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HMS Warspite (03)

HMS Warspite was one of five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s. Completed during the First World War in 1915, she was assigned to the Grand Fleet and participated in the Battle of Jutland. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive Action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. During the interwar period the ship was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, often serving as flagship, and was thoroughly modernised in the mid-1930s.

During the Second World War, Warspite was involved in the Norwegian Campaign in early 1940 and was transferred to the Mediterranean later that year where the ship participated in fleet actions against the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) while also escorting convoys and bombarding Italian troops ashore. She was damaged by German aircraft during the Battle of Crete in mid-1941 and required six months of repairs in the United States. They were completed after the start of the Pacific War in December and the ship sailed across the Pacific to join the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942. Warspite returned home in mid-1943 to conduct naval gunfire support as part of Force H during the Italian campaign. She was badly damaged by German radio-controlled glider bombs during the landings at Salerno and spent most of the next year under repair. The ship bombarded German positions during the Normandy landings and on Walcheren Island in 1944, despite not being fully repaired. These actions earned her the most battle honours ever awarded to an individual ship in the Royal Navy. For this and other reasons, Warspite gained the nickname the "Grand Old Lady" after a comment made by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham in 1943 while she was his flagship.

When she was launched in 1913 the use of oil as fuel and untried 15-inch guns were revolutionary concepts in the naval arms race between Britain and Germany, a considerable risk for Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jackie Fisher, who had advocated the design. However, the new "fast battleships" proved to be an outstanding success during the First World War. Decommissioned in 1945, Warspite ran aground under tow to be scrapped in 1947 on rocks near Prussia Cove, Cornwall, and was eventually broken up nearby.

Warspite was the sixth Royal Navy ship to bear the name. It likely originated from an archaic word for woodpecker, 'speight'; with the implication that, during the age of sail the war-speight would peck holes in her enemies' wooden hulls.

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.

Warspite had a length overall of 643 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 Yarrow 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 1,025 officers and ratings in 1915 and 1,220 in 1920.

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.

Warspite 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 mast. 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 July 1917.

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.

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. Exactly when the platforms were removed is unknown, but no later than Warspite's 1934–1937 reconstruction.

Construction and career
Warspite, the sixth warship of the Royal Navy to carry the name, was laid down on 21 October 1912 at Devonport Royal Dockyard, launched on 26 November 1913, and completed in April 1915 under the command of Captain Edward Phillpotts. Warspite joined the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet following a number of acceptance trials, including gunnery trials, which saw Churchill present when she fired her 15-inch (381 mm) guns. Churchill was suitably impressed with their accuracy and power. In late 1915, Warspite was grounded in the River Forth causing some damage to her hull; she had been led by her escorting destroyers down the small ships channel. After undergoing repairs for two months at Rosyth and Jarrow, she rejoined the Grand Fleet, this time as part of the new 5th Battle Squadron which had been created for Queen Elizabeth-class ships. In early December, Warspite was involved in another incident when, during an exercise, she collided with her sister ship HMS Barham (04), which caused considerable damage to Warspite's bow. She made it back to Scapa Flow and from there to Devonport for more repair work, rejoining the fleet on Christmas Eve 1915.

Battle of Jutland (1916)
Following the German raid on Lowestoft in April 1916, Warspite and the 5th Battle Squadron were temporarily assigned to Vice-Admiral David Beatty's Battlecruiser Force. On 31 May, Warspite was deployed with the squadron to fight in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval encounter between Britain and Germany during the war. Following a signalling error, the battleships were left trailing Beatty's fast ships during the battlecruiser action, and the 5th Battle Squadron was exposed to heavy fire from the German High Seas Fleet as the force turned away to the north, although Warspite was able to score her first hit on the battlecruiser SMS Von der Tann.

The 5th Battle Squadron then headed north, exchanging fire with both Hipper's battlecruiser force and the leading elements of Scheer's battleships, damaging SMS Markgraf. When the squadron turned to join the Grand Fleet, the damage from a shell hitting the port-wing engine room caused Warspite's steering to jam as she attempted to avoid her sister ships HMS Valiant (1914) and HMS Malaya. Captain Phillpotts decided to maintain course, in effect circling, rather than come to a halt and reverse. This decision exposed Warspite and made her a tempting target; she was hit multiple times, but inadvertently diverted attention from the armoured cruiser HMS Warrior (1907), which had been critically damaged whilst attacking the leading elements of the German fleet. This action gained her the admiration of Warriors surviving crew, who believed that Warspites movement had been intentional.

The crew regained control of Warspite after two full circles. Their efforts to end the circular motion placed her on a course which took her towards the German fleet. The rangefinders and the transmission station were non-functional and only "A" turret could fire, albeit under local control with 12 salvos falling short of their target. Sub Lieutenant Herbert Annesley Packer was subsequently promoted for his command of "A" turret. Rather than continue, Warspite was stopped for ten minutes so the crew could make repairs. They succeeded in correcting the problem, but the ship would be plagued with steering irregularities for the rest of her naval career. As the light faded the Grand Fleet crossed ahead of the German battle line and opened fire, forcing the High Seas Fleet to retreat and allowing Warspite to slip away.

Warspite was hit fifteen times during the battle, and had 14 killed and 16 wounded; among the latter warrant officer Walter Yeo, who became one of the first men to receive facial reconstruction via plastic surgery. Although she had been extensively damaged, Warspite could still raise steam and was ordered back to Rosyth during the evening of 31 May by Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron. Whilst travelling across the North Sea the ship came under attack from a German U-boat. The U-boat fired three torpedoes, all of which missed their target. Warspite later attempted to ram a surfaced U-boat. She signalled ahead for escorts and a squadron of torpedo boats came out to meet her. They were too slow to screen her effectively, but there were no more encounters with German vessels and she reached Rosyth safely on the morning of 1 June, where it took two months to repair the damage.

1916–1918
Upon the completion of her repairs, Warspite rejoined the 5th Battle Squadron. Further misfortune struck soon afterwards, when she collided with Valiant after a night-shooting exercise, necessitating more repair work at Rosyth. Captain Philpotts avoided reprimand on this occasion, but was moved to a shore-based job as Naval Assistant to the new First Sea Lord, Admiral Jellicoe. He was replaced by Captain de Bartolome in December 1916. In June 1917, Warspite collided with a destroyer, but did not require major repairs. Early in April 1918 she joined the Grand Fleet in a fruitless pursuit of the German High Seas Fleet which had been hunting for a convoy near Norway. In 1918, Warspite had to spend four months being repaired after a boiler room caught fire. Captain Hubert Lynes relieved Captain de Bartolome and on 21 November he took Warspite out to escort the German High Seas Fleet into internment at Scapa Flow following the signing of the Armistice.

Interbellum (1919–1939)
In 1919, Warspite joined the 2nd Battle Squadron, part of the newly formed Atlantic Fleet, and undertook regular spring cruises to the Mediterranean. In 1924, she attended a Royal Fleet Review at Spithead, presided over by King George V. Later in the year, Warspite underwent a partial modernisation that altered her superstructure by trunking her two funnels into one, enhanced her armour protection with torpedo bulges, swapped the high-angle 3-inch guns with new 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, and removed half her torpedo tubes. After the process finished in 1926, Warspite assumed the role of flagship of the Commander-in-Chief and Second-in-Command, Mediterranean Fleet. In 1927, under the command of Captain James Somerville, she struck an uncharted rock in the Aegean and was ordered to return to Portsmouth for repairs. In 1930, Warspite rejoined the Atlantic Fleet. She was at sea when the crews of a number of warships mutinied at Invergordon in September 1931, although three sailors were later dismissed from the ship. In March 1933, she was rammed in fog by a Romanian passenger ship off Portugal, but did not require major repairs.

Between March 1934 and March 1937, she underwent a major reconstruction in Portsmouth at a cost of £2,363,000. This refit gave the Admiralty a virtually new warship, replacing internal machinery and significantly changing the battleship's appearance and capabilities. Additionally, her superstructure was radically altered, allowing two cranes and an aircraft hangar to be fitted. This could carry four aircraft, but Warspite typically carried only two: from 1938 to 1941 these were Swordfish floatplanes and from 1942 to 1943 Walrus flying boats. Her tripod mast was removed and a distinctive armoured citadel built up to enclose the bridge and to provide space for her to operate as a flagship.
 * Propulsion: The reconstruction project replaced her propulsion machinery and installed six individual boiler rooms, with Admiralty three-drum boilers, in place of 24 Yarrow boilers; geared Parsons turbines were fitted in four new engine rooms and gearing rooms. This increased fuel efficiency, reducing fuel consumption from 41 tons per hour to 27 at almost 24 knots, and gave the warship 80,000 shp. The 1500 LT weight saving on the lighter machinery was used to increase protection and armament.
 * Armour: 1100 LT of armour were added, improving coverage forward of A turret and the boiler rooms, as well as an increase to 5 inches over the magazines and 3.5 inches over the machinery. Better sub-division of the engineering rooms strengthened the hull and improved its integrity.
 * Armament: The last pair of torpedo tubes were removed and the 6 inch guns had their protection reduced; four guns were removed from the fore and aft ends of the batteries. Eight 4 inch high-angle guns in four twin mountings and two octuple 2 pdr pom-poms were added to her anti-aircraft defences, as well as additional .50 calibre machine guns on two of the main turrets. The original 15-inch turrets were upgraded to increase the elevation of the guns by ten degrees (from 20° to 30°), providing a further 9,000 yards of range to a maximum of 32300 yd with a 6crh shell. The fire control was also modernised to include the HACS Mk III* AA fire control system and the Admiralty Fire Control Table Mk VII for surface fire control of the main armament.

