text:
HMS Resolution (09)

HMS Resolution (pennant number: 09) was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in December 1916, Resolution saw no combat during the war as both the British and German fleets adopted a more cautious strategy after the Battle of Jutland in May owing to the increasing threat of naval mines and submarines.

Resolution spent the 1920s and 1930s alternating 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. She also saw limited involvement during the Franco-British intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea in 1920. The ship's interwar career was otherwise uneventful. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Resolution was assigned to the Channel Force before being transferred to convoy escort duties in the North Atlantic. In May 1940, she participated in the Battles of Narvik until German air attacks drove her off.

In June 1940, the ship was transferred to Force H, where she took part in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in July after the French surrender to Germany. She was also involved in the Battle of Dakar, an attempt to neutralise the French battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Richelieu that ended with Resolution's torpedoing by the French submarine FRENCH SUBMARINE Bévéziers. Badly damaged, Resolution was repaired first in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard under Lend-Lease. Thereafter assigned to the Eastern Fleet, her age kept her from seeing action against the Japanese fleet, and she instead escorted convoys off the eastern coast of Africa. She returned to Britain in September 1943 and was decommissioned. Thereafter she saw service with the training establishment HMS Imperieuse (training establishment), a role she filled until February 1948, when she was paid off, sold for scrap and broken up at Faslane.

Design and description
The Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleships 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they were intended to revert to the previous practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914.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. Resolution 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 25750 LT and displaced 31130 LT at deep load. She was powered by two pairs of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 40000 shp and intended to give the ship a maximum speed of 23 kn. During her sea trials on 22 May 1916, the ship only reached a top speed of 22 kn from 40360 shp. She had a range of 7000 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn. Her crew numbered 910 officers and ratings in 1916. 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 singly 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 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.

Resolution 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 April 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 13 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. In 1927 a rotating aircraft catapult was installed on Resolution's quarterdeck. It was removed during her 1929–1931 refit. The flying-off platforms were removed in 1932–1933. A catapult was added on the roof of 'X' turret by September 1936 as well as a crane to handle the aircraft.

Major alterations
Resolution was fitted with anti-torpedo bulges between late 1917 and May 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 32820 LT and reduced her draught to 31 ft, all at deep load. They increased her metacentric height to 5.1 ft. Later in 1918, a 30 ft rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret.

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. Another pair of four-inch AA guns were added and the six-inch guns from the shelter deck were removed in 1927. During the ship's 1929–31 refit, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director was installed on the spotting top and the aft pair of torpedo tubes on either side were also removed. An experimental 4-inch dual-purpose, twin-gun turret was installed in the place of the starboard forward AA gun for evaluation.

By September 1933 a pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. Three years later a HACS Mk II director replaced the Mk I on the roof of the spotting top. A platform for another director was added on the mainmast which was converted into a tripod to handle the additional weight. The torpedo director and its associated rangefinder were removed. In January 1938 the rear HACS was added, the existing AA guns were replaced with QF 4-inch Mk XVI guns in Mk XIX twin mounts and a pair of octuple mounts for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns were added with their directors. The forward pair of submerged torpedo tubes were also removed.

Wartime modifications for the Revenge-class ships were fairly minimal. In 1941 Resolution was fitted with a Type 279 early-warning radar and a pair of Type 285 anti-aircraft gunnery sets. The following year a Type 273 surface-search radar and a pair of Type 284 gunnery radars for the main guns were added. The quadruple .50-calibre mounts were replaced by nine 20 mm Oerlikons in September 1941. Two four-barrel "pom-poms" were added as in 1942 as well as another Oerlikon. To save weight and make more room available for the additional crew required to man the new equipment like the radars and Oerlikons, two 6-inch guns were removed in 1943.

First World War
Resolution was laid down at Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Jarrow on 29 November 1913, launched on 14 January 1915, and commissioned on 7 December 1916. On 30 December, she joined the Grand Fleet in Rosyth, assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron along with her sister ships and several other battleships. 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 further such sorties unless the German 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, Resolution and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no action during this period.

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. Resolution 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.

Interwar years

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Resolution 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 Battle Squadron. 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 10 April, the ship arrived in Constantinople from Malta, and two days later she and several other ships went to Prinkipo to conduct gunnery training. Resolution then went to Batumi in southern Russia, where she remained until mid-June, when she steamed back across the Black Sea to Constantinople, arriving on 18 June. The ship was then stationed in Chanak, along with her sister HMS Royal Oak (08) and the light cruiser HMS Ceres (D59). The two battleships embarked passengers and casualties bound for Britain before sailing for home waters, in company with a pair of destroyers.

In August 1920, the ships returned to the Atlantic Fleet. The 1st and 2nd Battle Squadrons merged in May 1921, with the Resolution and her four sisters forming the 1st Division and the five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships forming the 2nd Division. Resolution 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, though Resolution also stopped in Mytilene and Smyrna in February 1923 in company with the battleship HMS Emperor of India and several cruisers and destroyers. With the war over by November, the ships were free to return once again to the Atlantic Fleet.

On 10 January 1924, while conducting training exercises in the English Channel, Resolution ran into and sank the British submarine HMS L24 as she was surfacing, damaging her bow in the collision. Crewmen aboard Resolution reported feeling a shock at 11:13, but they were unaware that they had struck the submarine; it became clear later that day when the fleet returned to port and L24 was found to be missing. The submarine was sunk with the loss of all hands. From July to October, Resolution underwent a refit. On 1 November, 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. The ship underwent another, more lengthy refit from December 1926 to December 1927. Resolution and her sisters were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1927.

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. In December, Resolution again went into drydock for a refit that lasted until September 1936. She and her sisters were again present for the Coronation Review for George VI on 20 May 1937. In the last weeks of August 1939, the Royal Navy began to concentrate in wartime bases as tensions with Germany rose. Resolution steamed to Invergordon, where she joined her sisters Royal Sovereign and Royal Oak, 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
In September 1939, immediately after the start of the Second World War, Resolution was assigned to the Channel Force, based in Portland. On 1 October, after the German heavy cruiser GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Graf Spee sank the merchant vessel SS Clement, the Admiralty ordered Resolution to join the South Atlantic Command, but rescinded the order four days later. Resolution was instead sent to the North Atlantic Escort Force in company with HMS Revenge (06). She carried a load of gold bullion to Canada to safeguard it during the war, and thereafter escorted convoys of troopships from Canada to Britain through December 1939. She escorted the first major troop convoy starting on 12 December, in company with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse (1916). The Royal Navy purchased the merchant ship SS Waimana in September and disguised her as Resolution to deceive German aircraft while the battleship was on patrol in the Atlantic, a role she filled until February 1942.

