory, and added three more torpedoes at a range of 3000 yd beginning at 09:51; one of these malfunctioned but another may have struck Bismarck. According to the naval historian Ludovic Kennedy, who was present at the battle in Tartar, "if true, [this is] the only instance in history of one battleship torpedoing another."

Rodney fired 378 sixteen-inch shells and 706 six-inch shells during the battle before Dalrymple-Hamilton ordered cease fire around 10:16, while Dorsetshire was then ordered to finish Bismarck off with torpedoes. Ironically, Rodney's own main guns firing at low elevation had damaged her more extensively than had Bismarck. Deck plates around the main-gun turrets had been depressed by the effects of the guns' muzzle blast, and some of the structural members supporting them had cracked or buckled. Piping, urinals and water mains had broken, while the shock of firing had loosened rivets and bolts in the hull plating, flooding various compartments. One gun in 'A' turret permanently broke down during the battle and two others in 'B' turret were temporarily disabled.

Rodney and King George V, running short on fuel, were ordered home and were ineffectually attacked by a pair of Luftwaffe bombers the next day. The former ship arrived at Greenock to replenish her ammunition, fuel and supplies on 29 May and departed for Halifax on 4 June together with the ocean liner RMS Windsor Castle (1921), escorted by four destroyers. Rodney continued to the Boston Navy Yard for the delayed repairs to her propulsion machinery and her self-inflicted damage from the battle where she arrived on 12 June. Since the repairs took several months to complete, Rodney's crew was furloughed to local Civilian Conservation Corps camps for a fortnight. During the refit, Dalrymple-Hamilton was relieved by Captain James Rivett-Carnac and Rodney departed Boston for Bermuda on 20 August to work up. The ship arrived in Gibraltar on 24 September to join Force H.

Force H and subsequent operations
Rodney departed Gibraltar later that day to join her sister in escorting a convoy to Malta in Operation Halberd. During the operation the ship accidentally shot down a Fleet Air Arm Fairey Fulmar fighter and Nelson was torpedoed. She was initially able to keep up with the convoy, but had to turn back on 28 September 1941, followed shortly afterwards by Rodney and HMS Prince of Wales (53). With Nelson forced to return home for repairs, Vice-Admiral James Somerville transferred his flag to Rodney on 30 September. The ship's tenure with Force H was brief, with her only mission escorting two carriers flying off fighters for Malta from 16 to 19 October. On 30 October, she was ordered to return home to replace the departing Prince of Wales in the Home Fleet in case the battleship GERMAN BATTLESHIP Tirpitz attempted to break out into the North Atlantic.

Departing on 2 November, she arrived at Loch Ewe, Scotland, six days later, but only remained there for a few hours to off-load her passengers and re-provision before departing for Hvalfjord, Iceland, where she arrived on 12 November. The highlight of Rodney's initial stay in Iceland was a visit by the movie star, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was also stationed there aboard an American battleship. The ship was transferred to Scapa Flow in late December, but was ordered back to Hvalfjord in mid-January 1942 where she was briefly used as a target ship for United States Army Air Force aviators.

1942
Rodney was ordered to proceed to Birkenhead for a refit on 10 February and then sailed to Liverpool, where she remained until 5 May, when the ship was ordered to return to Scapa to begin working up with Nelson. The sisters began escorting Convoy WS 19, loaded with troops bound for Egypt or Burma, on 4 June. They continued as far south as the coast of Portuguese Angola before turning back on 26 June. The following day, Rodney's steering began malfunctioning despite repair attempts. The sisters reached Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 1 July where the ship docked for repairs. Departing on 17 July, the sisters headed home, although Rodney's steering problems soon resurfaced. The ship arrived at Scapa on 26 July where she began cleaning her boilers and requested assistance from Rosyth Dockyard to fix her steering gear.

She departed Scapa on 2 August with orders for convoy escort duties, but was soon diverted to become part of the close escort for Convoy WS 21S, bound for Malta as part of Operation Pedestal. Vice-Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, second-in-command of the Home Fleet, was aboard the ship to gain experience in integrating carrier and convoy operations and was not flying his flag. Rodney rendezvoused with the convoy two days later and was assigned to Force Z which would turn back before the convoy passed through the Sicilian Narrows. Italian spies in Algeciras, Francoist Spain, spotted the convoy as it passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on 10 August and Italian reconnaissance aircraft located it the following morning. The GS U-73 (1940) opened what would be many Axis attacks on the convoy and its escorts, by sinking the carrier HMS Eagle (1918) that afternoon. Later that evening, the battleship was attacked by two bombers that near missed with two bombs and a torpedo. The ship was able to comb the tracks between two torpedoes dropped by Italian aircraft at 07:45 on 12 August. Her gunners claimed an Italian bomber at 12:17.

Twenty minutes later, Rodney opened fire with her main guns on a wave of approaching Italian torpedo bombers, hoping to knock some of them down with shell splashes, which "frightened us, our escort and [the] Italians". The ship was near missed many times that afternoon and her steering gear began acting up around 14:00, but the engineers were able to keep it semi-operational. At 18:42, Rodney was attacked by Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers flown by the Regia Aeronautica's 102nd Dive Domber Group. Although the ship shot down one of her attackers, one armour-piecing bomb bounced off the roof of 'X' turret, wounding four Royal Marines manning the Oerlikons there, and two others detonated near by as the ship was trying to evade the bombs. The evasive manoeuvres worsened Rodney's steering problems and issues with her boilers began after Force Z turned back that evening which limited the ship to 18 kn. They arrived at Gibraltar on 14 August and temporary repairs were made. Rodney departed Gibraltar to rejoin the Home Fleet at Scapa two days later, but her problems worsened during the voyage as heavy weather further stressed the steering motors and exacerbated her many leaks. The ship was sent to Rosyth for repairs on 22 August.

With her repairs completed on 16 September, Rodney arrived back at Scapa on 23 September but almost immediately set sail for Loch Cairnbawn where the British had created a replica of the defences around Tirpitz. The battleship was to serve as a target for frogmen training to use Chariot manned torpedoes to deliver and attach limpet mines to her hull in preparation for Operation Title. Rodney returned to Scapa on 29 September where she spent most of October training in preparation for the invasion of Northwest Africa scheduled for the following month. Churchill visited the ship on 10 October and thanked the crew for their efforts during Pedestal. Rodney set sail for Gibraltar on 23 October and rejoined Force H upon her arrival.