After completion of the refit, Warspite was recommissioned under the command of Captain Victor Crutchley. The intention was for her to become the flagship of Admiral Dudley Pound's Mediterranean Fleet, but trials revealed problems with propulsion machinery and steering, a legacy of Jutland, which continued to beset Warspite and delayed her departure. These delays and the work required to rectify them also affected the crew's leave arrangements and led to some sailors airing their views in national newspapers, angering Pound. Warspite finally entered Grand Harbour, in Malta, on 14 January 1938 and continued gunnery practice and training. At the end of one anti-aircraft exercise, a junior midshipman independently discharged his pom-pom gun after a towing aircraft flew low overhead to display its attached target to the crew. Warspite had turned towards Valletta on the exercise's conclusion and the shells hurtled towards the city. The shells landed harmlessly at a gunnery range where a platoon of the Green Howards was exercising. For the remainder of the year, she cruised the Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, leading an intensive series of fleet exercises in August due to rising international tension. She undertook another cruise of the western Mediterranean in the spring of 1939. In June 1939, Vice Admiral Andrew Cunningham replaced Dudley Pound and took Warspite to Istanbul for talks with the Turkish government. When war was declared in September, the Mediterranean remained quiet and Warspite was recalled to join the Home Fleet following the loss of HMS Royal Oak (08).

Atlantic and Narvik (1939–1940)

Warspite's first task was to escort convoy HX 9 carrying fuel from Nova Scotia to the UK. She was diverted northwards in pursuit of the German battleships GERMAN BATTLESHIP Scharnhorst and GERMAN BATTLESHIP Gneisenau which had sunk the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi north of the Faroe Islands, but failed to make contact.

In April 1940, Warspite had started her voyage back to the Mediterranean when the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway; she rejoined the Home Fleet on 10 April and proceeded towards Narvik. On 13 April, Vice-Admiral William Whitworth hoisted his flag in Warspite and led nine destroyers, three sweeping mines and six in an offensive role, into Ofotfjord to neutralise a force of eight German destroyers trapped near the port of Narvik. Her Fairey Swordfish float-plane sank the German U-boat GS U-64 (1939) with 250 lb bombs, becoming the first aircraft to sink a U-boat in the war. The Swordfish continued to provide accurate spotting reports during the early afternoon which were, arguably, more important to the course of the battle than the Warspite's guns. The British destroyers soon opened fire on their counterparts, which had almost exhausted their fuel and ammunition following the First Naval Battle of Narvik. All were sunk during the action. Warspite destroyed the heavily damaged GERMAN DESTROYER Z13 Erich Koellner with broadsides, while damaging GERMAN DESTROYER Z17 Diether von Roeder and GERMAN DESTROYER Z12 Erich Giese. Diether von Roeder had to be scuttled while Erich Giese was sunk in conjunction with destroyers. The Second Naval Battle of Narvik was considered a success. She remained in Norwegian waters, participating in several shore bombardments around Narvik on 24 April, but these proved ineffectual and she returned to Scapa Flow prior to being redeployed to the Mediterranean on 28 April.

Mediterranean (1940–1941)
Calabria

Warspite arrived safely in Alexandria before Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940. Admiral Cunningham took the fleet to sea on 7 July to meet two convoys travelling from Malta to Alexandria, knowing that part of the Italian fleet was escorting its own convoy to Tripoli. Cunningham hoped to draw the Regia Marina into battle by sailing towards the "toe" of Italy to cut them off from their base at Taranto. The two fleets eventually met 30 miles from Punta Stilo at the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940. Initially, the Allied cruisers, armed with 6-inch guns, were outranged by the 8-inch guns of their heavier Italian counterparts and disengaged. Seeing that they were under pressure, Cunningham took Warspite ahead to assist his cruisers. The Italian cruisers turned away under a smoke screen while the battleships ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Giulio Cesare and ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Conte di Cavour closed on Warspite before Malaya and HMS Royal Sovereign (05) could catch up.

During the battle Warspite achieved one of the longest range gunnery hits from a moving ship to a moving target in history, hitting Giulio Cesare at a range of approximately 24 km, the other being a shot from Scharnhorst which hit HMS Glorious at approximately the same distance in June 1940. The shell pierced Giulio Cesare's rear funnel and detonated inside it, blowing out a hole nearly 20 ft across, while fragments started several fires and their smoke was drawn into the boiler rooms, forcing four boilers off-line as their operators could not breathe which reduced the ship's speed to 18 kn. Uncertain how severe the damage was, Campioni ordered his battleships to turn away in the face of superior British numbers and they disengaged behind a smoke screen laid by Italian destroyers. The destroyers and cruisers on both sides continued shooting for half an hour but with Malaya and Royal Sovereign coming into range, the Italian fleet disengaged. Over 125 aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica attacked the ships over the next three hours but caused no damage. Warspite returned to Alexandria on 13 July.

Taranto

In mid-August, she set out to bombard Bardia and on 6 November she sailed from Alexandria to provide cover for the Battle of Taranto, a torpedo-bomber attack on ships in Taranto harbour. As a result of this attack, Warspite and Valiant were able to bombard the Italian supply base in the Adriatic port of Vlorë in mid-December. On 10 January 1941, Warspite was lightly damaged by a bomb while operating with Force A during Operation Excess.

Matapan

In March 1941, to support the planned German invasion of the Balkans, Vice Admiral Angelo Iachino's Italian fleet, led by the battleship ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Vittorio Veneto, sailed to intercept Allied convoys between Egypt and Greece. Warned of the Italian intentions by intelligence from the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Admiral Cunningham took his fleet to sea on 27 March 1941, flying his flag on Warspite. On 28 March, the British cruisers encountered the Italian fleet and were forced to turn away by the heavy guns of Vittorio Veneto. To save his cruisers Cunningham ordered an air attack, prompting Iachino to retreat. Subsequent air attacks damaged the battleship and the cruiser ITALIAN CRUISER Pola, slowing the former and crippling the latter. Vittorio Veneto escaped to the west as dusk fell but the British pursued through the night, first detecting Pola on radar and then two of her sister ships. Warspite, Valiant and Barham closed on the unsuspecting Italian ships and aided by searchlights, destroyed the heavy cruisers ITALIAN CRUISER Fiume and ITALIAN CRUISER Zara and two destroyers at point blank range. Pola was also sunk once her crew had been taken off. Having established by aerial reconnaissance that the rest of the Italian fleet had escaped, Warspite returned to Alexandria on 29 March, surviving air attacks without suffering casualties.

The Battle of Cape Matapan had a paralysing effect on the Regia Marina, providing the Royal Navy with an opportunity to tighten its grip on the Mediterranean, as evidenced by the unequal Battle of the Tarigo Convoy near the Kerkennah Islands on 16 April. This was not enough and the success of the Afrika Korps in North Africa induced Churchill to order a desperate attack on Tripoli to block the Axis supply route by sinking a battleships in the harbour. Cunningham rejected this plan, but on 21 April he sailed with Warspite to bombard the harbour in company with HMS Barham (04) and HMS Valiant (1914), the cruiser HMS Gloucester (62) and several destroyers. The raid was ineffectual, partly because of poor visibility created by dust from an earlier RAF bombing raid; the fleet returned to Alexandria without damage. The futility of the mission and the exposure of his battleships led to a tense exchange of letters between Cunningham and Churchill.

Crete

During the Battle of Crete, Warspite was used as a floating anti-aircraft battery and like many other ships, suffered severe damage from German air attacks on 22 May. A 500 lb bomb damaged her starboard 4-inch and 6-inch batteries, ripped open the ship's side and killed 38 men. The attack was carried out by Jagdgeschwader 77 (JG 77—Fighter Wing 77). Oberleutnant Kurt Ubben, a future flying ace with 110 enemy aircraft shot down, claimed a hit on the warship. She was able to make it back to port under her own steam, but the damage could not be repaired in Alexandria and it was decided that she would have to be sent to Bremerton on the west coast of the United States.