In April 1940, Resolution re-joined the Home Fleet during the campaign in Norway. She was sent to relieve the battleship HMS Warspite (03) off Narvik late that month, arriving on 26 April. The ship and the light cruiser HMS Aurora (12) bombarded German positions around Beisfjord on 1 May. She supported the landing at Bjerkvik on 13 May during the Battles of Narvik. She arrived off Bjerkvik late on 12 May as part of a force that included two cruisers and five destroyers; they made preparations for the attack, which began in the early hours of the following morning. She carried five tanks and other vehicles for the landing, which she hoisted out in the darkness. Three of the tanks were sent in first, and as the German defenders engaged the incoming amphibious assault, Resolution and the cruisers and destroyers shelled German defences in the area. As the men and tanks fought their way inland, the ships conducted a creeping barrage. By 06:00, the troops had secured the town and signaled that Resolution and the rest of the squadron could depart. Later in May she was attacked by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers; she was hit by one 1000 lb bomb that killed two men and wounded another twenty-seven. On 18 May, she was detached to return to Scapa Flow to prevent her from being damaged by further air attacks.

Forces H and M
On 4 June, Resolution departed Scapa Flow bound for Gibraltar, where she joined Force H, which also included the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the battleship HMS Valiant (1914). She took part in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940. Following the French surrender on 22 June, the French fleet was to be disarmed under German and Italian supervision. The British high command, however, was concerned that the French ships would be seized by the Axis powers and placed in service. Prime Minister Winston Churchill therefore ordered Vice Admiral James Somerville, the commander of Force H, to neutralise the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. He was instructed to order the French vessels to join the British with the Free French, surrender for internment, to scuttle themselves, or be sunk. On 3 July, Somerville arrived and delivered the ultimatum; the French rejected it, and so the British ships opened fire. Shell hits from Resolution, Valiant, and Hood struck the French battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Bretagne, destroying her in a magazine explosion, and forced the battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Dunkerque to run herself aground to avoid sinking. The battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Provence also sank in shallow water, though she was later refloated.

With the fleet at Mers-el-Kebir neutralised, the naval forces at Dakar became the next target for Force H. The nearly-completed battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Richelieu, which had fled from Brest, France to escape the advancing German army, was in Dakar and was to be attacked on 6 July. However, Somerville was ordered to return to Mers-el-Kebir to ensure that Dunkerque was in fact destroyed—the attacks carried out by Hood, Valiant, and Ark Royal—granting Richelieu a temporary reprieve. Force H, again including Resolution, was then sent on 8 July to divert the attention of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) while a Malta convoy steamed to the island. During the operation, the ships made a feint toward Sardinia and Ark Royal launched a raid on Cagliari. Force H next supported Operation Hurry in late July and early August. Following the operation, Resolution and Ark Royal were detached from Force H to finally conduct the attack on Richelieu. The ships joined the battleship HMS Barham (04), three cruisers, and ten destroyers as Force M, under the command of Admiral Andrew Cunningham.

On the morning of 23 September, Force M appeared off Dakar and Cunningham issued the French commander the same ultimatum as at Mers-el-Kebir. After the French again refused to surrender or scuttle their ship and began firing on the British fleet, the British ships returned fire, and in the course of about half an hour, Resolution and Barham had fired more than 100 shells from their main battery. Poor visibility hampered their shooting, and between them the two battleships only scored a single hit on a freighter. Unable to effectively engage the French forces in the harbour, Cunningham broke off the attack after several of his ships received serious hits from French coastal batteries. The next day, Cunningham attempted an air strike from Ark Royal, which failed to damage the heavily armoured Richelieu. While they were steaming off the coast, the destroyer HMS Fortune (H70) came under attack from a French cruiser, which Resolution drove off with a single broadside of her main battery guns. The battleships then moved into position to attack the port; they scored a single hit on Richelieu, though it was only a splinter from a 15-inch shell that did little damage. Resolution's fire director gear broke down ten minutes into the action, drastically reducing her ability to fire accurately. The British briefly withdrew before attacking again later in the afternoon; Resolution engaged the shore battery while Barham fired on Richelieu. Neither British ship scored any hits, though Resolution was straddled by the coastal guns. Cunningham again disengaged, determined to make another attack the next morning.

The two battleships arrived off Dakar at around 9:00 to launch another attack, this time supported by a pair of heavy cruisers. Just as they were manoeuvring into position, the French submarine FRENCH SUBMARINE Bévéziers launched a spread of torpedoes at the battleships, one of which struck Resolution amidships on her port side. The explosion tore a large hole in her hull and flooded the port boiler room, reducing her to a speed of 12 kn and causing a serious list to port. Resolution was forced to withdraw, leaving Barham to engage Richelieu by herself. Cunningham escorted the crippled battleship to Freetown for repairs, and the next morning, Barham had to take her under tow. The ships arrived in Freetown on 29 September, where Resolution underwent six months of repairs. She returned to Portsmouth in March 1941, where she came under a German air attack that failed to score any hits. Resolution then crossed the Atlantic to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where she underwent repairs and modernisation under Lend-Lease; the modifications included altering her main battery turrets to allow elevation to 30 degrees, significantly increasing her range. Work completed in September 1941, allowing Resolution to return to action.

Eastern Fleet

In early 1942, the Royal Navy began amassing forces to send to the Indian Ocean to defend British India after the start of the Pacific War in December 1941. The ship sailed for Cape Town, where she met the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable (67); they were later joined by Revenge and Warspite, and on arriving in the Indian Ocean, they rendezvoused with the carriers HMS Indomitable (92) and the small and obsolescent HMS Hermes (95). By the end of March 1942, the Eastern Fleet had been formed, under the command of Admiral 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 Warspite could operate with the two fleet carriers; Resolution, 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 first raid on 5 April, Somerville withdrew Resolution 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 on 9 April, bound for Mombasa; they remained based there into 1943. In February 1943, Resolution and Revenge escorted the Operation Pamphlet convoy that carried the 9th Australian Division from Egypt back to Australia.

Later career
In September, Resolution returned to Britain, where she underwent a refit. She was reduced to the reserves in October, and in 1944 was assigned to the training establishment HMS Imperieuse (training establishment). She was disarmed, her main battery guns being used as spares for Warspite and HMS Ramillies (07), which were being used for coastal bombardment in support of the Normandy landings at the time. Resolution served as a training ship for the next four years before being paid off in February 1948. She was then placed on the disposal list and sold to the British Iron and Steel Co., who sent the vessel to Metal Industries Ltd. in Faslane to be broken up, arriving there on 13 May. One of Resolution's 15-inch guns, which was later fitted to the monitor HMS Roberts (F40), is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.

title: HMS Resolution (09)


text:
HMS Royal Oak (08)

HMS Royal Oak was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Completed in 1916, the ship first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland as part of the Grand Fleet. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. Royal Oak drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled, an event that brought considerable embarrassment to what was then the world's largest navy. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout her 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed and, by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suitable for front-line duty.

On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine GS U-47 (1938). Of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 835 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The loss of the outdated ship—the first of five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War—did little to affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its Allies, but it had a considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, who became the first German submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Before the sinking of Royal Oak, the Royal Navy had considered the naval base at Scapa Flow impregnable to submarine attack, but U-47's raid demonstrated that the German navy was capable of bringing the war to British home waters. The shock resulted in rapid changes to dockland security and the construction of the Churchill Barriers around Scapa Flow, with the added advantage of being topped by roads running between the islands.