Force H was to provide distant cover for the landings at Algiers and Oran, French Algeria, in case either the Vichy French Navy or the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) attempted to intervene. If that did not happen, Rodney was to support the Centre Naval Task Force at Oran on 8 November. Other ships had dealt with the warships in Oran's port of Mers-el-Kebir but the four 194 mm coast-defence guns of Fort du Santon overlooking the harbour were still shooting at the British ships. Rodney fired 16 shells from her main guns before she was forced to disengage in response to a reported submarine but the French chose not to return fire. The ship resumed firing later that afternoon, again without reply. The following morning the French guns opened fire as the battleship closed the range, nearly hitting her. Rodney moved further out to sea and resumed her bombardment with the aid of a land-based spotter. Her shelling thus far had not had much effect on the fort as its guns began bombarding approaching American troops. At their request, the battleship resumed firing at the fort despite the presence of nearby troops and the French capitulated shortly afterwards.

1943
Rodney remained in the Mediterranean until she departed for Devonport on 7 May 1943 to begin a brief refit that lasted until 28 May. The ship arrived at Scapa on 3 June to begin training for the invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) and then rejoined Force H. She saw no combat during the landings, although there were many air raids while she was berthed in Grand Harbour, Malta. On 31 August Rodney joined her sister in bombarding coast-defence guns near Reggio di Calabria in preparation for the Allied crossing of the Strait of Messina from Sicily (Operation Baytown) on 3 September, blowing up an ammunition dump during her shoot. Force H provided support for the landings at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) on 9 September with the battleship only using her anti-aircraft guns. Captain Robert FitzRoy relieved Rivett-Carnac on 25 September. The ship arrived back in the UK on 5 November where she rejoined the Home Fleet. While at sea with the FRENCH BATTLESHIP Richelieu to conduct a night gunnery exercise on 29 December, Rodney suffered weather damage during a severe storm that caused extensive flooding forward.

1944 and the Normandy Landings
The ship departed Scapa on 16 January 1944 to begin repairs in Rosyth. Little effort was made to repair the persistent steering and boiler problems as efforts focused on making her seaworthy again. They were completed on 28 March, and Rodney steamed back to Scapa, where she arrived on 1 April. The ship spent most of the next few months conducting gunnery training, mostly shore bombardment but also anti-aircraft shoots and practice defending herself against attacks by E-boats. Although she was initially in reserve for the Normandy landings (Operation Overlord), Rodney did engage coast-defence guns near Le Havre with two armour-piercing 16-inch shells on 6 June. The ship was ordered forward to support operations off Sword Beach that night and accidentally rammed and sank LCT 427, killing all 13 crewmen, in the darkness and congested waters off the Isle of Wight.

Soon afterwards, another LCT rammed Rodney's bow, tearing a 9 ft hole in her hull plates and crumpling the bow of the landing craft. After reaching her assigned position, the ship engaged targets north of Caen, possibly belonging to the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend which was attacking British and Canadian troops near there. During her day's shooting Rodney expended 99 sixteen- and 132 six-inch shells. That night the ship moved to the waters off Juno Beach to avoid attacks by German light forces. Returning to Sword Beach on 8 June, she bombarded German troops and vehicles near Caen. The following morning Rodney began engaging targets in Caen proper, beginning the gradual devastation of the city, including the destruction of the spire of the Church of Saint-Pierre. That day the ship also fired at coast-defence guns at Houlgate and Benerville-sur-Mer. After an ineffectual air raid on the ships off Sword Beach that afternoon, Rodney withdrew to replenish her ammunition at Milford Haven.

The ship was kept in reserve until 18 June when her sister struck a mine and had to withdraw. A severe storm began the following day and caused all operations to cease. A LCT took shelter in the lee of the battleship for the duration of the storm and a trawler collided with Rodney on 21 June but was not seriously damaged. On the night of 23/24 June, the ship was ineffectually attacked twice by Junkers Ju 88 bombers; her gunners claiming one aircraft. Firing for the first time since her return, Rodney's guns began bombarding targets during Operation Epsom, which began on the 26th. These included a sporadic, 30-hour operation firing an occasional shell 22 mi inland, to prevent a Panzer division from crossing a bridge. The ship also provided fire support during Operation Windsor, a partially successful Canadian assault on Carpiquet and its airfield west of Caen on 4 to 5 July, and Operation Charnwood, a frontal assault on Caen proper on 8 to 9 July. Some of the targets engaged were normally beyond the maximum range of Rodney's guns, but oil was pumped to one side to give the ship a temporary list which acted to increase the guns' elevation and range. After the end of Charnwood, the ship was withdrawn as Allied forces drove deeper into France. She had expended at total of 519 sixteen- and 454 six-inch shells during her sojourn off the Norman coast.

Long-range artillery on the German-occupied island of Alderney was disrupting Allied operations off the north west corner of the Cotentin Peninsula after the landings in Normandy. Rodney was tasked to eliminate the problem and bombarded Batterie Blücher on 12 August, taking up a position on the other side of the Cap de la Hague to avoid return fire. She fired 75 sixteen-inch shells at the artillery position, believing that three of the four guns had been damaged. Postwar analysis showed that although 40 shells had fallen within 200 m of the center of the battery, only one gun had actually been damaged and it was back in service by November. The other three guns resumed shooting at Allied ships by 30 August.