Repair and refit
In June 1941, Warspite departed Alexandria for the Bremerton Naval Shipyard in the United States, arriving there on 11 August, having travelled through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean to Ceylon, stopping at Manila, then Pearl Harbor and finally Esquimalt along the way. Repairs and modifications began in August, including the replacement of her deteriorated 15-inch guns, the addition of more anti-aircraft weapons, improvements to the bridge, and new surface and anti-aircraft radar. Warspite was still at the shipyard when the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and went on alert as she would have been one of the few ships in the harbour which could have provided anti-aircraft defence should the Japanese have struck east. She was recommissioned on 28 December and undertook sea trials near Vancouver before sailing down the west coast of the U.S. and Mexico, crossing the equator and arriving in Sydney on 20 February 1942. She joined the Eastern Fleet at Trincomalee in March 1942.

Indian Ocean (1942–1943)

Warspite joined the Eastern Fleet as flagship of Admiral Sir James Somerville, who had commanded her in 1927. Initially, Warspite was based in Ceylon, forming a fast group with the aircraft carriers HMS Formidable (R67) and HMS Indomitable (R92), four cruisers and six destroyers. In March, Somerville received intelligence indicating the Japanese Fast Carrier Strike Force was heading towards the Indian Ocean and he relocated his base to Addu Atoll in the Maldives. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo used five carriers and four battleships in the Indian Ocean raid a naval sortie into the Indian Ocean in April, attacking Allied shipping and bases in the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. Somerville's fleet was outnumbered and outclassed but he hoped to get close enough to launch a night-time torpedo bomber attack. Warspite's fast group set sail to intercept on 4 April, detecting the Japanese attack on the cruisers HMS Cornwall (56) and HMS Dorsetshire (40) and later, a scouting aircraft from the cruiser JAPANESE CRUISER Tone. The fleets did not meet; Warspite withdrew to Addu Atoll and then to Kilindini on the East African coast to protect the convoy routes. The Japanese believed that she was still in Sydney and ordered the attack on Sydney Harbour.

During May and June, Warspite continued to act as Somerville's flagship, carrying out exercises with other elements of the fleet and shore-based aircraft in Ceylon. In early June, she was sent to hunt the Japanese auxiliary cruisers Aikoku Maru and Hōkoku Maru near the Chagos Archipelago but failed to find them.

In August, she was involved in Operation Stab, a simulated attack on the Andaman Islands to distract the Japanese from U.S. preparations to attack Guadalcanal. She covered the landings at Mahajanga and Tamatave during the Battle of Madagascar an Allied invasion, in September. Her surface radar was replaced in Durban in October and Captain Packer, her former Assistant Gunnery Officer at Jutland, took command in January 1943. The remainder of Warspite's cruise was uneventful. She underwent a short refit in Durban in April and returned to the UK in May 1943, having sailed approximately 160,000 miles since the war began.

Mediterranean (1943–1944)
Warspite underwent a short refit in May in another attempt to fix her steering problem, then joined Force H at Scapa Flow, departing on 9 June for Gibraltar in company with five other battleships, two carriers and twelve destroyers. Assigned to Division 2 with Valiant and Formidable, she returned to Alexandria on 5 July in preparation for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. Division One and Two rendezvoused in the Gulf of Sirte on 9 July and covered the assembling convoys. Warspite was detached to refuel at Malta on 12 July, the first visit by a British battleship since December 1940. On 17 July, she bombarded Catania in support of an unsuccessful attack by the 8th Army, although her steering problem temporarily delayed her taking up position. She returned to Malta at high speed on 18 July, avoiding several air attacks during the night. On her return, Admiral Cunningham inadvertently coined the nickname by which she would be known thereafter when he signalled: "Operation well carried out. There is no question when the old lady lifts her skirts she can run."

Between 2 and 3 September, Warspite and Valiant covered the assault across the Straits of Messina and bombarded the Italian coastal batteries near Reggio. Between 8 and 9 September, Force H, covering the landings at Salerno, came under fierce German air-attack and narrowly avoided being torpedoed. The resolve of the Italian Government had already been wavering by the time of the Allies victory in North Africa; the invasion of Sicily and aerial attacks on mainland Italy encouraged negotiations. They signed an armistice on 3 September, which took effect on 8 September. Anxious to ensure that the Germans did not acquire an additional 200 warships, the Allies insisted that the Regia Marina must sail for Allied ports. Three days later, Warspite met and led elements of the Italian Fleet, including Vittorio Veneto and Italia, into internment at Malta. She repeated this process on 12 September for her opponent from the Battle of Calabria, Giulio Cesare.

On 14 September, Force H was recalled to the UK to begin preparations for the invasion of France, but Warspite and Valiant were detached to provide support for Allied forces at Salerno. Although the Italians had surrendered, the Germans had anticipated this and moved forces into position to block the Allied landings. The American forces near Battipaglia were in a precarious situation following German counter-attacks. After arriving off Salerno on 15 September, Warspite bombarded an ammunition dump and other positions around Altavilla Silentina, demoralising the German forces and providing time for Allied reinforcements to arrive. Overnight, the fleet came under intense air attack, but she was able to continue bombardment duties the next day. However, early in the afternoon she was attacked by a Luftwaffe squadron of Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter bombers and then, from high altitude, by three Dornier Do 217 bombers from KG 100 armed with an early guided bomb, the Fritz X. She was hit directly once; a second near-miss ripped open the torpedo bulges while the third missed altogether. The bomb that did hit her struck near the funnel, cutting through her decks and making a 20-foot hole in the bottom of her hull, crippling her. Although the damage had been considerable, Warspite's casualties amounted to only nine killed and fourteen wounded.

She was soon on the journey to Malta, escorted by the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Delhi (D47) and four destroyers, while being towed by United States Navy tugs. Towing a ship of Warspite's dimensions proved difficult, and at one stage she broke all tow lines and drifted sideways through the Straits of Messina. She reached Malta on 19 September and undertook emergency repairs before being towed to Gibraltar on 12 November. Warspite returned to Britain in March 1944 to continue her repairs at Rosyth. Captain Packer was mentioned in despatches for his actions bringing the ship to Malta, the second time he had limped into port on board a heavily damaged Warspite.

North-Western Europe (1944–1945)
At Rosyth, Warspite's 6-inch guns were removed and plated in, and a concrete caisson covered the hole left by the German missile. One of her boiler rooms and the X turret could not be repaired, remaining out of action for the remainder of her career. She left Greenock on 2 June 1944 with six 15-inch guns, eight 4-inch anti-aircraft guns and forty pom poms, joining Bombardment Force D of the Eastern Task Force of the Normandy invasion fleet off Plymouth two days later.

At 0500 on 6 June 1944, Warspite was the first ship to open fire, bombarding the German battery at Villerville from a position 26,000 yards offshore, to support landings by the British 3rd Division on Sword Beach. She continued bombardment duties on 7 June, but after firing over 300 shells she had to rearm and crossed the Channel to Portsmouth. She returned to Normandy on 9 June to support American forces at Utah Beach and then, on 11 June, she took up position off Gold Beach to support the British 69th Infantry Brigade near Cristot. On 12 June, she returned to Portsmouth to rearm, but her guns were worn out so she was ordered to sail to Rosyth via the Straits of Dover, the first British battleship to have done so since the war began. She evaded German coastal batteries, partly due to effective radar jamming, but hit a mine 28 miles off Harwich early on 13 June. Repairs to her propeller shafts and the replacement of the guns took until early August; she sailed to Scapa Flow to calibrate the new barrels with only three functional shafts, limiting her top speed to 15 knots, although by now the Admiralty considered her main role was that of a bombardment vessel.

Warspite arrived off Ushant on 25 August 1944 and attacked the coastal batteries at Le Conquet and Pointe Saint-Mathieu during the Battle for Brest. The U.S. VIII Corps eventually captured "Festung Brest" on 19 September, but by then Warspite had moved on to the next port. In company with the monitor HMS Erebus (I02), she carried out a preparatory bombardment of targets around Le Havre prior to Operation Astonia on 10 September, leading to the capture of the town two days later. Her final task was to support an Anglo-Canadian operation to open up the port of Antwerp, which had been captured in September, by clearing the Scheldt Estuary of German strongholds and gun emplacements. With the monitors Erebus and HMS Roberts (F40), she bombarded targets on Walcheren Island on 1 November 1944, returning to Deal the next day, having fired her guns for the last time.

Decommissioning
During her service career, Warspite had lived up to her motto, enduring shellfire, bombing, ramming, mines and a guided missile. However, time had taken its toll and more modern ships were required to continue the war in the Far East. Although there were proposals to retain her as a museum ship, the Admiralty approved Warspite's scrapping in July 1946 and she sailed from Spithead into Portsmouth to have her guns removed.