The wreck of Royal Oak, a designated war grave, lies almost upside down in 100 ft of water with her hull 16 ft beneath the surface. In an annual ceremony marking the loss of the ship, Royal Navy divers place a White Ensign underwater at her stern. Unauthorised divers are prohibited from approaching the wreck under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

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. While 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.

Royal Oak 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 two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from 18 Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 40,000 shaft horsepower (30,000 kW) and intended to reach a maximum speed of 23 kn. During her sea trials on 22 May 1916, the ship reached a top speed of only 22 kn from 40360 shp. She had a range of 7000 nmi at a cruising speed of 10 kn. Her crew numbered 909 officers and ratings in 1916.

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. Their anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 3 in 20 cwt Mk I guns. The ships were fitted with four submerged 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.

Royal Oak 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 also be controlled by 'X' turret. 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 in 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-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 installed 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. In 1934 the platforms were removed from the turrets and a catapult was installed on the roof of 'X' turret, along with a crane to recover a seaplane.

Major alterations
Royal Oak was extensively refitted between 1922 and 1924, when her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original three-inch AA guns with a pair of QF 4 in Mk V AA guns. A 30 ft rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret and a simple high-angle rangefinder was added above the bridge. Underwater protection improved by the addition of anti-torpedo bulges. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability at the cost of widening the ship's beam by over 13 ft. They increased her beam to 102 ft, reduced her draught to 29 ft, increased her metacentric height to 6.3 ft at deep load, and all the changes to her equipment increased her crew to a total of 1,188. Despite the bulges she was able to reach a speed of 21.75 kn. A brief refit in early 1927 saw the addition of two more four-inch AA guns and the removal of the six-inch guns from the shelter deck. About 1931, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director replaced the high-angle rangefinder on the spotting top. Two years later, the aft pair of torpedo tubes were removed.

The ship received a final refit between 1934 and 1936, when her deck armour was increased to 5 in over the magazines and to 3.5 in over the engine rooms. In addition to a general modernisation of the ship's systems, her anti-aircraft defences were strengthened by replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts for the QF 4-inch Mark XVI gun and adding a pair of octuple mounts for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns to sponsons abreast the funnel. Two positions for "pom-pom" anti-aircraft directors were added on new platforms abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. A HACS Mk III director replaced the Mk I in the spotting top and another replaced the torpedo director aft. A pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. The mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a radio-direction finding office and a second High-Angle Control Station. The forward pair of submerged torpedo tubes were removed and four experimental 21-inch torpedo tubes were added above water forward of 'A' turret.

Construction and service
Royal Oak was laid down at Devonport Royal Dockyard on 15 January 1914. She was launched on 17 November, and after fitting-out was commissioned on 1 May 1916 at a final cost of £2,468,269. Named after the Royal Oak in which Charles II hid following his defeat at the 1651 Battle of Worcester, she was the eighth vessel to bear the name Royal Oak, replacing a pre-dreadnought scrapped in 1914. Upon completion Royal Oak was assigned to the Third Division of the Fourth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet, under the command of Captain Crawford Maclachlan.

Battle of Jutland
In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the German High Seas Fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, 6 pre-dreadnoughts, 6 light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats, 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 Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet – totalling 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers – to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. 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 German cruiser SMS Wiesbaden had become disabled by British shellfire, and both sides concentrated in the area, the Germans trying to protect their cruiser and the British attempting to sink her. At 18:29, Royal Oak opened fire on the German cruiser, firing four salvoes from her main guns in quick succession, along with her secondary battery. She scored a hit on Wiesbaden aft with her third salvo. In return, Royal Oak was straddled by a German salvo at 18:33 but was undamaged. German torpedo boats attempted to reach Wiesbaden shortly after 19:00, and at 19:07, Royal Oak's secondary guns opened fire on them, believing they were instead trying to launch a torpedo attack. By 19:15, Royal Oak's gunners had observed the German battlecruiser squadron and opened fire at the leading vessel, SMS Derfflinger. The gunners overestimated the range initially, but by 19:20 had found the correct distance and scored a pair of hits aft, which did not inflict serious damage. Derfflinger then disappeared in the haze, so Royal Oak shifted fire to the next battlecruiser, SMS Seydlitz. She scored a hit at 19:27 before Seydlitz too was lost in the mist.

While Royal Oak was attacking the battlecruisers, a German torpedo boat flotilla launched an attack on the British battleline. Royal Oak's secondary guns were the first to open fire, at 19:16, followed quickly by the rest of the British ships. Following the German destroyer attack, the High Seas Fleet disengaged, and Royal Oak and the rest of the Grand Fleet saw no further action in the battle. This was, in part, due to confusion aboard the fleet flagship over the exact location and course of the German fleet; without this information, Jellicoe could not bring his fleet to action. At 21:30, the Grand Fleet began to reorganise into its night-time cruising formation. Early on the morning of 1 June, the Grand Fleet combed the area, looking for damaged German ships, but after spending several hours searching, they found none. In the course of the battle, Royal Oak had fired 38 rounds from her main battery and 84 rounds from her secondary guns.

Later actions
Following the battle, Royal Oak was reassigned to the First Battle Squadron. On 18 August, the Germans again sortied, this time to bombard Sunderland; Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the German fleet commander, hoped to draw out the British battlecruisers and destroy them. British signals intelligence decrypted German wireless transmissions, allowing Jellicoe enough time to deploy the Grand Fleet in an attempt to engage in a decisive battle. Both sides withdrew after their opponents' submarines inflicted losses in the action of 19 August 1916: the British cruisers HMS Nottingham (1913) and HMS Falmouth (1910) were both torpedoed and sunk by German U-boats, and the German battleship SMS Westfalen was damaged by the British submarine HMS E23. After returning to port, Jellicoe issued an order that prohibited risking the fleet in the southern half of the North Sea due to the overwhelming risk from mines and U-boats. In late 1917, the Germans began using destroyers and light cruisers to raid the British convoys to Norway; this forced the British to deploy capital ships to protect the convoys. In April 1918, the German fleet sortied in an attempt to catch one of the isolated British squadrons, though the convoy had already passed safely. The Grand Fleet sortied too late to catch the retreating Germans, although the battlecruiser SMS Moltke was torpedoed and badly damaged by the submarine HMS E42.

On 5 November 1918, in the final week of the First World War, Royal Oak was anchored off Burntisland in the Firth of Forth accompanied by the seaplane tender HMS Campania (1914) and the light battlecruiser HMS Glorious. A sudden Force 10 squall caused Campania to drag her anchor, collide with Royal Oak and then with Glorious. Both capital ships suffered only minor damage, but Campania was holed by her initial collision with Royal Oak. The ship's engine rooms flooded, and she settled by the stern and sank five hours later, without loss of life.