Post Invasion
After a fortnight in Portland, the ship arrived in Devonport on 27 August for repairs that were originally scheduled to last for a month or more. Her dockyard time was curtailed and Rodney was ordered north. She arrived in Scapa on 15 September and sailed the following day to escort Convoy JW 60 bound for Murmansk. The escorts dropped anchor at Vaenga on 23 September after an uneventful passage. Admiral Arseny Golovko visited the ship three days later to coordinate arrangements for defending the convoys. Rodney rendezvoused with the returning convoy RA 60 on 28 September. German submarines were able to sink two ships of the convoy against the loss of one of their own and the ship arrived at Scapa on 5 October. She became the Home Fleet flagship four days later when Admiral Sir Henry Moore hoisted his flag aboard her. Rodney generally remained at Scapa for the next year, the tedium relieved by a visit by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, in late September 1945. The ship steamed south in mid-November, bound for Portsmouth where Moore would transfer his flag to her sister. She arrived at Rosyth on 2 December where she was docked in No. 3 dry dock from 8 December until 1 March 1948; during this time, Rodney's condition was surveyed and her leaks were patched. She was transferred to BISCO early that year for disposal and the ship was allocated to Thos. W. Ward on 26 March to be scrapped at Inverkeithing.

title: HMS Rodney (29)


text:
HMS Revenge (06)

HMS Revenge was the lead ship of five Revenge-class battleship super-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War in the mid-1910s. The ships were developments of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, with reductions in size and speed to offset increases in armour protection whilst retaining the same main battery of eight 15 in guns. She was laid down in 1913, launched in 1915 and commissioned in February 1916, early enough to be worked up to see action with the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May that year. During the engagement, she engaged German battlecruisers, damaging two of them before being forced to turn away to avoid torpedoes that damaged her squadron flagship and caused the squadron to lose contact with the rest of the fleet. Revenge emerged from the battle unscathed, but she saw no further action during the war, as the British and German fleets turned to more cautious strategies owing to the risk of submarines and naval mines.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Revenge alternated between the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Whilst serving in the Mediterranean in the early 1920s, the ship went to Turkey twice in response to crises arising from the Greco-Turkish War, including the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922. The ship's interwar career was otherwise uneventful. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Revenge was used to escort convoys and transport significant quantities of the country's gold reserves to Canada as part of Operation Fish; these activities continued into 1940. She was involved in the seizure of French warships in Portsmouth after the French surrender in July 1940.

In October 1940, she conducted Operation Medium, an attack on German transport ships that had been collected along the English Channel in preparation for the later-cancelled invasion of Britain. Revenge thereafter resumed convoy escort duties until October 1941, when she was reassigned to the 3rd Battle Squadron and sent to the Far East as tensions with Japan began to rise. British naval forces were strengthened further after the start of the Pacific War in December, leading to the creation of the Eastern Fleet. Revenge and her sister ships were deemed too old to be of use against the Japanese fleet, so they were relegated to convoy escort duties in the Indian Ocean. Badly worn out by 1943, Revenge returned home, where she was removed from front-line service. Her last voyage was to carry Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the Tehran Conference in November 1943. Upon returning, she was assigned to the training establishment HMS Imperieuse (training establishment), disarmed and eventually broken up in 1948.

Design and description
The Revenge-class ships were designed as slightly smaller, slower, and more heavily protected versions of the preceding Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. As an economy measure they were intended to revert to the previous practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914. Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by 9000 shp over the original specification.

Revenge had a length overall of 620 ft, a beam of 88 ft and a deep draught of 33 ft. She had a displacement of 29590 LT and displaced 32820 LT at deep load. She was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam provided by eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at 40000 shp and intended to reach a maximum speed of 23 kn, although the ship only reached a top speed of 21.9 kn from 41938 shp during her sea trials on 24 March 1916. She had a range of 7000 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn. Her crew numbered 940 officers and ratings in 1917. Her metacentric height was 3.4 ft at deep load.

The Revenge class was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) 15 in Mk I guns in four twin gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. Twelve of the fourteen BL 6 in Mk XII guns were mounted in casemates along the broadside of the vessel amidships; the remaining pair were mounted on the shelter deck and were protected by gun shields. The ship also mounted four 3-pounder (47 mm) guns. Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 3 in 20 cwt Mk I guns. She was fitted with four submerged 21 in torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.

Revenge was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with 15 ft rangefinders. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod foremast. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by 'X' turret as well. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in March 1917. A torpedo-control director with a 15-foot rangefinder was mounted at the aft end of the superstructure.

The ship's waterline belt consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 13 in thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 4 to 6 inches (102 to 152 mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between 'A' and 'X' barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the waterline belt to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes. The gun turrets were protected by 11 to 13 in of KC armour, except for the turret roofs which were 4.75 - 5 in thick. The barbettes ranged in thickness from 6 - 10 in above the upper deck, but were only 4 to 6 inches thick below it. The Revenge-class ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 4 in in thickness. The main conning tower had 11 inches of armour on the sides with a 3-inch roof. The torpedo director in the rear superstructure had 6 inches of armour protecting it. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines.

The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets in 1918, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. During the 1928 refit the platform was removed from 'X' turret. The platform on 'B' turret was removed in 1933.

Major alterations
Revenge was fitted with anti-torpedo bulges between October 1917 and February 1918. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability. They increased her beam by over 13 feet (4 m) to 101 ft, her displacement to 32460 LT and reduced her draught to 31 ft, all at deep load. They increased her metacentric height to 5.1 ft. Later in 1918, 30 ft rangefinders were fitted in 'B' and 'X' turrets. In 1919 her complement was 1,240 officers and ratings.

The gun shields for the shelter-deck six-inch guns were replaced by armoured casemates in 1922. Two years later, her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original three-inch AA guns with a pair of QF 4 in AA guns. During the ship's 1928–1929 refit, two more four-inch AA guns were added and the six-inch guns from the shelter deck were removed. In addition a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director was installed on the spotting top. In 1931 one octuple mount for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns was added abreast the funnel (only on the starboard side) for trials. Its director was added abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. The aft torpedo tubes were also removed at that time. The ship's 1936–1937 refit saw the removal of the torpedo director and its associated rangefinder. Two years later, Revenge's anti-aircraft defences were strengthened by replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts and adding the portside octuple two-pounder "pom-pom" mount and its director. A HACS Mk III director replaced the Mk I on the roof of the spotting top and another was added in the position formerly occupied by the torpedo director. A pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. The forward torpedo tubes were also removed at that time.

Wartime modifications for the Revenge-class ships were fairly minimal. Revenge was fitted with a Type 279 early-warning radar in 1941. The following year saw the addition of a Type 273 surface-search radar, a pair of Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery sets and two Type 282 radars for the "pom-poms". Two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added in late 1941 atop 'B' and 'X' turrets as well as ten 20 mm Oerlikon guns that replaced the quadruple .50-caliber mounts. To save weight and make more room available for the additional crew required to man the new equipment like the radars and Oerlikons, four 6-inch guns were removed in 1943.