On 19 April 1947, Warspite departed Portsmouth for scrapping at Faslane, on the River Clyde. On the way, she encountered a severe storm and the hawser of the naval tug Bustler parted, whilst the other tug Metinda III slipped her tow. In storm force conditions, Warspite dropped one of her anchors in Mount's Bay, which did not hold, and the storm drove her onto Mount Mopus Ledge near Cudden Point. Later refloating herself she went hard aground a few yards away in Prussia Cove. Her skeleton crew of seven was saved by the Penlee Lifeboat W. & S. There were several attempts to refloat her but the hull was badly damaged.

In 1950, an attempt to re-float her was tried. A large crowd and the media watched on as the salvage crew set to work. Despite the use of 24 compressor tanks pumping air into her tanks, the salvage failed. There was insufficient depth of water to float her clear of the reef in a rising south westerly gale. The salvage boat Barnet, standing guard overnight under the Warspite's bows was holed in the engine room, towed off and eventually drifted ashore at Long Rock, a few miles to the west. However, by August the battleship was finally beached off St Michael’s Mount and after further salvage another attempt was made to refloat her in November. The Falmouth tug Masterman spent the night on the Hogus Rocks after failing to tow Warspite; and her sister tug Tradesman had 60 ft of wire wrapped around her propeller when trying to haul Masterman off the rocks. Aided by her compressor and two jet engines from an experimental aircraft the hulk was finally moved 130 ft closer to shore on Marazion beach, between St.Michael's Mount and Hogus rocks. From 1951, Warspite was progressively broken up and scrapped in situ on the beach and by the summer of 1955, on-site scrapping resulted in her disappearance from view. According to the contractors, it remains the largest salvage operation ever carried out in British waters.

A memorial stone was placed near the sea wall at Marazion and later moved a short distance. The stone was unveiled by Admiral Sir Charles Madden and prayers were read by a former crew member. The remains of the masts lie in the yard at Porthenalls House, Prussia Cove and one portion was erected on a headland, overlooking Prussia Cove. One of her 15-inch tompions and her chapel door are held by the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. Her nameplate was held by the pub, The Wink, in Lamorna, Cornwall but has since been sold at auction. Her ship's wheel was given by King George VI to King Haakon VII of Norway in 1947, who later gave it to the City of Narvik. It is kept in the City Hall of Narvik. Her white ensign and other artefacts are held in Marazion Museum. Timbers from the ship would also be used to create commemorative souvenirs of various types, such as ashtrays and letter openers, as well as teak benches, including ones at the Castle on St.Michael's Mount and in Morrab Gardens, Penzance.

Battle honours
This Warspite earned 15 of the 25 battle honours awarded to Royal Navy ships of this name.

First World War Second World War
 * Jutland 1916
 * Atlantic 1939
 * Narvik 1940
 * Norway 1940
 * Calabria 1940
 * Mediterranean 1940-41-43
 * Malta Convoys 1941
 * Matapan 1941
 * Crete 1941
 * Sicily 1943
 * Salerno 1943
 * English Channel 1944
 * Normandy 1944
 * Biscay 1944
 * Walcheren 1944

title: HMS Warspite (03)


text:
HMS Valiant (1914)

HMS Valiant was one of five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s. She participated in the Battle of Jutland during the First World War as part of the Grand Fleet. Other than that battle, and the inconclusive Action of 19 August, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. She saw further action during the Second World War in the Mediterranean and Far East.

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
Valiant 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 Brown-Curtis 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 919 officers and ratings in 1915 and 1,218 in 1919.

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.

Valiant 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 mast. 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 July 1917.

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.

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 her 1929–1930 refit, the platform was removed from 'X' turret and a folding Type EIH catapult was installed on the quarterdeck, along with a crane to recover a floatplane. The platform atop 'B' turret, the catapult and its crane were removed when Valiant was reconstructed in 1937–1939.

Modifications
Between 1929 and 1930 anti-torpedo bulges were added, increasing beam to 31.70 m. The two funnels were trunked into one and a single octuple 2-pounder mountings was added. Two of the torpedo tubes were removed, and the aircraft platforms were replaced by a single catapult. These modifications brought the maximum displacement up to 35,970 tons. In 1936 a second octuple 2 pdr mounting was added. Between March 1937 and November 1939 she underwent a complete rebuild at Devonport. The machinery was changed to eight Admiralty 3 drum boilers with four Parsons steam turbines producing a total of 80000 shp. Fuel load was 3,393 tons oil, and maximum speed was reduced to 23.5 kn despite the increase in power, due to the increase in displacement and draught. Deck armour was increased to 5 in over the magazines, 2.55 in over the machinery while the new 2.5 in guns had between 1 in and 2 in of armour. The secondary armament was changed to 20 × 4.5 in Mk I dual purpose guns in 10 twin mountings and the close range anti-aircraft armament consisted of four octuple 2 pdr "pom pom" mountings. The ship's fire control was modernised to include the HACS MkIV AA fire control system and the Admiralty Fire Control Table Mk VII for surface fire control of the main armament. These modifications increased draught to 10 m and maximum displacement to 36,513 tons.

Construction and career
HMS Valiant was laid down at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan on 31 January 1913, launched on 4 November 1914 and commissioned on 19 February 1916 under the command of Captain Maurice Woollcombe for service in the Grand Fleet.

First World War
Upon completion on 19 February 1916, under Captain Maurice Woollcombe, Valiant joined the recently formed Fifth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. In an attempt to lure part of the Grand Fleet out of its ports and destroy it, the German High Seas Fleet, consisting of 16 battleships, 6 battle cruisers, and other ships, left Wilhelmshaven early on the morning of 31 May. The plan called for Hipper to leave Wilhelmshaven with the battlecruisers of the 1st and the light cruisers of the 2nd Reconnaissance Group and push north out of sight of the Danish coast. There he was to provoke a departure of British ships by attacking coastal towns and lure them toward the High Seas Fleet. The intelligence Division of the British Admiralty Room 40 had intercepted and decoded German radio traffic containing operational plans. As a result, the Admiralty ordered Jellicoe and Beatty to sail that night with the Grand Fleet from Scapa Flow, Cromarty, and Rosyth to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. After the 5th Battle Squadron departed Rosyth that morning, Beatty ordered a course change to the northeast at 2:15 p.m. to join up with Grand Fleet. At 2:20, Hipper's battlecruisers spotted Beatty's battlecruisers. At 2:32, Beatty ordered a course change to the east-southeast to cut off the Germans' line of retreat. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard and set a southeasterly course. With this turn, Hipper fell back to the High Seas Fleet, which was 97 km behind him. Beatty then also changed course to the east to catch up with Hipper. By 3:05, the 5th Battle Squadron had reached a distance to attack the German light cruisers. By 3:08, the 5th Battle Squadron had reached the rear of the German battlecruisers and Valiant opened fire on the SMS Moltke, which received one hit. The situation changed when the German battleships came into view at 3:40. Since Beatty had failed to sufficiently signal his intentions when he turned north, the battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron were on an opposite course past the battlecruisers and headed directly for the approaching main body of the High Seas Fleet. At 3:48 Scheer opened fire on the British battleships. Valiant managed to avoid hits and in turn fired on three German ships from a distance of 14 to 16 kilometers at 4:30. Valiant continued to participate in the battle until the enemy came out of sight at a distance of 17 kilometers at about 5:02.

Inter-war period
From 1919 to the end of 1924 Valiant was part of the 1st Battle Squadron, Atlantic Fleet after which she was with the 1st Battle Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet until March 1929. On 2 December 1930 she was recommissioned for service in the Atlantic where in 1931 her crew participated in the Invergordon Mutiny. March 1932 saw her transferred to the Home Fleet until in July 1935 she was once again in the Mediterranean.

World War II
On 30 November 1939 Valiant was commissioned at Devonport and assigned to the America and West Indies Station. Returning to Britain in December 1939, she escorted Canadian troops across the Atlantic and joined Home Fleet on 7 January 1940. Valiant engaged in escort duty for troop transports and in May 1940 supported the British landing forces in the Norwegian campaign. While there, the battleship narrowly escaped a torpedo fired by U 38.