Following the capitulation of Germany in November 1918, the Allies interned most of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. The fleet rendezvoused with the British light cruiser HMS Cardiff (D58), which led the ships to the Allied fleet that was to escort the Germans to Scapa Flow. The fleet consisted of 370 British, American, and French warships. The High Seas Fleet remained in captivity during the negotiations that ultimately produced the Treaty of Versailles. Konteradmiral Ludwig von Reuter believed the British intended to seize the German ships on 21 June 1919, which was the deadline for Germany to have signed the peace treaty. That morning, the Grand Fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training manoeuvres, and while they were away von Reuter issued the order to scuttle the High Seas Fleet.

1920s

The peacetime reorganisation of the Royal Navy assigned Royal Oak to the Second Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. Modernised by a 1922–24 refit, she was transferred in 1926 to the Mediterranean Fleet, based in Grand Harbour, Malta. In early 1928, this duty saw a notorious incident which the contemporary press dubbed the "Royal Oak Mutiny". What began as a simple dispute between Rear-Admiral Bernard Collard and Royal Oak ' s two senior officers, Captain Kenneth Dewar and Commander Henry Daniel, over the band at the ship's wardroom dance, descended into a bitter personal feud that spanned several months. Dewar and Daniel accused Collard of "vindictive fault-finding" and openly humiliating and insulting them before their crew; in return, Collard countercharged the two with failing to follow orders and treating him "worse than a midshipman".

When Dewar and Daniel wrote letters of complaint to Collard's superior, Vice-Admiral John Kelly, he immediately passed them on to the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. On realising that the relationship between the two and their flag admiral had irretrievably broken down, Keyes hurriedly convened a Board of Enquiry, the outcome of which was to remove all three men from their posts and send them back to England. The Board sat on the eve of a major naval exercise, which Keyes was obliged to postpone, causing rumours to fly around the fleet that the Royal Oak had experienced a mutiny. The story was picked up by the press worldwide, which described the affair with some hyperbole. Public attention reached such proportions as to raise the concerns of the King, who summoned First Lord of the Admiralty William Bridgeman for an explanation.

For their letters of complaint, Dewar and Daniel were controversially charged with writing "subversive documents". In a pair of highly publicised courts-martial held in Gibraltar, both were found guilty and severely reprimanded, leading Daniel to resign from the Navy. Collard himself was criticised for the excesses of his conduct by the press and in Parliament, and on being denounced by Bridgeman as "unfitted to hold further high command", was forcibly retired from service. Of the three, only Dewar escaped with his career, albeit a damaged one: he remained in the Royal Navy, but in a series of more minor commands. His promotion to rear-admiral, which would normally have been a formality, was delayed until the following year, just one day before his retirement. Daniel attempted a career in journalism, but when this and other ventures were unsuccessful, he disappeared into obscurity amid poor health in South Africa. Collard retreated to private life and never spoke publicly of the incident again. On the retired list, he was promoted from Rear- to Vice-Admiral on 1 April 1931.

The scandal proved an embarrassment to the reputation of the Royal Navy, then the world's largest, and it was satirised at home and abroad through editorials, cartoons, and even a comic jazz oratorio composed by Erwin Schulhoff. One consequence of the damaging affair was an undertaking from the Admiralty to review the means by which naval officers might bring complaints against the conduct of their superiors.

1930s
During the Spanish Civil War, Royal Oak was tasked with conducting non-intervention patrols around the Iberian Peninsula. On such a patrol and steaming 30 nmi east of Gibraltar on 2 February 1937, she came under aerial attack by three aircraft of the Republican forces. They dropped three bombs (two of which exploded) within 3 cables (550 m) of the starboard bow, causing no damage. The British chargé d'affaires protested about the incident to the Republican Government, which admitted its error and apologised for the attack. Later that same month, while stationed off Valencia on 23 February 1937 during an aerial bombardment by the Nationalists, she was accidentally struck by an anti-aircraft shell fired from a Republican position. Five men were injured, including Royal Oak's captain, T. B. Drew. On this occasion the British did not protest to the Republicans, deeming the incident "an act of God".

In May 1937, she and HMS Forester (H74) escorted SS Habana, an ocean liner carrying thousands of Basque child refugees, to the Southampton Docks. In July, as the war in northern Spain flared up, Royal Oak, along with her sister HMS Resolution (09) rescued the steamer Gordonia when Spanish Nationalist warships attempted to capture her off Santander. She was unable on 14 July to prevent the seizure of the British freighter Molton by the Nationalist cruiser SPANISH CRUISER Almirante Cervera while trying to enter Santander. The merchantmen had been engaged in the evacuation of refugees.

This same period saw Royal Oak star alongside fourteen other Royal Navy vessels in the 1937 British film melodrama Our Fighting Navy, the plot of which centres around a coup in the fictional South American republic of Bianco. The Royal Navy saw the film as a recruitment opportunity and provided warships and extras. Royal Oak portrays a rebel battleship El Mirante, whose commander forces a British captain (played by Robert Douglas) into choosing between his lover and his duty. The film was poorly received by critics, but gained some redemption through its dramatic scenes of naval action.

In 1938, Royal Oak returned to the Home Fleet and was made flagship of the Second Battle Squadron based in Portsmouth. On 24 November 1938, she returned the body of the British-born Queen Maud of Norway, who had died in London, to Oslo for a state funeral, accompanied by her husband King Haakon VII. Paying off in December 1938, Royal Oak was recommissioned the following June, and in 1939 embarked on a short training cruise in the English Channel in preparation for another 30-month tour of the Mediterranean, for which her crew were issued tropical uniforms. As hostilities loomed, the battleship was instead dispatched north to Scapa Flow, and was at anchor there when war was declared on 3 September.

Second World War
The next few weeks of the Phoney War proved uneventful, but in October 1939 Royal Oak joined the search for the GERMAN BATTLESHIP Gneisenau, which had been ordered into the North Sea as a diversion for the commerce-raiding heavy cruisers GERMAN CRUISER Deutschland and GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Graf Spee. The search was ultimately fruitless, particularly for Royal Oak, whose top speed, by then less than 20 kn, was inadequate to keep up with the rest of the fleet. On 12 October, Royal Oak returned to the defences of Scapa Flow in poor shape, battered by North Atlantic storms. Many of her Carley Floats had been smashed and several of the smaller-calibre guns rendered inoperable through flooding. The mission had underlined the obsolescence of the 25-year-old warship. Concerned that a recent overflight by German reconnaissance aircraft heralded an imminent air attack upon Scapa Flow, Admiral of the Home Fleet Charles Forbes ordered most of the fleet to disperse to safer ports. Royal Oak remained behind, her anti-aircraft guns still deemed a useful addition to Scapa's otherwise scanty air defences.

Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow made a near-ideal anchorage. Situated at the centre of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, the natural harbour, large enough to contain the entire Grand Fleet, was surrounded by a ring of islands separated by shallow channels subject to fast-racing tides. That U-boats still posed a threat had long been realised, and a series of countermeasures were installed during the early years of the First World War. Blockships were sunk at critical points; and floating booms deployed to block the three widest channels, operated by tugboats to allow the passage of friendly shipping. It was considered possible, but highly unlikely, that a U-boat commander might attempt to race through undetected before the boom was closed. Two submarines unsuccessfully attempted infiltration during the First World War: on 23 November 1914 SMU U-18 (Germany) was rammed twice before running aground with the capture of her crew, and SMU UB-116 was detected by hydrophone and destroyed with the loss of all hands on 28 October 1918.

Scapa Flow provided the main anchorage for the British Grand Fleet throughout most of the First World War, but in the interwar period this passed to Rosyth, further south in the Firth of Forth. Scapa Flow was reactivated with the advent of the Second World War, becoming a base for the British Home Fleet. Its natural and artificial defences, while still strong, were recognised as in need of improvement, and in the early weeks of the war were in the process of being strengthened by the provision of additional blockships.

Special Operation P: the raid by U-47
Kriegsmarine Commander of Submarines (Befehlshaber der U-Boote) Karl Dönitz devised a plan to attack Scapa Flow by submarine within days of the outbreak of war. Its goal would be twofold: first, displacing the Home Fleet from Scapa Flow would slacken the British North Sea blockade and grant Germany greater freedom to attack the Atlantic convoys; second, the blow would be a symbolic act of vengeance, striking at the same location where the German High Seas Fleet had scuttled itself following Germany's defeat in the First World War. Dönitz hand-picked Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien for the task, scheduling the raid for the night of 13/14 October 1939, when the tides would be high and the night moonless.

Dönitz was aided by high-quality photographs from a reconnaissance overflight by Siegfried Knemeyer (who received his first Iron Cross for the mission), which revealed the weaknesses of the defences and an abundance of targets. He directed Prien to enter Scapa Flow from the east via Kirk Sound, passing to the north of Lamb Holm, a small, low-lying island between Burray and Mainland. Prien initially mistook the more southerly Skerry Sound for the chosen route, and his sudden realisation that U-47 was heading for the shallow blocked passage forced him to order a rapid turn to the northeast. On the surface, and illuminated by a bright display of the aurora borealis, the submarine threaded between the sunken blockships Seriano and Numidian, grounding itself temporarily on a cable strung from Seriano. It was briefly caught in the headlights of a taxi onshore, but the driver raised no alarm. On entering the harbour proper at 00:27 on 14 October, Prien entered a triumphant Wir sind in Scapa Flow!!! in the log and set a south-westerly course for several kilometres before reversing direction. To his surprise, the anchorage appeared to be almost empty; unknown to him, Forbes's order to disperse the fleet had removed some of the biggest targets. U-47 had been heading directly towards four warships, including the newly commissioned light cruiser HMS Belfast (C35), anchored off Flotta and Hoy 4 nmi distant, but Prien gave no indication he had seen them.

On the reverse course, a lookout on the bridge spotted Royal Oak lying approximately 4,400 yd to the north, correctly identifying her as a battleship of the Revenge-class battleship. Mostly hidden behind her was a second ship, only the bow of which was visible to U-47. Prien mistook her to be a battlecruiser of the Renown-class battlecruiser, German intelligence later labelling her HMS Repulse (1916). She was in fact the First World War seaplane tender Pegasus.

At 00:58 U-47 fired a salvo of three torpedoes from its bow tubes, a fourth lodging in its tube. Two failed to find a target, but a single torpedo struck the bow of Royal Oak at 01:04, shaking the ship and waking the crew. There was little visible damage, but the starboard anchor chain had been severed, clattering noisily down through its slips. Initially, it was suspected that there had been an explosion in the ship's forward inflammable store, used to store materials such as kerosene. Mindful of the unexplained explosion that had destroyed HMS Vanguard (1909) at Scapa Flow in 1917, an announcement was made over Royal Oak's tannoy system to check the magazine temperatures, but many sailors returned to their hammocks, unaware the ship was under attack.

Prien turned his submarine and attempted another shot via his stern tube, but this too missed. Reloading his bow tubes, he doubled back and fired a salvo of three torpedoes, all at Royal Oak. This time he was successful. At 01:16, all three struck the battleship in quick succession amidships and detonated. The explosions blew a hole in the armoured deck, destroying the Stokers', Boys' and Marines' messes and causing a loss of electrical power. Cordite from a magazine ignited and the ensuing fireball passed rapidly through the ship's internal spaces. Royal Oak quickly listed to 15°, sufficient to push the open starboard-side portholes below the waterline. She soon rolled further onto her side to 45°, hanging there for several minutes before disappearing beneath the surface at 01:29, 13 minutes after Prien's second strike. 835 men died with the ship or died later of their wounds. The dead included Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove, commander of the Second Battle Squadron. 134 of the dead were boy seamen, not yet 18 years old, the largest ever such loss in a single Royal Navy action.

Rescue efforts
The tender Daisy 2, skippered by John Gatt, had been tied up for the night to Royal Oak's port side. As the sinking battleship began to list to starboard, Gatt ordered Daisy 2 to be cut loose, his vessel becoming briefly caught on Royal Oak's rising anti-torpedo bulge and lifted from the sea before freeing herself.

Many of Royal Oak's crew who had managed to jump from the sinking ship were dressed in little more than their nightclothes and were unprepared for the chilling water. A thick layer of fuel oil coated the surface, filling men's lungs and stomachs and hampering their efforts to swim. Of those who attempted the half-mile (800 m) swim to the nearest shore, only a handful survived.

Royal Oak's port side pinnace was manoeuvred away from the sinking ship and paddled away using wooden boards as there had been insufficient time to raise steam. The boat became overladen and capsized 300 metres from Royal Oak, throwing those on deck into the water and trapping those below.

Gatt switched the lights of Daisy 2 on and he and his crew managed to pull 386 men from the water, including Royal Oak's commander, Captain William Benn. The rescue efforts continued for another two and a half hours until nearly 4:00 am, when Gatt abandoned the search for more survivors and took those he had to Pegasus. Aided by boats from Pegasus and the harbour, he was responsible for rescuing almost all the survivors, an act for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the only military award made by the British in connection with the disaster. Pegasus had sent a message by signal lamp to the port signal station about five minutes after the sinking, saying "General. Send all boats", and half an hour later "Royal Oak is sinking after several internal explosions".

Aftermath

The British were initially confused as to the cause of the sinking, suspecting either an on-board explosion or aerial attack. Once it was realised that a submarine attack was the most likely explanation, steps were rapidly made to seal the anchorage, but U-47 had already escaped and was on its way back to Germany. The BBC released news of the sinking by late morning on 14 October, and its broadcasts were received by the German listening services and by U-47 itself. Divers sent down on the morning after the explosion discovered remnants of a German torpedo, confirming the means of attack. On 17 October, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill officially announced the loss of Royal Oak to the House of Commons, first conceding that the raid had been "a remarkable exploit of professional skill and daring", but then declaring that the loss would not materially affect the naval balance of power. An Admiralty board of inquiry convened between 18 and 24 October to establish the circumstances under which the anchorage had been penetrated. In the meantime, the Home Fleet was ordered to remain at safer ports until security issues at Scapa could be addressed. Churchill was obliged to respond to questions in the House as to why Royal Oak had had aboard so many boys, most of whom died. He defended the Royal Navy tradition of sending boys aged 15 to 17 to sea, but the practice was generally discontinued shortly after the disaster, and under 18-year-olds served on active warships in only the most exceptional circumstances.