First World War

Revenge was laid down at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness on 22 December 1913. She was launched on 29 May 1915 and was commissioned into the Grand Fleet on 1 February 1916, though she was not completed and ready for service until 24 March, with the time between her commissioning and completion including a period of sea trials. The ship cost a total of £2,406,368. On entering service, Revenge was assigned to the 6th Division of the 1st Battle Squadron (BS), Grand Fleet, along with the battleships HMS Marlborough (1912) (the divisional and squadron flagship), HMS Hercules (1910), and HMS Agincourt (1913).

Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet with 16 dreadnoughts, six pre-dreadnoughts, six light cruisers and 31 torpedo boats commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, departed the Jade early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's five battlecruisers and supporting cruisers and torpedo boats. The Royal Navy's Room 40 had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation. The Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet of 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. On the day of the battle, Revenge and the rest of the 6th Division, 1st BS were stationed toward the rear of the British line.

The initial action was fought primarily by the British and German battlecruiser formations in the afternoon, but by 18:00, the Grand Fleet approached the scene. Fifteen minutes later, Jellicoe gave the order to turn and deploy the fleet for action. The transition from their cruising formation caused congestion with the rear divisions, forcing Revenge and many of the other ships to reduce speed to 8 kn to avoid colliding with each other. The German fleet quickly came into range and many British ships began to engage them starting at 18:17. The British ships initially had poor visibility and Revenge waited several minutes before opening fire at 18:22; her target during this period is unclear, and she may have engaged the crippled cruiser SMS Wiesbaden, the German battle line, or both. She fired intermittently for seventeen minutes and made no hits in the haze.

At 19:09, Revenge was forced to turn away to avoid a torpedo that was probably launched by the torpedo boat SMS V48; the torpedo passed harmlessly in her wake. Shortly thereafter, she engaged the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger; her first salvo estimated the range to be 11000 yd, but overshot the target. Revenge's gunlayers quickly brought the range down to 10200 yd and straddled Derfflinger with their second salvo. With the range found, Revenge quickly scored five hits before shifting fire to the battlecruiser SMS Von der Tann, since other battleships were concentrating their fire on Derfflinger. Two of her hits on Derfflinger disabled her aft turrets; the other three caused less significant damage, with one of them passing through a funnel without exploding. Revenge hit Von der Tann once near her aft conning tower at 19:19, doing minor damage; she also fired a torpedo at the ship during this period that failed to hit.

Revenge had to turn away again at 19:35 to avoid a pair of torpedoes; she and the other members of the division turned again at 19:42 after reports of a submarine, which proved to be imaginary. Revenge saw no further contact with German forces, in large part due to torpedo damage incurred by the squadron flagship, Marlborough, that forced the ship to slow significantly. At 01:56 on 1 June, Vice-Admiral Cecil Burney, the squadron commander aboard Marlborough, informed Revenge that the damage would force him to transfer to Revenge to allow Marlborough to return to port. He boarded the light cruiser HMS Fearless (1912), which carried him to Revenge shortly after 03:00. By 10:00, the 6th Division ships were still 45 nmi to the north of the rest of the fleet. Revenge and the other two ships finally rejoined the fleet at 19:25 on the way back to Scapa Flow.

In the course of the battle, Revenge had fired 102 rounds from her main battery, all of which were of the armour-piercing, capped variety. She also fired 87 rounds from her secondary guns. She was not hit by any fire during the engagement.

Later operations

After the action of 19 August 1916, in which the Grand Fleet had lost two light cruisers to German U-boat attacks, Admiral John Jellicoe, the fleet commander, decided that the fleet should not be risked in such sorties unless the High Seas Fleet ventured north or the strategic situation warranted the risk. For its part, the German fleet remained in port or trained in the Baltic Sea through 1917, as both sides had largely abandoned the idea of a decisive surface battle in the North Sea. Both sides turned to positional warfare, laying fields of naval mines, and Germany resumed the unrestricted submarine warfare campaign early in the year. As a result, Revenge and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no action during the last two years of the war.

In 1917, Britain began running regular convoys to Norway, escorted by light forces; the Germans raided these convoys twice late in the year, prompting Admiral David Beatty, who had replaced Jellicoe the previous year, to send battle squadrons of the Grand Fleet to escort the convoys. The High Seas Fleet went to sea on 23 April to attack one of the escorted convoys, but after the battlecruiser SMS Moltke suffered a serious mechanical accident the next day, the Germans were forced to break off the operation. Revenge and the rest of the Grand Fleet sortied on 24 April once they intercepted wireless signals from the damaged Moltke, but the Germans were too far ahead of the British, and no shots were fired.

On 21 November 1918, following the Armistice, the entire Grand Fleet left port to escort the surrendered German fleet into internment at Scapa Flow. At the time, Revenge was part of the 1st Battle Squadron, commanded by Vice-Admiral Sydney Fremantle, who made Revenge his flagship. The 1st BS was tasked with guarding the fleet while its fate was being determined at the peace treaty negotiations at the Versailles conference. After the Germans scuttled their fleet on 21 June 1919, Fremantle had the German commander, Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, brought aboard Revenge. Fremantle accused Reuter of violating the terms of the armistice and had him and the German officers taken into captivity as prisoners of war.

Inter-war years
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Revenge typically operated with her sister ships, apart from periods where they were detached for refit or modernisation. In April 1919, the ships were transferred to the Atlantic Fleet, still as part of the 1st BS. They were then attached to the Mediterranean Fleet for operations in Turkey and the Black Sea as part of Britain's responses to the Greco-Turkish War and the Russian Civil War, respectively. On 19 July 1920, Revenge went to Panderma, where she encountered several vessels of the Greek Navy, including the armoured cruiser GREEK CRUISER Georgios Averof, which had King Alexander of Greece aboard. Alexander visited Revenge and met with Fremantle later that day. Over the next day, Revenge assisted with Greek landings at Sultanköy and Eregli.

In August 1920, the ships returned to the Atlantic Fleet. The 1st and 2nd Battle Squadrons merged in May 1921, with Revenge and her four sisters forming the 1st Division and the five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships forming the 2nd Division. Revenge and three of her sisters were again sent to the Mediterranean Fleet in September 1922 during a crisis in Smyrna that culminated in the Great fire of Smyrna as the Greco-Turkish War came to its conclusion. The ships primarily operated in the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora. With the war over by November, the ships were free to return once again to the Atlantic Fleet.