Mers-el-Kébir
With the surrender of France on 22 June 1940, the bulk of the French fleet lay at Mers-el-Kébir. Since British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was very worried that the French ships might fall into the hands of the Germans and did not believe the Vichy government's assurances that it would prevent the Germans from seizing the ships, he intended to give the French an ultimatum. On Wednesday, 3 July 1940, Force H under the command of Vice Admiral James Fownes Somerville consisting of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Hood, the battleships Valiant, Resolution, and Nelson, and other cruisers and destroyers appeared off the harbor entrance. Somerville radioed Admiral Marcel Gensoul to inform him of the British demands. After the ultimatum expired, the Valiant opened fire along with the Hood and Resolution. The Dunkerque, the Provence, and the Brittany were hit and heavily damaged; the latter exploded and sank. After Somerville had ceased fire to give Gensoul another chance, he overlooked that the Strasbourg together with the five remaining destroyers had escaped into the open sea behind the thick smoke of the explosions. The Strasbourg, along with the destroyers Volta, Tigre and Le Terrible, reached Toulon on the evening of 4 July. In September, she joined the carrier HMS Illustrious with the squadron at Alexandria. For the remainder of the year, she sailed security duties in the Mediterranean, primarily on fleet advances. On the night of 18–19 December, together with the Warspite, she shelled the Albanian port of Valona

Cape Matapan
With the help of an intercepted Luftwaffe radio message decoded by ULTRA, Admiral Cunningham learned that the Italians, under the command of Vice-Admiral Angelo Iachino, intended to attack the British fleet to distract them from transporting German troops to North Africa. After the Italians sortied in a convoy of 22 ships, including the battleship Vittorio Veneto, on 26 March, Cunningham brought all his ships into position, including the Barham. On 28 March, British cruisers encountered the Italian fleet but were forced to retreat by the ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Vittorio Veneto. Cunningham then ordered an air attack. Multiple air strikes by Formidable's Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers damaged the Vittorio Veneto and crippled the heavy cruiser ITALIAN CRUISER Pola. The Vittorio Veneto escaped westwards as darkness fell. Later that evening. Admiral Iachino ordered the two other heavy cruisers of the 1st Division to render assistance to Pola in the darkness. The Italian ships and the British arrived almost simultaneously at Pola's location, but the Italians had almost no clue that the British were nearby. On the other hand, the British knew exactly where the Italians were, thanks to their radar-equipped ships. They opened fire at point-blank range and sank the ITALIAN CRUISER Zara and ITALIAN CRUISER Fiume. During the battle, Midshipman Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh had been assigned to Valiant and controlled the battleship's searchlights.

Battle of Crete
On 22/23 May 1941, Valiant operated off Crete, and was struck by two bombs.

Mining at Alexandria
On 19 December 1941, Valiant was seriously damaged by limpet mines placed by Italian frogmen of Decima Flottiglia MAS, who entered Alexandria harbor riding two-man "human torpedoes" ("maiali"). Her sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) was also damaged. Lieutenant Durand de la Penne placed the mines on Valiant. The other two teams attached their mines and escaped, but de la Penne's maiale broke down. De la Penne pushed the maiale under Valiant and left it on the bottom. Then he and his companion Corporal Emilio Bianchi (diver) emerged and were captured. They were interrogated by Captain Charles Morgan, but told him nothing. A few minutes before the mines were scheduled to detonate, when it was too late to find and deactivate them, he informed Morgan of their existence (but not their location) to allow the crew on board to evacuate. They were kept in the locked compartment, which was (unbeknownst to them or Morgan) just above where the mine would explode. Both were injured by the explosion, but survived. The mine attached to Valiant was not actually in contact with her hull, so the damage was far less severe than to Queen Elizabeth. Despite having a heavy trim forward, her decks were above water, and she remained clear of the harbour bottom. Although nearly immobilised, she was able, although only for a few days, to give the impression of full battle readiness, at least until she could be repaired. Valiant was repaired in Durban, South Africa, carrying out post-refit trials in July 1942, and took part in exercises with the Eastern Fleet the following month. At the end of August, Valiant took part in Operation Touchstone, an exercise to test East Africa's defences against a seaborne invasion and to conduct a dress rehearsal for Operation Ironclad, the invasion of French Madagascar. She remained in African waters until the end of the year, and returned to Devonport for a refit in January 1943.

Sicily and Italy
On 17 June, Valiant departed Scapa Flow for Gibraltar along with the Nelson, Rodney and  Warspite, joining Force H on arrival. Between 2 and 3 September, Valiant and Warspite covered the attack across the Strait of Messina and bombed the Italian coastal batteries at Reggio. She returned home for overhaul in October 1943. Upon completion on 1 December, Valiant was detached to the Eastern Fleet.

Drydock accident in Ceylon
In 1944, Valiant was sent to the Far East to join the Eastern Fleet. There she took part in raids against Japanese bases in Indonesia. On 8 August 1944, she was severely damaged in an accident with the floating drydock at Trincomalee, Ceylon. The drydock was being raised with Valiant in it by pumping water from ballast tanks. The tanks were emptied in the wrong sequence for Valiant's weight distribution, which was exacerbated by her full munitions load. As a result, the drydock was over-stressed at its ends, broke its back and sank. Valiant's two inner screws were jammed as well as one of her rudders. Valiant had remained in steam and was able to avoid worse damage or sinking. After the incident, the responsible Naval Constructor was disciplined.

Fate
It was decided to sail Valiant to Alexandria, where there were suitable docking facilities. However she could not steer a straight course, and could not make more than 8 kn. She got as far as Suez Bay, but could not attempt the Suez Canal in that condition. Lt Cmdr Peter Keeble, an experienced diver and salvage expert, personally supervised the removal of her two inner screw shafts near the gland. The A-brackets holding the shafts and screws were also cut, dropping both screws and shafts to the bottom. Keeble had perfected available underwater cutting torches by combining British and Italian technology to cut away the thick propeller shafts. She returned to the UK and was decommissioned in July 1945. Valiant formed part of the Imperieuse stoker mechanics' training establishment at Devonport for the rest of her career. She was sold for scrap on 19 March 1948, and left Devonport for the breakers of Arnott Young at Cairnryan on 11 August of that year.

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

title: HMS Valiant (1914)


text:
HMS Barham (04)

HMS Barham was one of five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the early 1910s. Completed in 1915, she was often used as a flagship and participated in the Battle of Jutland during the First World War as part of the Grand Fleet. For the rest of the war, except for the inconclusive action of 19 August 1916, her service generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the ship was assigned to the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Home Fleets. Barham played a minor role in quelling the 1929 Palestine riots and the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The ship was in the Mediterranean when the Second World War began in September 1939, on her voyage home three months later, she accidentally collided with and sank one of her escorting destroyers, HMS Duchess (H64).

She participated in the Battle of Dakar in mid-1940, where she damaged a Vichy French battleship and was slightly damaged in return. Barham was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, where she covered multiple Malta convoys. She helped to sink an Italian heavy cruiser and a destroyer during the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and was damaged by German aircraft two months later during the evacuation of Crete. Barham was sunk off the Egyptian coast the following November by the GS U-331 with the loss of 862 crewmen, approximately two thirds of her crew.

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.

Barham had a length overall of 643 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 Brown-Curtis steam turbines, each driving two shafts using steam from 24 Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 75000 shp and intended to reach a maximum speed of 25 kn. During her abbreviated sea trials on 6 July 1916, Barham only reached a mean top speed of 23.91 kn. The ship had a range of 5000 nmi at a cruising speed of 12 kn. Her crew numbered 1,016 officers and ratings in 1916.

Armament 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 was 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.

Barham 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 mast. 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 July 1917.

Protection and aircraft
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 in of armour. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 in 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 her early-1930s refit, the platforms were removed from the turrets and a retractable catapult was installed on the roof of 'X' turret, along with a crane to recover a floatplane. This was initially a Fairey IIIF until it was replaced by a Fairey Swordfish in 1938.

Major alterations
Barham received a series of minor refits during the 1920s. In 1921–1922, 30 ft rangefinders replaced the smaller ones in 'B' and 'X' turrets. Two years later, her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded when the original three-inch AA guns were replaced with a pair of QF 4 in Mk V AA guns between November 1924 and January 1925 and another pair of four-inch AA guns were added from October to November later that year. To control these guns a temporary High-Angle Control Position was mounted above the torpedo-control tower aft. This was replaced by a torpedo rangefinder in early 1928 when the permanent position was installed in the remodelled spotting top.

The ship was extensively refitted between January 1931 and January 1934 at a cost of £424,000. During this refit, the aft superstructure was rebuilt and the torpedo-control tower and its rangefinder were removed, together with the aft set of torpedo tubes. The fore funnel was trunked into the aft funnel to reduce smoke in the spotting top. A High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director were added to the roof of the spotting top and the mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a second HACS director. A pair of octuple mounts for 2-pounder (40 mm) Mk VIII "pom-pom" anti-aircraft guns were added abreast the funnel and two positions for their directors were added on new platforms abreast and below the spotting top. In addition, a pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers 0.5 in AA machine guns were added abreast the conning tower.

The turret roofs were reinforced to a thickness of 5 in and the armour added over the magazines after Jutland was replaced by 4 inches of Krupp non-cemented armour, the first British battleship to receive such. In addition, the rear of the six-inch gun casemates was enclosed by a 1.5 in bulkhead. Underwater protection was improved by the addition of 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 almost 14 ft to 104 ft, and reduced her draught to 32 ft. This increased her metacentric height to about 7 ft at deep load, despite the increase in her deep displacement to 35970 LT. When Barham conducted her sea trials on 20 November 1933, her speed was reduced to 22.5 kn from 65655 shp.