The Nazi Propaganda Ministry was quick to capitalise on the successful raid, and radio broadcasts by the popular journalist Hans Fritzsche displayed the triumph felt throughout Germany. Prien and his crew reached Wilhelmshaven at 11:44 on 17 October and were immediately greeted as heroes, learning that Prien had been awarded the Iron Cross First Class, and each man of the crew the Iron Cross Second Class. Hitler sent his personal plane to bring the crew to Berlin, where he further invested Prien with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. This decoration, made for the first time to a German submarine officer, later became the customary decoration for successful U-boat commanders. Dönitz was rewarded by promotion from Commodore to Rear-Admiral and was made Flag Officer of U-boats.

Prien was nicknamed "The Bull of Scapa Flow" and his crew decorated U-47's conning tower with a snorting bull mascot, later adopted as the emblem of the 7th U-boat Flotilla. He found himself in demand for radio and newspaper interviews, and his 'autobiography' was published the following year, titled Mein Weg nach Scapa Flow. Ghost-written for him by a journalist, Paul Weymar, following some brief interviews with Prien in March and April 1940, the manuscript was edited by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (the German high command) and the Reich Ministry of Propaganda. It was intended as an adventure story for boys. When Prien received a copy of the book, he angrily made numerous corrections to the text, and when an English translation of the book was published in 1955, Weymar wrote a letter of protest to the British publisher saying that the "demonstrably false" account should not have been published out of context and he donated his royalties to charity.

The Admiralty Board of Inquiry's president was Admiral Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, assisted by Admiral Robert Raikes and Captain Gerard Muirhead-Gould. Their official report into the disaster condemned the defences at Scapa Flow, and censured Sir Wilfred French, Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands, for their unprepared state. French was placed on the retired list, despite having warned the previous year of Scapa Flow's deficient anti-submarine defences, and volunteering to bring a small ship or submarine himself past the blockships to prove his point. On Churchill's orders, the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow were sealed with concrete causeways linking Lamb Holm, Glimps Holm, Burray and South Ronaldsay to Mainland. Constructed largely by Italian prisoners of war, the Churchill Barriers, as they became known, were essentially complete by September 1944, and were opened officially just after VE Day in May 1945.

In a second report, the Board of Inquiry considered the actual sinking of Royal Oak and the resulting loss of life, which having been in port and in calm water was thought to be "very heavy". The report concluded that the main cause was due to an unusually high number of men having been below the main armoured deck because they had been sent to air defence stations. Their escape was slowed because of the number of watertight doors which were closed. The question of "deadlights" was also considered; these were ventilated metal plates that replaced the glass panes in the scuttles or portholes when ships were in port, allowing the wartime blackout to be observed. It was thought that water flooding through these had hastened the initial heeling over, but having the ventilators closed would not have saved the ship.

In the years that followed, a rumour circulated that Prien had been guided into Scapa by Alfred Wehring, a German agent living in Orkney in the guise of a Swiss watchmaker named Albert Oertel; following the attack, 'Oertel' supposedly escaped in the submarine B-06 to Germany. This account of events originated as an article by the journalist Curt Riess in the 16 May 1942 issue of the American magazine Saturday Evening Post and was later embellished by other authors. Post-war searches through German and Orcadian archives have failed to find any evidence for the existence of Oertel, Wehring or a submarine named B-06, and the story is now held to be wholly fictitious. In 1959, the Orkneys' preeminent watchmaker, Mr E. W. Hourton, informed "with the utmost assurance" the editor of The Orkney Herald that in his lifetime there had never been a watchmaker named Oertel in Kirkwall nor anyone resembling such a person. Orkney's chief librarian, in a 1983 letter to the historian Nigel West, suggested that the name Albert Oertel was likely a pun on the well-known Albert Hotel in Kirkwall.

Survivors
In the immediate aftermath of the sinking, Royal Oak's survivors were billeted in the towns and villages of Orkney. A funeral parade for the dead took place at Lyness on Hoy on 16 October; many of the surviving crew, having lost all their own clothing on the ship, attended in borrowed boiler suits and gym shoes. They were generally granted a few days survivors' leave by the navy, and then assigned to ships and roles elsewhere.

Prien did not survive the war: he and U-47 were lost on 7 March 1941, possibly as a result of an attack by the British destroyer HMS Wolverine (D78). News of the loss was kept secret by the Nazi government for ten weeks. Several U-47 crew from the Royal Oak mission did survive, having been transferred to other vessels. Some of them subsequently met with their former enemies from Royal Oak and forged friendships with them.

The HMS Royal Oak Association holds an Act of Remembrance annually at Portsmouth, the Royal Oak's home port, on the Saturday nearest to 13 October; originally at the Naval Memorial at Southsea, but in later years at St Ann's Church, Portsmouth Naval Base. At the service on 9 October 2019, eighty years after the sinking, a memorial stone was unveiled in the church by Anne, Princess Royal, the Commodore-in-Chief of HMNB Portsmouth. Some one hundred and fifty relatives and descendants of the crew were in attendance.

Kenneth Toop, who survived the sinking while serving as a boy, first class, on Royal Oak, served as the Association's honorary secretary for fifteen years. The last remaining survivor of Royal Oak, Arthur Smith, died on 11 December 2016. Serving as a 17-year-old boy, first class, he had been on watch on the bridge when the ship was struck and jumped from the sinking vessel, swimming in the wrong direction until he was picked up by a boat and transferred to the Daisy 2.

Status as war grave
Despite the relatively shallow water in which she sank, the majority of bodies could not be recovered from Royal Oak. Marked by a buoy at 58.92889°N, -2.98583°W, the wreck has been designated a war grave and all diving or other unauthorised forms of exploration are prohibited under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. In clear water conditions, the upturned hull can be seen reaching to within 5 m of the surface. The brass letters that formed Royal Oak's name were removed as a keepsake by a recreational diver in the 1970s. They were returned almost twenty years later, and are now displayed in the Scapa Flow visitor centre in Lyness. Royal Oak's loss is commemorated in an annual ceremony in which Royal Navy divers place the White Ensign underwater at her stern.

A memorial at St Magnus Cathedral in nearby Kirkwall displays a plaque dedicated to those who died, beneath which a book of remembrance lists their names. This list of names was not released by the Government until 40 years after the sinking. Each week a page of the book is turned. The ship's bell was recovered in the 1970s and, after being restored, was added to the memorial in St Magnus. Twenty-six bodies, eight of which could not be identified, were interred at the naval cemetery in nearby Lyness.