On 1 November 1924, the Atlantic Fleet underwent a reorganisation that saw the Queen Elizabeth-class ships sent to the Mediterranean Fleet and the ships of the 1st Division reconstituted as the 1st Battle Squadron. Revenge and her sisters were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1927. From January 1928 to January 1929, Revenge underwent a refit that included extensive modifications to her secondary and anti-aircraft batteries, fire control equipment, and rebuilding her bridge and aft superstructure, among other changes. She had another refit from May to December 1931 that saw further alterations to her anti-aircraft battery and fire control equipment.

In early 1935, the Revenge and Queen Elizabeth classes again swapped places, though by this time, the Atlantic Fleet had been renamed the Home Fleet. On 16 July, the ships were present during the fleet review at Spithead for King George V's silver jubilee. From July 1936 to March 1937, Revenge had another modernisation, which included the removal of the torpedo rangefinder and supporting tower. She and her sisters were present for the Coronation Review for George VI on 20 May 1937. A final pre-war refit began in early 1939 and concluded in August, which included a considerably strengthening of the anti-aircraft battery. On 9 August 1939 she was present during a fleet review for the king at Portland.

In the Atlantic
On 3 September 1939 at the start of hostilities, Revenge formed part of the Channel Fleet based at Portland. Shortly after the outbreak of the war, the merchant ship SS Pakeha was disguised as HMS Revenge to deceive German aircraft. On 1 October Revenge was ordered to prepare to take up convoy escort duties in the South Atlantic, because of the threat posed by the German "pocket battleship", GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Graf Spee; however, on 5 October 1939, in a change of orders, she was attached to the North Atlantic Escort Force based at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Fulfilling another urgent need at the same time, Revenge and her sister HMS Resolution (09) were to carry gold bullion to Canada, which was needed by the Anglo-French Purchasing Board in New York, to pay for arms bought from the United States. 148 boxes of gold bars, worth a total of £2 million, were loaded onto each battleship at Portland; they departed on 7 October and arrived in Halifax nine days later. After escorting several convoys, Revenge was again used to transport gold, this time to a value of £10 million, departing from Plymouth on 28 January 1940. On 7 February, she collided with the British tanker SS Appalchee whilst Convoy HX19 was forming up off Halifax; although lightly damaged, she continued as an escort, returning to Halifax on 18 February for repair.

On 12 May 1940, she accidentally rammed and sank the Canadian Battle-class trawler HMCS Ypres which was acting as a boom defence vessel at Halifax, although without loss of life. For the remainder of her service in the war, whenever Revenge came to Halifax, the crews of other gate ships would make elaborate and exaggerated "Abandon Ship" manoeuvres in mockery. On 30 May, Revenge began to participate in Operation Fish, the removal of all of the United Kingdom's gold reserves to Canada, in case of invasion, leaving the River Clyde with £40 million worth of bullion on board, bound for Halifax. The battleship arrived at HM Dockyard, Devonport, on 22 June for a brief refit after escorting Convoy TC 5. On 3 July 1940, while at Plymouth, boarding parties from Revenge took control of the FRENCH BATTLESHIP Paris and the large submarine-cruiser FRENCH SUBMARINE Surcouf, in case their crews decided to return them to Vichy France where they might fall into the hands of the Germans. One sailor boarding Surcouf was killed during the operation. On the following day, Revenge resumed ferrying gold, this time with a cargo worth £47 million, repeating this on 11 August with £14.5 million from Greenock.

On 15 September, Revenge arrived in Plymouth where she came under the control of Western Approaches Command, in case of an invasion. If the German amphibious landing, codenamed Operation Sealion, had gone ahead as planned, Revenge would have been the only British capital ship in the English Channel area. Unknown to the British high command, Adolf Hitler had ordered that the invasion be postponed indefinitely on 17 September; however in the early hours of 11 October, Revenge formed the main element of Operation Medium, which aimed to bombard invasion transport ships and barges that were still concentrated in the French port of Cherbourg. Revenge, six destroyers and a screen of motor gun boats formed the striking force, while a covering force of three cruisers and six destroyers patrolled to prevent German naval forces from interfering. There was a simultaneous air raid by RAF Bomber Command which also dropped flares to illuminate the target. During the 18-minute bombardment, Revenge fired 120 main-gun shells at the harbour while her escorts fired 801 rounds from their 4.7-inch guns. The British force came under accurate fire from German heavy coastal artillery but were able to retire undamaged, Revenge managed to make 21.5 knots on the return journey. On 13 November 1940, she resumed North Atlantic convoy duties, which continued without major incident well into 1941.

With the Eastern Fleet

In October 1941, the Admiralty decided the ship was to be transferred to the 3rd Battle Squadron, which was to be based in Colombo, Ceylon; she was joined there by her three surviving sisters (HMS Royal Oak (08) had been sunk in October 1939). The unit was established in December, with the squadron attached to Force F. With the start of the Pacific War on 7 December, naval forces were necessary in the Indian Ocean to protect British India. By the end of March 1942, the Eastern Fleet had been formed, under the command of Admiral James Somerville. Despite the numerical strength of the Eastern Fleet, many of its units, including the four Revenge-class battleships, were no longer front-line warships. Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's powerful Kido Butai, composed of six carriers and four fast battleships, was significantly stronger than Somerville's Eastern Fleet. As a result, only the modernised battleship HMS Warspite (03) could operate with the two fleet carriers; Revenge, her three sisters, and the carrier Hermes were kept away from combat to escort convoys in the Indian Ocean.

In late March, the code-breakers at the Far East Combined Bureau, a branch of Bletchley Park, informed Somerville that the Japanese were planning a raid into the Indian Ocean to attack Colombo and Trincomalee and destroy his fleet. He therefore divided his fleet into two groups: Force A, which consisted of the two fleet carriers, Warspite and four cruisers, and Force B, centred on Revenge and her sisters and Hermes. He intended to ambush Nagumo's fleet in a night action, the only method by which he thought he could achieve a victory. After three days of searching for the Japanese fleet without success, Somerville returned to Addu Atoll to refuel. While refuelling his ships, Somerville received a report that the Japanese fleet was approaching Colombo, which they attacked the following day, on 5 April, followed by attacks on Trincomalee on 9 April. Following the first raid on 5 April, Somerville withdrew Revenge and her three sisters to Mombasa, where they could secure the shipping routes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The four Revenges departed from Addu Atoll early on the morning of 9 April, bound for Mombasa; they remained based there into 1943. Thereafter, the Revenge-class ships escorted convoys while based in Kilindini Harbour. The ship underwent a further refit in Durban from October to November 1942. In February 1943, Revenge and Resolution escorted the Operation Pamphlet convoy that carried the 9th Australian Division from Egypt back to Australia.