Later alterations included replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts for the QF 4-inch Mark XVI gun, removal of the forward submerged torpedo tubes and the high-angle rangefinder in March–May 1938. In addition the torpedo-control tower aft was replaced by an air-defence position during that same refit. While under repair in December 1939 – March 1940, a 20-barrel Unrotated projectile (UP) rocket launcher was installed on the roof of 'B' turret and her HACS Mk I directors were replaced with Mk III models. The following year the UP mount was replaced by a pair of quadruple Vickers 0.5-inch machine gun mounts and another pair of eight-barreled "pom-pom" mounts were added abreast her conning tower.

Construction and career
The Queen Elizabeth class was ordered as part of the 1912 Naval Programme and the contract for Barham was awarded to John Brown & Company. The ship, named after Admiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, was laid down at their Clydebank shipyard on 24 February 1913 and launched on 31 December 1914. Barham cost a total of £2,470,113. She was completed for trials on 19 August 1915 which took until the end of September to finish under the command of Captain Arthur Craig Waller. The following day, 1 October, Rear-Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas, commander of the 5th Battle Squadron, hoisted his flag aboard his new flagship.

First World War
Barham joined the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow the next day and participated in a fleet training operation west of Orkney during 2–5 November. During another training exercise in early December, the ship was accidentally rammed by her sister ship HMS Warspite (03) on 3 December. After temporary repairs at Scapa, Barham was sent to Cromarty Firth for more permanent repairs in the floating dry dock there that lasted until 23 December.

The Grand Fleet departed for a cruise in the North Sea on 26 February 1916; Jellicoe had intended to use the Harwich Force to sweep the Heligoland Bight, but bad weather prevented operations in the southern North Sea. As a result, the operation was confined to the northern end of the sea. Another sweep began on 6 March, but had to be abandoned the following day as the weather grew too severe for the escorting destroyers. On the night of 25 March, Barham and the rest of the fleet sailed from Scapa Flow to support Beatty's battlecruisers and other light forces raiding the German Zeppelin base at Tondern. By the time the Grand Fleet approached the area on 26 March, the British and German forces had already disengaged and a strong gale threatened the light craft, so the fleet was ordered to return to base. On 21 April, the Grand Fleet conducted a demonstration off Horns Reef to distract the Germans while the Russian Navy relaid its defensive minefields in the Baltic Sea. The fleet returned to Scapa Flow on 24 April and refuelled before proceeding south in response to intelligence reports that the Germans were about to launch a raid on Lowestoft. The 5th Battle Squadron preceded the rest of the Grand Fleet to reinforce Vice-Admiral David Beatty's battlecruiser fleet, but the British arrived in the area after the Germans had withdrawn. On 2–4 May, the fleet conducted another demonstration off Horns Reef to keep German attention focused on the North Sea. On 21 May, the 5th Battle Squadron was attached to Beatty while his 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron was detached for gunnery training and arrived at Rosyth the following day.

Battle of Jutland

In an attempt to lure out and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, the 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. In response the Admiralty ordered the Grand Fleet, totalling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, to sortie the night before to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet. Barham slipped her mooring at 22:08 and was followed by the rest of Beatty's ships.

When dawn broke Beatty ordered his forces into cruising formation with the 5th Battle Squadron trailing his battle cruisers by 5 nmi. At 14:15, Beatty ordered a turn north by east to rendezvous with the Grand Fleet. Shortly before the turn, one of his escorting light cruisers, HMS Galatea (1914) spotted smoke on the horizon and continued on her course to investigate. Ten minutes later, the ship radioed "Two cruisers, probably hostile, in sight..." They were actually two German destroyers that had stopped to check a Danish merchant ship's papers. At 14:32, Beatty ordered a course change to south-southeast in response to the spot report. Barham's signallers were unable to read the signal and her officer of the watch presumed that it was the expected point zigzag to the left of the base course and signalled that course change to the rest of the squadron. After several minutes it became apparent that the squadron was not conforming to Beatty's other ships, but Evan-Thomas refused to change course until clear instructions had been received despite entreaties from the Barham's captain. While the exact time when Evan-Thomas ordered his ships to turn to follow Beatty is not known, the consensus is that it was about seven minutes later, which increased his distance from Beatty to nothing less than 10 nmi.

Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 15:20, but Beatty's ships did not see the Germans to their east until 15:30. Two minutes later, Beatty ordered a course change to east-southeast, positioning the British ships to cut off the German's line of retreat, and signalled action stations. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to starboard, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and reduced speed to 18 kn to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up. With this turn, Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet, 60 mi behind him. Beatty then altered course to the east, as he was still too far north to cut Hipper off. This was later characterised as the "Run to the South" as Beatty changed course to steer east-southeast at 15:45, now paralleling Hipper's course less than 18000 yd away. By this time the 5th Battle Squadron was about 7.5 nmi northwest of Beatty. The Germans opened fire first at 15:48, followed by the British battlecruisers.

The light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group were the first German ships visible to Evan-Thomas's ships and Barham opened fire on them at 15:58 until the cruisers disappeared into their own smoke screen at around 16:05. About three minutes later, the ship opened fire on the battlecruiser SMS von der Tann at a range of about 23000 yd. A minute later she scored one hit on the German ship's stern before she was ordered to switch targets to the battlecruiser SMS Moltke, together with her sister HMS Valiant (1914). The shell struck just below the waterline and burst on impact with the belt armour. The impact was right on the joints between several armour plates and drove them inwards and destroyed part of the hull behind them. The damage allowed over 1000 LT of water to flood the stern and nearly knocked out the ship's steering gear. Between them, Barham and Valiant hit Moltke four times from 16:16 to 16:26, but only one of those hits can be attributed to Valiant. Two of the others detonated upon striking the waterline armour, but failed to penetrate. The impacts drove in the plates and fragments caused much flooding by damaging the surrounding structure. The last shell passed all the way through the ship without detonating; it struck and dislodged a 100 mm armour plate on the waterline on the other side of the ship that caused also some flooding. Barham was herself was struck twice during the "Run to the South": the first was a 28.3 cm shell from von der Tann that failed to do any damage when it hit the waterline armour and the battlecruiser SMS Lützow fired a 30.5 cm shell that detonated in the aft superstructure. This sent splinters in every direction and started a small fire, but otherwise did no significant damage.

At 16:30, the light cruiser HMS Southampton (1912), scouting in front of Beatty's ships, spotted the lead elements of the High Seas Fleet coming north at top speed. Three minutes later, she sighted the topmasts of Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer's battleships, but did not report this for another five minutes. Beatty continued south for another two minutes to confirm the sighting before ordering his force to turn north, towards the Grand Fleet in what came to be known as the "Run to the North". His order only applied to his own forces; the 5th Battle Squadron continued south until after it passed Beatty heading northwestwards at 16:51. Beatty then ordered Evan-Thomas to turn his ships in succession to follow the battlecruisers three minutes later. This meant that they were some 4000 yd closer to the rapidly advancing High Sea Fleet. And now within range of the battleships of the 3rd Squadron which opened fire on the 5th Battle Squadron as they made their turn.

Evan-Thomas continued his turn until his ships were steering due north, which interposed the 5th Battle Squadron between Hipper's battlecruisers, which had reversed course around 16:48 to follow Beatty north, and Beatty's ships. While making the turn, Barham was struck by two 30.5-centimetre shells beginning at 16:58, probably from the battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger. The first of these struck the ship's upper deck before detonating upon striking the main deck above the medical store compartment, which was completely burnt out. The detonation blew a 7 by hole in the main deck, sent fragments through the middle and lower decks and burned out the casemate for starboard No. 2 six-inch gun. Three minutes later another shell hit the aft superstructure, severing the antenna cables of the main wireless station. One fragment ricocheted off the upper deck and through the side plating on the opposite side of the ship. Either the first or the fourth of these shells destroyed the ship's sickbay, killing the staff and all of its patients, including eight ship's boys. Barham returned fire at the battlecruisers at 17:02, together with Valiant, the two northernmost of Evan-Thomas's ships, and the two of them made three hits on the battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz and Lützow between 17:06 and 17:13 while Barham was hit twice more by Derfflinger; although neither of the hits did any significant damage. In contrast, the hit on Lützow flooded a 15 cm magazine and the hits on Seydlitz blew a 10 by hole in the side of her bow. Fragments from this hit caused flooding that spread throughout the bow, while the ship's speed caused water to enter directly through the hole in the side. Other fragments from the second hit caused damage that allowed the water to spread even further. These two hits were ultimately responsible for the massive flooding that nearly sank Seydlitz after the battle. The third shell detonated on the face of the starboard wing turret, although some fragments entered the turret and caused minor damage.