Environmental concerns

Royal Oak sank fully fuelled with approximately 3,000 tons of furnace fuel oil aboard. The oil leaked from the corroding hull at an increased rate during the 1990s and concerns about the environmental impact led the Ministry of Defence to consider plans for extracting it. Royal Oak's status as a war grave required that surveys and any proposed techniques for removing the oil be handled sensitively: plans in the 1950s to raise and salvage the wreck had been dropped in response to public opposition. In addition to the ethical concerns, poorly managed efforts could destabilise the wreck, resulting in a mass release of the remaining oil; the ship's magazines also containing many tons of unexploded ordnance.

The MOD commissioned a series of multi-beam sonar surveys to image the wreck and appraise its condition. The high-resolution sonograms showed Royal Oak to be lying almost upside down with her top works forced into the seabed. The tip of the bow had been blown off by U-47's first torpedo and a gaping hole on the starboard flank was the result of the triple strike from her second successful salvo. Following several years of delays, Briggs Marine was contracted by the MoD to conduct the task of pumping off the remaining oil. Royal Oak ' s mid-construction conversion to fuel oil had placed her fuel tanks in unconventional positions, complicating operations. By 2006, all double bottom tanks had been cleared and the task of removing oil from the inner wing tanks with cold cutting equipment began the next year. By 2010, 1,600 tons of fuel oil had been removed, and the wreck was declared to be no longer actively releasing oil into Scapa Flow. Up to 783 m3 of oil is thought to remain within the ship; plans exist to resume pumping in mid-2021.

2019 survey
Rebreather diver Emily Turton announced at the EUROTEK advanced diving conference in December 2018 that an international team of experts were surveying the wreck of Royal Oak to create a three-dimensional image of the war grave. This process takes thousands of man-hour dives over several months. The team used an extensive range of technology including videography, underwater photography and 3D photogrammetry to record the wreck. The survey had the full backing of the Royal Navy and the Royal Oak Association.

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

title: HMS Royal Oak (08)


text:
Tow (disambiguation)

To tow something is to pull it using a line or chain.

Tow or TOW may also refer to:

Places

 * Tow, Iran, Razavi Khorasan Province
 * Tow, Texas, United States
 * Tow Bay, South Sandwich Islands, south Atlantic
 * Tow Hill, a volcanic plug in British Columbia, Canada

People

 * Tow (surname), a Chinese, English, or Scottish family name, and a list of people so named

Other uses

 * Tow (film), an upcoming film starring Rose Byrne
 * Tow (fibre), a textiles by-product
 * Tug of war, a sport
 * BGM-71 TOW, an anti-tank missile
 * , the Jemez language of North America, by ISO 639-3 code

title: Tow (disambiguation)


text:
HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913)

HMS Queen Elizabeth was the lead ship of her class of five dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the early 1910s, and was often used as a flagship. She served in the First World War as part of the Grand Fleet, and participated in the inconclusive action of 19 August 1916. Her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. She and the other super-dreadnought battleships were the first of their type to be powered by oil instead of coal. Queen Elizabeth later served in several theatres during the Second World War, and was scrapped in 1948.

Design and description
The Queen Elizabeth-class ships were designed to form a fast squadron for the fleet that was intended to operate against the leading ships of the opposing battleline. This required maximum offensive power and a speed several knots faster than any other battleship to allow them to defeat any type of ship.

Ship measures and propulsion
Queen Elizabeth had a length overall of 639 ft, a beam of 90 ft and a deep draught of 33 ft. She had a normal displacement of 32590 LT and displaced 33260 LT at deep load. She was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts using steam from 24 Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were rated at 75000 shp and intended to reach a maximum speed of 25 kn. The ship had a range of 5000 nmi at a cruising speed of 12 kn. Her crew numbered 1,262 officers and ratings in 1920 while serving as a flagship.

Armament, sensors and fire control
The Queen Elizabeth 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 forecastle deck near the aft funnel and were protected by gun shields. The anti-aircraft (AA) armament were composed of two quick-firing (QF) 3 in 20 cwt Mk I guns. The ships were fitted with four submerged 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside. Queen Elizabeth 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 'B' 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, although one temporary director was fitted in November–December 1916.

Armour
The waterline belt of the Queen Elizabeth class consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 13 in thick over the ships' vitals. The gun turrets were protected by 11 to 13 in of KC armour and were supported by barbettes 7 - 10 in thick. The ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 3 in in thickness. The main conning tower was protected by 13 inches of armour. 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.

Modifications
Between 1919 and 1927, Queen Elizabeth underwent numerous modifications, including the enlargement of the foremast top. Rangefinders were installed on the gun turrets "B" and "X" as well as high angle rangefinders at the forward wheelhouse. Another high angle range finder was installed at the forward conning tower. The 3-inch guns were replaced by 4-inch guns. Radio direction finding equipment was installed at the aft end of the command platform with antenna above the helm station, the bridge superstructure was modified and funnels were combined into one unit. Furthermore, the superstructures for accommodating signal personnel and equipment were extended and the yards on the foremast were removed. In her 1937–1941 rebuild she was fitted with a tower bridge in place of her old bridge; her 6-inch (152 mm) guns were removed and replaced by 20 (10 × 2) 4.5 in (114 mm) guns in ten double turrets and several smaller anti-aircraft guns; horizontal armour was added; engines and boilers were replaced; and the elevation of her main battery was increased to 30 degrees. Deck armour was increased to 5 inches over the magazines, 2.5 inches over the machinery, while the new 4.5-inch guns had between 1 and 2 inches of armour. She also received facilities for aircraft with a launching catapult amidships New fire control equipment was installed, including the HACS Mk IV AA fire control system and the Admiralty Fire Control Table Mk VII for surface fire control of the main armament. This reconstruction was completed in January 1941, when Britain had been at war for over a year. The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets by February 1919, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. The platform was removed from 'X' turret during her 1926–1927 refit; the other platform was removed sometime later.

Construction and career

Queen Elizabeth, named after Elizabeth I of England, was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard on 21 October 1912 and was launched on 16 October 1913, completing in January 1915 during the First World War. While still undergoing testing in the Mediterranean, the ship was sent to the Dardanelles for the Allied attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. During the attempted military invasion of the Gallipoli on 25 April, Queen Elizabeth was the flagship for General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.