Fate
In mid-1943, the poor condition of the ship—which had become apparent as early as 1936, but could not be remedied due to the outbreak of the war—prompted the Admiralty to recall her to Britain to be withdrawn from service. She arrived in the Clyde on 31 September, where she was reduced to reserve status for the rest of the conflict. The ship's electrical system was in very poor condition and needed a thorough overhaul, and her hull was badly stressed from years of heavy use. Although in reserve, the ship was used to carry Prime Minister Winston Churchill part of the way to the Tehran Conference in November and December. In January 1944, she was transferred to the Portsmouth Command, based in Southampton; she remained there, out of use, until 17 December, when she was converted into a training ship for boiler room personnel, part of the training establishment HMS Imperieuse (training establishment). During the period of inactivity, in May 1944, her main armament was removed to provide spare guns for the battleships Ramillies and Warspite, as well as monitors which were to be vital during the bombardment of the beaches of Normandy during Operation Overlord.

In March 1948, she was placed on the disposal list, being sold for scrap in July to the British Iron & Steel Co.; she was then sent to ship breakers Thos. W. Ward to be broken up at Inverkeithing, where she arrived on 5 September. Some of Revenge's gun-turret rack and pinion gearing was reused in the 76 m diameter Mark I radio telescope built at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire, in the mid-1950s, along with equipment from HMS Royal Sovereign (05).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: HMS Revenge (06)


text:
HMS Royal Sovereign (05)

HMS Royal Sovereign (pennant number 05) was a Revenge-class battleship (also known as Royal Sovereign and R-class) battleship of the Royal Navy displacing 29970 LT and armed with eight 15 in guns in four twin-gun turrets. She was laid down in January 1914 and launched in April 1915; she was completed in May 1916, but was not ready for service in time to participate in the Battle of Jutland at the end of the month. She served with the Grand Fleet for the remainder of the First World War, but did not see action. In the early 1930s, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and based in Malta.

Unlike the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, Royal Sovereign and her sisters were not modernised during the interwar period. Only minor alterations to her anti-aircraft battery were effected before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. Assigned to the Home Fleet, the ship was tasked with convoy protection until May 1940, when she returned to the Mediterranean Fleet. Royal Sovereign was present during the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, but her slow speed prevented her from engaging the Italian battleships. By March 1942, she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, but after the Indian Ocean raid by Admiral Nagumo's Kido Butai, the ship was withdrawn to eastern Africa to escort convoys. In January 1944, she returned to Britain, and in May the Royal Navy transferred Royal Sovereign to the Soviet Navy, which renamed her Arkhangelsk. She then escorted Arctic convoys into Kola until the end of the war. The Soviets returned the ship in 1949, after which she was broken up for scrap.

Description
Royal Sovereign had a length overall of 620 ft, a beam of 88 ft and a deep draught of 33 ft. She had a designed displacement of 27790 LT and displaced 31130 LT at deep load. She was powered by four Parsons steam turbines using steam from eighteen oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at 40000 shp and a top speed of 21 kn. She had a range of 7000 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn. Her crew numbered 1,240 officers and ratings in 1921. Royal Sovereign cost £2,570,504 upon completion.

Armament
The ship was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) 15 in Mk I guns in four twin gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. Twelve of the fourteen BL 6 in Mk XII guns were mounted in casemates along the broadside of the vessel amidships; the remaining pair were mounted on the shelter deck and were protected by gun shields. Her anti-aircraft armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 3 in 20 cwt Mk I AA guns.

In August–September 1924, the 3-inch guns were replaced by a pair of QF 4 in Mk V guns. During the ship's 1927–28 refit, the shelter deck 6-inch guns were removed and another pair of 4-inch AA guns were added. These were replaced by eight QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns in twin turrets during Royal Sovereign's 1937–1938 refit. A pair of eight-barrel 2-pounder "pom-poms" were added in 1932 abreast the funnel, and two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added in early 1942 atop 'B' and 'X' turrets. Ten 20 mm Oerlikon guns were also added in 1941. Another six were added in 1943. Royal Sovereign was initially equipped with four submerged 21 in torpedo tubes on her broadside, though the after pair were removed in 1932. The forward pair were also removed in 1937–1938, during the ship's last prewar refit.

Fire control
Royal Sovereign was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with 15 ft rangefinders. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod foremast. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by 'X' turret as well. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in March 1917. A 30 ft rangefinder replaced the smaller one originally fitted in 'X' turret in 1919. Similarly, another large rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret during the ship's 1921–1922 refit. A simple high-angle rangefinder was added above the bridge during that same refit.

About 1931, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director replaced the high-angle rangefinder on the spotting top. During the 1932 refit two positions for 2-pounder "pom-pom" anti-aircraft directors were added on new platforms abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. In the 1937–1938 refit a HACS Mark III director replaced the Mk I in the spotting top and another was added to the torpedo-control tower aft. By 1942, a Type 279 air warning radar, a Type 273 surface-search radar, a Type 284 gunnery radar and two Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery radars were installed. By September 1943, the Type 284 radar had been replaced by an improved Type 284B and two Type 282 radars had been fitted for the "pom-poms".

Protection
Royal Sovereign's waterline belt consisted of face-hardened Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 13 in thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 4 to 6 inches (102 to 152 mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between 'A' and 'X' barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the waterline belt to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes.

The gun turrets were protected by 11 to 13 in of KC armour, except for the turret roofs which were 4.75 - 5 in thick. The barbettes ranged in thickness from 6 - 10 in above the upper deck, but were only 4 to 6 inches thick below it. The Revenge-class ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 4 in in thickness. The main conning tower had 13 inches of armour on the sides with a 3 in roof. The torpedo control tower in the rear superstructure had 6 inches of armour protecting it. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines. In 1918 the gun shields for the upper deck 6-inch guns were replaced by armoured casemates.