Beatty in the meantime had turned further west to open up the range between his battered battlecruisers and the Germans. At 17:45 he turned eastwards to take his position in front of the Grand Fleet and re-engage Hipper's ships. This meant that the 5th Battle Squadron and the light cruisers were the sole targets available for the German ships until after his turn, although the worsening visibility hampered both sides' shooting. Barham was not hit during this time and she and Valiant, later joined by their sister Warspite, continued to fire at Hipper's 1st Scouting Group until 18:02 when Valiant lost sight of the Germans. They hit Lützow, Derfflinger and Seydlitz three times each between 17:19 and about 18:05. Lützow was only slightly damaged by these hits, which essentially only knocked out the primary and back-up wireless rooms while the shells that hit Derfflinger hit the side of the ship's bow, knocking off several armour plates, while fragments opened holes that ultimately allowed roughly 2000 t of water to enter the bow. One of these hits also started several major fires inside the hull. The hits on Seydlitz mostly opened up more holes that facilitated the flooding.

Hipper turned his ships southward around 18:05 to fall back upon Scheer's advancing battleships and then reversed course five minutes later. Evan-Thomas turned northeast at around 18:06 and then made a slow turn to the southeast once he spotted the Grand Fleet. He first spotted the battleship HMS Marlborough (1912), flagship of the 6th Division of the 1st Battle Squadron and thought she was leading the Grand Fleet as it deployed from cruising formation into line ahead. At 18:17 he realised that Marlborough was actually at the rear of the formation and he ordered a turn to the north to bring his squadron into line behind the Grand Fleet. This took some time and his ships had to slow down to 12 - 18 kn to avoid overrunning the 6th Division and blocking its fire. The 5th Battle Squadron concentrated their fire on the German battleships after losing sight of the battlecruisers, with Barham opening fire at 18:14. No hits were observed and the ships stopped firing after making their turn north, but Barham opened fire for a short time when they fell in line with the Grand Fleet a few minutes later, probably without making any hits.

Barham fired 337 fifteen-inch shells and 25 six-inch shells during the battle. The number of hits cannot be confirmed, but it is believed that she and Valiant made 23 or 24 hits between them, making them two of the most accurate warships in the British fleet. She was hit six times during the battle, five times by 30.5 cm shells and once by a 28.3 cm shell, suffering casualties of 26 killed and 46 wounded.

Subsequent activity
Following Jutland, Barham was under repair until 5 July 1916. On the evening of 18 August, the Grand Fleet put to sea in response to a message deciphered by Room 40 that indicated that the High Seas Fleet, minus II Squadron, would be leaving harbour that night. The German objective was to bombard Sunderland on 19 August, based on extensive reconnaissance conducted by Zeppelins and submarines. The Grand Fleet sailed with 29 dreadnoughts and 6 battlecruisers while the Germans mustered 18 dreadnoughts and 2 battlecruisers. Throughout the next day, Jellicoe and Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the High Seas Fleet, received conflicting intelligence; after reaching the location in the North Sea where they expected to encounter the High Seas Fleet, the British turned north in the erroneous belief that they had entered a minefield. Scheer turned south again, then steered south-eastward to pursue a lone British battle squadron sighted by an airship, which was in fact the Harwich Force of cruisers and destroyers under Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt. Realising their mistake, the Germans changed course for home. The only contact came in the evening when Tyrwhitt sighted the High Seas Fleet but was unable to achieve an advantageous attack position before dark, and broke off contact. The British and the German fleets returned home; the British lost two cruisers to submarine attacks, and one German dreadnought had been torpedoed. 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 unless the odds of defeating the High Seas Fleet in a decisive engagement were favourable.

She was refitted at Cromarty between February and March 1917 and King George V inspected the ship on 22 June at Invergordon. Barham was refitted at Rosyth from 7–23 February 1918 and Waller was relieved by Captain Henry Buller on 18 April. The latter was succeeded by Captain Richard Horne on 1 October. She was present when the High Seas Fleet surrendered for internment on 21 November.

Between the wars
Barham became flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet in April 1919, and made a port visit to Cherbourg, France that month together with the rest of the squadron. Captain Robin Dalglish relieved Horne on 1 October 1920. She retained her position when the 1st and 2nd Battle Squadrons were merged in May 1921. Dalglish was relieved in his turn by Captain Percy Noble on 18 October 1922. Barham participated in the Fleet review on 26 July 1924 at Spithead. A few months later, now under the command of Captain Richard Hill, the ship again retained her position as the 1st Battle Squadron was split in two and the Queen Elizabeths of the new 1st Battle Squadron were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet on 1 November 1924. On 14 October 1925, Captain Francis Marten relieved Hill, but he retained command only until 9 March 1926 when Captain Joseph Henley assumed command. Together with her sister HMS Malaya, Barham was sent to Alexandria, Egypt, in May 1927 during a time of unrest. Now under the command of Captain Hubert Monroe and accompanied by the battleship HMS Ramillies (07), she cruised along the coast of West Africa from December 1927 to February 1928. She became a private ship in January of that year and was refitted at Portsmouth Royal Dockyard in February–July. Shortly after her return to the Mediterranean, Barham again became flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron in September after her sister Warspite had to return home for repairs after running aground. Captain James Somerville relieved Monroe on 1 December and he was relieved in his turn on 16 March 1929 by Captain John C. Hamilton. The ship was relieved as flagship by HMS Revenge (06) in June and she was ordered to Palestine in August where her crew helped to suppress rioting in Haifa and also operated the Haifa-Jerusalem railroad. The ship was transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet in November 1929, and, together with Malaya, made a port visit to Trondheim, Norway in mid-1930 where they fired a salute to celebrate the birth of Princess Ragnhild on 9 June.

Between January 1931 and January 1934, Barham underwent a major refit. While the other four ships of the Queen Elizabeth class were given a second, more extensive refit in the mid-to-late 1930s (which for Warspite, Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) amounted to a complete reconstruction with new machinery and superstructures), changes to Barham were relatively minor. Now under the command of Captain Richard Scott, Barham was assigned to the Home Fleet as the flagship of the 2nd Battle Squadron, and deployed to the West Indies in January–February 1935 for training. The ship participated in the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review for George V on 16 July at Spithead and was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet at the end of August. At that time, Captain Norman Wodehouse relieved Scott. She was briefly deployed to Haifa in May 1936 at the beginning of the Arab revolt in Palestine. Shortly afterwards, she was deployed to Gibraltar for several months after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in July.

Barham served as the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron from November 1936 to May 1937 and participated in the Coronation Fleet Review for King George VI on 19 May at Spithead. She became the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet on 9 June until relieved by Warspite on 8 February 1938. Captain Henry Horan assumed command on 28 July 1937, although he only remained in command until 22 April 1938 when he was relieved by Captain Algernon Willis. The ship resumed her former role as flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron in February 1938 while undergoing a refit at Portsmouth that lasted until May. Willis was relieved by Captain Thomas Walker on 31 January 1939. During a port visit to Corfu in July, the ship was visited by King George II of Greece.

Second World War
Barham remained part of the Mediterranean Fleet at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. She became a private ship on 1 December and departed Alexandria to join the Home Fleet that same day. On 12 December, she accidentally rammed one of her escorts, the destroyer HMS Duchess (H64), in thick fog 9 mi west of the Mull of Kintyre. Duchess capsized and sank, with the loss of 124 of her crew.

Barham, the battlecruiser HMS Repulse (1916) and the destroyers HMS Fame (H78), HMS Icarus (D03), HMS Imogen (D44), HMS Isis (D87) and HMS Nubian (F36) were on patrol off the Butt of Lewis to protect against a possible break-out into the Atlantic by German warships when they were spotted by the GS U-30 (1936), commanded by Fritz-Julius Lemp, on 28 December. Lemp fired four torpedoes at the two capital ships, and one struck Barham on her port side, adjacent to the shell rooms for 'A' and 'B' turrets. The anti-torpedo bulge was essentially destroyed adjacent to the strike, with four men killed and two wounded. Most of the adjacent compartments flooded and the ship took on a 7 degree list that was countered by transferring fuel oil to starboard. Barham's speed was initially reduced to 10 kn, but it was increased to 16 kn about an hour and a half later and she was able to proceed under her own power to Birkenhead for repairs by Cammell Laird that lasted until April 1940.

Captain Geoffrey Cooke assumed command on 25 March and the Navy took the opportunity to augment her light anti-aircraft armament and upgrade its directors. Barham played no role in the Norwegian Campaign although some of her crew and marines participated. In preparation for Operation Menace, a British naval attack on Dakar, Senegal, prior to a planned landing by the Free French, the ship was detached from the Home Fleet on 28 August and was assigned to Force M, the Royal Navy component of the operation. She departed Scapa Flow that day, escorted by four destroyers, and rendezvoused with the troop convoy en route to Gibraltar where she arrived on 2 September. She later became the flagship of Force M's commander, Vice-Admiral John Cunningham. Reinforced by the battleship HMS Resolution (09) and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (91) from Force H, Barham departed Gibraltar for Freetown, Sierra Leone, four days later.