Dardanelles
After the ships of the British and French fleets had shelled the outer forts of the Gallipoli peninsula on 3 November 1914, it was decided to launch a complete amphibious operation in January 1915. Therefore, the Admiralty ordered a convoy of eight ships – including Queen Elizabeth – to the Dardanelles. She was scheduled to reach the Dardanelles on 15 February. But due to an accident off Gibraltar on 12 February, in which she had torn off the blades of one of her turbines and was thus no longer able to travel at more than half speed, her arrival was postponed to 25 February. Upon their arrival on 25 February, Queen Elizabeth, together with Agamemnon, Irresistible and Gaulois, launched a new attack with the aim of destroying the outer forts at close range and all the way to the entrance. Since the attack on 19 February had shown how little hope there was of permanently disabling a battery by the mere firing of shells, the order for the attacking ships was to destroy every single gun by a direct hit. The general plan was for four ships to sail in groups of two to the entrance of the strait, turn around and then attack Cape Helles and Kum Kale with their secondary armament until they reached a distance of about 3,300 yards. In pursuance of these orders, Queen Elizabeth anchored 7 miles southwest of the Cape Helles lighthouse, set her sights on Sedd el Bahr and took out the two modern 23 cm guns there. During the first week of March, several bombardments of the inner forts proved fruitless. On 5 March, Queen Elizabeth fired for four hours from a distance of 13 kilometers at the forts on the European side of the strait, but with almost no effect. The next day she fired on Chemenlik, but the Ottomans had moved unnoticed the old pre-dreadnought Hairredin Barbarossa into the strait at Chanak, from where it could fire on Queen Elizabeth. The first shells were ignored thinking they were coming from a mobile field howitzer, but to be safe they moved 1 km away from this position. When the Ottoman ship's observation post on the coast was discovered, Queen Elizabeth, Agamemmnon and Ocean fired at it with several salvos, but the Ottomans quickly moved to a new position, so Hairredin Barbarossa fired again at Queen Elizabeth, finally hitting her three times below the waterline. However, the shells could not penetrate the battleship's belt armor. In order to avoid further damage, the ship withdrew from this position.

Main attack on 18 March
The event that decided the battle took place on the night of 18 March, when the Ottoman minelayer Nusret laid a series of mines across the head of Eren Köy Bay, a wide bay along the Asiatic coast right at the entrance to the strait, in front of the Kephez minefield. The Ottomans had noticed that the British ships were turning to starboard as they retreated into the bay. The new line of 20 mines ran parallel to the shore, anchored at a height of fifteen metres and spaced about 91 metres apart. Because of the clear water, the mines could be seen through the water by reconnaissance aircraft. The British plan for 18 March was to take out the defences of the first five minefields, which were to be cleared overnight. The next day, the remaining defences around the Narrows were to be overcome and the last five minefields removed. The operation continued without the British and French knowing of the recent additions to the Ottoman minefields. The battleships were deployed in three lines, two British and one French, with support ships on the flanks and two ships in reserve. After Queen Elizabeth had slowly entered the strait under constant fire, she reached her attack position at around 11:00 and opened fire on the fortifications at Çanakkale at 11:25. At first, the attack seemed to go according to plan, but after several ships hit the mines laid earlier in the afternoon, it was decided to withdraw as darkness fell. Queen Elizabeth took part in further naval operations with heavy losses until the beginning of May. But after several battleships were sunk in May, the Admiralty decided to cease constant battleship support. Thus, on 12 May, Queen Elizabeth left the Dardanelles and returned home. She then proceeded to Gibraltar and on to Scapa Flow, where she joined the 5th Battle Squadron on 26 May 1916. From 22 May to 4 June 1916, she was overhauled at Rosyth, so she did not take part in the Battle of Jutland. Also in June, she temporarily became the flagship of the 5th Battle Squadron. In July, the ship underwent another overhaul. After her recommissioning in 1917, she briefly served as U.S. Admiral Mayo's flagship.

Interwar period
On 15 November 1918, representatives of the German Empire signed the terms of the armistice with the Allies on board the Queen Elizabeth. On 26 July 1924 she took part in the annual fleet review off Spithead and on 1 November 1924 was detached to the Mediterranean Fleet to replace the Iron Duke as flagship. She was then replaced as flagship by Warspite in May 1926 and decommissioned in Portsmouth for refit. After the refit, which lasted until December 1927, she was recommissioned as flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet on 2 January 1928 and visited Istanbul in October 1929. From November 1929 to May 1930 she underwent another overhaul at Portsmouth. In July of the same year, she was detached to Alexandria with Ramillies to support local troops during the uprising by the Waft Party. From November 1932 to March 1933, the ship was overhauled in Portsmouth and took part in the fleet review off Spithead on 16 July 1935 during the 25th anniversary of George V's throne jubilee. She was also in Alexandria during the Abyssinia Crisis and took part in the fleet review marking the coronation of George VI off Spithead on 19 May 1937. During the 1930s she participated in the non-intervention blockade during the Spanish Civil War.

Second World War
On 1 August 1937, she was decommissioned for conversion work at Portsmouth, but had to be transferred from Portsmouth to Rosyth in December 1940, fearing air raids by the Luftwaffe. On 31 January 1941, Queen Elizabeth was recommissioned and assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet.

Mediterranean Sea
In May 1941, she was reassigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. On 6 May she departed Gibraltar for Alexandria and, together with Force H, formed convoy escorts to Malta. She then participated in the defence of Crete and the evacuation of British-Australian-New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the German Operation Merkur. On 26 May, she and Barham supported the air attack on the German base at Karpathos by aircraft from Formidable. On 27 May, she became the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron and flagship of the 2nd Fleet, replacing Barham which had been damaged by bombs during the battle.

On 19 December 1941, Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship HMS Valiant (1914) were seriously damaged by limpet mines placed by Italian combat swimmers of Decima Flottiglia MAS, who entered the Allied military port of Alexandria with SLC type "manned torpedoes" ("maiali"). Although badly damaged, with her draught increased to 41.8 feet (12.5m), Queen Elizabeth was not grounded on the harbour bottom, her decks were clear and the Italian crews were captured. For this reason, the Royal Navy maintained the illusion of full operational status, to conceal their weakened position in the Mediterranean during the period the two ships were repaired and refloated. Valiant went back into service after many months and Queen Elizabeth after more than a year and a half. Following completion of temporary repairs in an Alexandria drydock in June 1942, she steamed through the Suez Canal and around Africa to the Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, in the United States. From September 1942 until June 1943, she was comprehensively repaired. Queen Elizabeth went to the Home Fleet in July 1943.

Pacific
On 23 December 1943, Queen Elizabeth set sail bound for Trincomalee. Upon her arrival on 28 January 1944, C-in-C the Eastern Fleet Admiral Somerville assumed command. During Operation Cockpit, in formation with French and Dutch units, she supported Illustrious and the Saratoga in their attack on Sabang on 19 April. From 30 April to 1 May, she participated in the bombardment of Car Nicobar and Port Blair in the Andaman Islands during Operation D, after which the ship was overhauled at Durban from October to November 1944. In January 1945, she participated in further bombardments of Sabang during Operation Outflank and participated in the recapture of Burma until May where she supported the landing of Allied troops on Ramree Island on 21 January and on Cheduba Island on 26 January as part of Operation Dracula.

Post War
On 12 July 1945 she was replaced by HMS Nelson as flagship and returned home. After arriving in Portsmouth on 7 August 1945, she was detached to Rosyth for reserve duty on 10 August. From October 1945 to March 1946 she served the Home Fleet as accommodation ship. She was then reassigned to the Portsmouth Reserve where she remained until her decommissioning on 15 May 1948. In July 1948, she was sold to Arnott Young and scrapped at Troon.

title: HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913)