To protect against underwater explosions, the ship was fitted with longitudinal torpedo bulkheads 1 to 1.5 in inches thick that ran from the forward to the rear magazines. During her 1921 refit, Royal Sovereign was fitted with an anti-torpedo bulge that ran the length of the ship between the fore and aft barbettes. It was divided into a water-tight empty lower compartment and an upper compartment filled with water-tight "crushing tubes" intended to absorb and distribute the force of an explosion. The space between the tubes was filled with wood and cement.

Aircraft
The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets in 1918, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. In 1932 the platforms were removed from the turrets and a trainable catapult was installed on her quarterdeck, along with a crane to recover a seaplane. The catapult and crane were removed by March 1937.

First World War
Royal Sovereign was laid down on 15 January 1914 at the HM Dockyard, Portsmouth. The ship was launched on 29 April 1915 and commissioned in May 1916. On 30 May 1916, three weeks after her commissioning, Royal Sovereign was present in Scapa Flow when the fleet commander, Admiral John Jellicoe ordered the Grand Fleet to sea. Jellicoe purposely left Royal Sovereign behind in port due to the inexperience of her crew; causing her to miss the Battle of Jutland the following day. In the months after the engagement, Royal Sovereign was quickly made ready for service with the fleet to further increase the numerical superiority of the Grand Fleet over the German High Seas Fleet.

The Grand Fleet sortied on 18 August 1916 to ambush the High Seas Fleet while it advanced into the southern North Sea, but a series of miscommunications and mistakes during the action of 19 August prevented Jellicoe from intercepting the German fleet before it returned to port. Two light cruisers were sunk by German U-boats during the operation, prompting Jellicoe to decide to not risk the major units of the fleet south of 55° 30' North due to the prevalence of German submarines and mines. The Admiralty concurred and stipulated that the Grand Fleet would not sortie unless the German fleet was attempting an invasion of Britain or there was a strong possibility it could be forced into an engagement under suitable conditions.

In April 1918, the High Seas Fleet again sortied, to attack British convoys to Norway. They enforced strict wireless silence during the operation, which prevented Room 40 cryptanalysts from warning the new commander of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty. The British learned of the operation only after an accident aboard the battlecruiser SMS Moltke forced her to break radio silence to inform the German commander of her condition. Beatty then ordered the Grand Fleet to sea to intercept the Germans, but he was not able to reach the High Seas Fleet before it turned back for Germany. This was the last time Royal Sovereign and the rest of the Grand Fleet would go to sea for the remainder of the war. On 21 November 1918, following the Armistice, the entire Grand Fleet left port to escort the surrendered German fleet into internment at Scapa Flow.

Inter-war period
The Royal Marines detachment assigned to Royal Sovereign left the ship on 21 June 1919 to conduct exercises. The ship meanwhile went into drydock at Invergordon in September. Post-war demobilisation in 1919 saw some 500 men leave the ship while she was in dock. Upon returning to service in late 1919, the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. Conflicts between Greece and the crumbling Ottoman Empire prompted the Royal Navy to deploy a force to the eastern Mediterranean. In April 1920, Royal Sovereign and her sister ship HMS Resolution (09) steamed to the region via Malta. While in the Ottoman capital Constantinople, Royal Sovereign and the other British warships took on White émigrés fleeing the Communist Red Army. Among those refugees aboard Royal Sovereign was a princess of the Galitzine family.

The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty cut the battleship strength of the Royal Navy from forty ships to fifteen. The remaining active battleships were divided between the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets and conducted joint operations annually. Royal Sovereign remained with the Atlantic Fleet through 1926. On 4 October 1927, the ship was placed in reserve to effect a major refit. Four new rangefinders and eight searchlights were installed. On 15 May 1929, the refit was finished, and the ship was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet. The squadron consisted of Royal Sovereign, her sisters Resolution and HMS Revenge (06), and HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913), and based in Malta. By the 1930s, the five ships of the Queen Elizabeth class were rotated through extensive modernisation. Royal Sovereign and her sisters, however, were smaller and slower than the Queen Elizabeth class, and so they were not extensively modernised in the inter-war period. The only changes made were augmentations to their anti-aircraft batteries.

Fleet exercises in 1934 were carried out in the Bay of Biscay, followed by a fleet regatta in Navarino Bay off Greece. In 1935, the ship returned to Britain for the Jubilee Fleet Review for King George V. In August 1935, Royal Sovereign was transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet, where she served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Charles Ramsey. The ship served as a training vessel until 2 June 1937, when she was again placed in reserve for a major overhaul. This lasted until 18 February 1938, after which she returned to the 2nd Battle Squadron. In 1939, King George VI made a state visit to Canada; Royal Sovereign and the rest of the fleet escorted his ship halfway across the Atlantic and met it on the return leg of the voyage.

In early 1939, the Admiralty considered plans to send Royal Sovereign and her four sisters to Asia to counter Japanese expansionism. They reasoned that the then established "Singapore strategy", which called for a fleet to be formed in Britain to be dispatched to confront a Japanese attack was inherently risky due to the long delay. They argued that a dedicated battle fleet would allow for faster reaction. The plan was abandoned, however, because the new King George V-class battleships would not begin to enter service until 1941. In the last weeks of August 1939, the Royal Navy began to concentrate in wartime bases as tensions with Germany rose. Royal Sovereign steamed to Invergordon, where she joined her sisters Resolution and HMS Royal Oak (08), HMS Rodney (29), and the battlecruiser HMS Repulse (1916). By 31 August, the force joined HMS Nelson (28), the flagship of Admiral Charles Forbes, the commander of the Home Fleet.

Second World War
On 31 August, the day before the German invasion of Poland, Royal Sovereign was assigned to a screening force in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap to patrol for German merchant ships that might be attempting to reach Germany. At the outset of war in September 1939, Royal Sovereign was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet. She was assigned to the North Atlantic Escort Force, which was based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was tasked with protecting convoys to Britain. Upon returning to Plymouth, she underwent a short refit. In May 1940, she moved to the Mediterranean Fleet. There she was based in Alexandria with the battleships HMS Warspite (03), Malaya, and HMS Valiant (1914), under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham. On 25–27 June, she and her sister ship HMS Ramillies (07) escorted two convoys from Alexandria to Malta. On 28 June, aerial reconnaissance located Italian destroyers off Zakynthos; Admiral John Tovey took the 7th Cruiser Squadron. Royal Sovereign was left behind due to her slow speed. Cunningham split his fleet into three groups; Royal Sovereign and Malaya were the core of Group C. She was present at the Battle of Calabria on 18 July, but her slow speed prevented her from engaging the Italian battleships. Warspite bore the brunt of the action, as Royal Sovereign and Malaya lagged behind.

In mid-August 1940, while steaming in the Red Sea, Royal Sovereign was unsuccessfully attacked by the ITALIAN SUBMARINE Galileo Ferraris. Later that month, she returned to Atlantic convoy duties. These lasted until August 1941, when periodic maintenance was effected in Norfolk, Virginia. The Admiralty decided in May 1941 to deploy a powerful fleet to be based in Singapore to counter any Japanese attempt to invade Western colonies in Southeast Asia. Royal Sovereign and her sisters Revenge, Ramillies, and Resolution were assigned to the force. The unit was to have been assembled in Singapore by March 1942, though Royal Sovereign reached the theatre earlier. At the beginning of March 1942, Royal Sovereign, the heavy cruiser HMS Cornwall (56), and several smaller vessels escorted the convoy SU.1 of twelve troopships transporting 10,090 soldiers. The convoy departed Colombo on 1 March, bound for Australia. The convoy reached Fremantle without incident on 15 March.

By the end of March 1942, the Eastern Fleet had been formed, under the command of Admiral James Somerville. The fleet was centred on a pair of fleet aircraft carriers, the elderly carrier HMS Hermes (95), and five battleships, four of which were Royal Sovereign and her sisters; the fifth was Warspite. The fleet also included seven cruisers and sixteen destroyers. Despite the numerical strength of the Eastern Fleet, many of its units, including the four Revenge-class battleships, were no longer front-line warships. Vice Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's powerful Kido Butai, composed of six carriers and four fast battleships, was significantly stronger than Somerville's Eastern Fleet. As a result, only the modernised Warspite could operate with the two fleet carriers; Royal Sovereign, her three sisters, and Hermes were kept away from combat to escort convoys in the Indian Ocean.

In late March, the code-breakers at the Far East Combined Bureau, a branch of Bletchley Park, informed Somerville that the Japanese were planning a raid into the Indian Ocean to attack Colombo and Trincomalee and destroy his fleet. He therefore divided his fleet into two groups: Force A, which consisted of the two fleet carriers, Warspite and four cruisers, and Force B, centred on Royal Sovereign and her sisters and the carrier Hermes. He intended to ambush Nagumo's fleet in a night action, the only method by which he thought he could achieve a victory. After three days of searching for the Japanese fleet without success, Somerville returned to Addu Atoll to refuel. While refuelling his ships, Somerville received a report that the Japanese fleet was approaching Colombo, which they attacked the following day, on 5 April, followed by attacks on Trincomalee on 9 April.

Following the raid in April 1942, Somerville withdrew Royal Sovereign and her three sisters to Mombasa, where they could secure the shipping routes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Royal Sovereign and her sisters departed from Addu Atoll early on the morning on 9 April, bound for Mombasa. Here they remained stationed until September 1943, with the exception of another long period in the dockyard in Philadelphia in late 1942. While Royal Sovereign was moored in Philadelphia, the American light cruiser USS Boise (CL-47), a badly-damaged veteran of the Battle of Cape Esperance, shared a pier with her. During the refit, the ship's deck armour was increased by 2 in and four of her six-inch guns were removed. Royal Sovereign was sent back to the United States for a major overhaul in Philadelphia, from March to September 1943. She then returned to the Indian Ocean to resume her patrol duties. In January 1944, she left the Indian Ocean, bound for Britain.

Service with the Soviet Navy
After returning to Britain, Royal Sovereign was sent to the naval base in Scapa Flow. On 30 May 1944 she was transferred on loan to the Soviet Navy as Arkhangelsk in lieu of war reparations from Italy, as there was concerns about mutiny from sailors in the newly allied country. The ship left Britain on 17 August 1944 as part of the escort for Convoy JW 59, which contained thirty-three merchant vessels. Six days later, while still en route, the convoy was attacked by the U-boat GS U-711. The submarine's captain, Hans-Günther Lange, incorrectly reported hits on Arkhangelsk and a destroyer, though his torpedoes had exploded prematurely. Under the impression that they had crippled the battleship, the Germans launched several submarine attacks on the ship while she was moored in Kola. Anti-torpedo nets ensured that the attacks failed, however. The Germans then planned to use six Biber midget submarines to attack the ship, but mechanical difficulties eventually forced the cancellation of the plan. Regardless, Arkhangelsk had already departed Kola to patrol the White Sea by the time the Bibers would have arrived. A Soviet crew commissioned the ship on 29 August 1944 at Polyarny. Arkhangelsk was the largest ship in the Soviet fleet during the war. While in Soviet service, she was the flagship of Admiral Gordey Levchenko and was tasked with meeting Allied convoys in the Arctic Ocean and escorting them into Kola. The ship itself was poorly winterized before its transfer to the Soviet Navy, and it lacked shipwide heating systems as well as turret lubricants suited for the conditions of the Arctic convoys.

Arkhangelsk ran aground in the White Sea in late 1947; the extent of damage, if any, is unknown. The Soviet Navy returned the ship to the Royal Navy on 4 February 1949 after the former ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Giulio Cesare was transferred to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. The Soviet Navy – intending to keep the vessel – had initially sought to avoid sending the ship back, claiming that she was not sufficiently seaworthy to make the voyage back to Britain. After an inspection by a Royal Navy officer, however, the Soviet Navy agreed to return the vessel in January 1949. Upon returning to the Rosyth naval base, Royal Navy personnel thoroughly inspected the ship and found much of her equipment to be unserviceable. It appeared to the inspectors that the main battery turrets had not been rotated while the ship was in Soviet service (although pictures exist to disprove this belief), and were jammed on the centreline. She was sold for scrap, the last member of her class to suffer this fate. The ship arrived at Thos. W. Ward's scrapyard at Inverkeithing, Scotland, on 18 May to be broken up. The elevation mechanisms from her main battery gun turrets were later reused in the 250 ft Mark I radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire built in 1955–1957.

title: HMS Royal Sovereign (05)