Operation Menace
Force M departed Freetown for Dakar on 21 September and had arrived Dakar before dawn two days later. After Free French emissaries were either captured or driven off by the Vichy French, Cunningham ordered his ships to open fire. Barham's six-inch guns were the first to do so and fired at the FRENCH SUBMARINE Persée on the surface. They claimed at least one hit and the submarine was finished off by two of the escorting destroyers and the light cruiser HMS Dragon (D46). Her main guns targeted the port and the battleship FRENCH BATTLESHIP Richelieu. Hindered by poor visibility, no significant damage was inflicted and Richelieu was not hit before the bombardment was called off after 20 minutes.

After the expiration of an ultimatum to surrender the following morning, the battleships engaged the port's 24 cm coast-defence guns and Richelieu at 09:30. The latter was only struck by a single shell splinter before the Allies broke off the bombardment at 10:07, although she had hit Barham once with a 155 mm shell that blew a hole 4 ft in diameter in the bulge. The FRENCH DESTROYER Le Hardi sortied from the harbour at 12:00 to rescue a British pilot in the water, but was engaged at 12:53 by the battleships at a range of 11000 m. The ship was not hit, but was forced to return to port under the cover of a heavy smoke screen. The British battleships then switched targets to bombard the harbour and Richelieu. They set several merchant ships on fire, but again failed to hit the latter at a range of 15500 m before breaking off fire at 13:20. During this time Barham was struck by a 24 cm shell that penetrated through the superstructure before exploding with little effect and without causing any casualties. Another shell, probably also 24 cm in size (though possibly a 38 cm shell from Richelieu) detonated in the water on the starboard side abreast of the funnels. The resulting shockwave pushed the bulge inwards for a length of 7 ft and it started to slowly flood.

After a conference aboard Barham later that day, the Allied commanders resolved to continue the attack. On the morning of 25 September, Richelieu was the first ship to open fire at 09:04 at a range of 22000 m. As the British battleships were manoeuvring to take up their positions, the submarine FRENCH SUBMARINE Bévéziers fired a spread of four torpedoes at a range of 2500 m. Barham was able to dodge them, but Resolution was struck by one torpedo amidships that caused a heavy list, and she fell out of line. Barham opened fire at a range of 19000 m and hit Richelieu with one 15-inch shell at 09:15. The shell devastated a messdeck and dented the armoured deck by a depth of 8 cm, but caused no casualties. The severe damage to Resolution caused Operation Menace to be abandoned and Barham had to tow her to Freetown for temporary repairs, before escorting a convoy to Gibraltar where she arrived on 15 October where her own damage was repaired. She was briefly assigned to Force H, before she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1940.

Barham, two cruisers, and three destroyers also assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet were designated Force F as part of Operation Coat, one of a complex series of fleet movements in the Mediterranean. The battleship and the other ships of Force F were tasked to ferry troops to Malta, before continuing on to Alexandria. Barham was loaded with 600 troops, including the men of 12 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, Force F departed Gibraltar on 7 November, escorted by Force H, rendezvoused with the main body of the Mediterranean Fleet three days later and unloaded their cargo at Malta later that day. While sailing eastwards, the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious (87) was detached from the main body to attack Taranto on the night of 11/12 November, damaging three Italian battleships. Barham, now assigned to the 1st BS, and Malaya were detached to refuel at Souda Bay, Crete, before sailing for Alexandria, reaching there on 14 November. As part of Operation Collar in late November, Barham, Malaya and the carrier HMS Eagle (1918) covered the forces rendezvousing with a convoy coming from Gibraltar. En route, Eagle's aircraft attacked Tripoli on 26 November. Barham became the flagship of the 1st BS in December.

1941
On 3 January 1941, the ship, together with Warspite and Valiant, bombarded Bardia as a prelude to the Battle of Bardia. On 26 March, the Italian fleet sortied in an attempt to intercept British convoys to Greece. The British had recently broken the Italian codes and sailed after dark on the 27th to intercept the Italians. The following morning, they were spotted by an aircraft from the carrier HMS Formidable (67) and the Battle of Cape Matapan began. Multiple air strikes by Formidable's Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers damaged the battleship ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Vittorio Veneto and crippled the heavy cruiser ITALIAN CRUISER Pola later that evening. Admiral Angelo Iachino, commander of the Italian fleet, ordered the two other heavy cruisers of the 1st Division to render assistance to Pola in the darkness. The Italian ships and the British arrived almost simultaneously at Pola's location, but the Italians had almost no clue that the British were nearby. On the other hand, the British knew exactly where the Italians were, thanks to their radar-equipped ships. They opened fire at point-blank range, Barham crippling the destroyer ITALIAN DESTROYER Alfredo Oriani and then joining Warspite and Valiant in crippling ITALIAN CRUISER Zara.

In mid-April she escorted the fast transport MV Breconshire, together with Warspite and Valiant, from Alexandria to Malta before the battleships bombarded Tripoli on the evening of 20 April. On 6–12 May, she covered the Alexandria-Malta convoy of Operation Tiger. With her newly arrived sister Queen Elizabeth, Barham escorted Formidable as her aircraft attacked the Italian airfield at Scarpanto at dawn on 26 May with some success. While covering the evacuation of Crete the following day, the ship was attacked by Junkers Ju 88 bombers from II./LG (Demonstration Wing) 1 and Heinkel He 111 bombers of II./KG (Bomber Wing) 26. One 250 kg bomb struck 'Y' turret and started a fire inside the turret that took 20 minutes to quench. A near miss ruptured her portside bulge over an area 20 by and caused a 1.5 degree list that was easily corrected by pumping oil. Casualties were five dead and six wounded. She reached Alexandria later that day, but she was too large for the floating dock there and had to be sent elsewhere for repairs. She sailed south through the Suez Canal to Mombasa, Kenya, where her damage was inspected. It proved to be worse than expected and Barham had to be repaired at Durban, South Africa, as she was unfit to make the trans-Atlantic crossing for repair in the United States. Repairs were completed six weeks later on 30 July and the ship returned to Alexandria in August where she resumed her role as flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron.

Sinking
On the afternoon of 24 November 1941, the 1st Battle Squadron, Barham, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant, with an escort of eight destroyers, departed Alexandria to cover the 7th and 15th Cruiser Squadrons as they hunted for Italian convoys in the Central Mediterranean. The following morning, the GS U-331, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen, detected the faint engine noises of the British ships and moved to intercept. By the afternoon the submarine and the 1st Battle Squadron were on reciprocal courses and Tiesenhausen ordered his boat to battle stations around 16:00. An ASDIC operator aboard one of the leading destroyers, HMS Jervis, detected the submarine at 16:18 at an estimated range of 900 –, but the contact was disregarded as it subtended an angle between 40 and 60 degrees wide, far larger than a submarine. U-331 thus passed through the screen and was in a position to fire her torpedoes after the leading ship, Queen Elizabeth, had passed her by and the second ship, Barham, was closing rapidly. Tiesenhausen ordered all four bow torpedo tubes fired at a range of 375 m at 16:25. Possibly due to her closeness to Valiant's bow wave and discharging the torpedoes, the boat's conning tower broached the surface and was fruitlessly engaged by one of the battleship's "pom-pom"s at a range of about 30 yd. The boat dived out of control after she broached, reaching an indicated depth of 265 m, well below her design depth rating of 150 m, before she stabilised without any damage. U-331 was not attacked by the escorting destroyers and reached port on 3 December. Tiesenhausen was not certain of the results of his attack and radioed that he had hit a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship with one torpedo.

There was no time for evasive action, and three of the four torpedoes struck amidships so closely together as to throw up a single massive water column. Barham quickly capsized to port and was lying on her side when a massive magazine explosion occurred about four minutes after she was torpedoed and sank her. The Board of Enquiry into the sinking ascribed the final explosion to a fire in the 4-inch magazines outboard of the main 15-inch magazines, which would have then spread to and detonated the contents of the main magazines. Due to the speed at which she sank, 862 officers and ratings were killed, including two who died of their wounds after being rescued. The destroyer HMS Hotspur (H01) rescued 337 survivors, including Vice-Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell and the pair who later died of their wounds, while the Australian destroyer HMAS Nizam (G38) reportedly rescued 150 men. Captain Geoffrey Cooke went down with his ship. The sinking was captured on film by a cameraman from Pathé News, aboard Valiant.

Aftermath
To conceal the sinking from the Germans and to protect British morale, the Board of Admiralty censored all news of Barham's sinking. After a delay of several weeks the War Office notified the next of kin, but they added a special request for secrecy: the notification letters included a warning not to discuss the loss of the ship with anyone but close relatives, stating it was "most essential that information of the event which led to the loss of your husband's life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially..." Following repeated claims by German radio, the Admiralty officially announced the loss on 27 January 1942 and explained that

"it was clear at that time that the enemy did not know that she had been sunk, and it was important to make certain dispositions before the loss of this ship was made public."

It was not until the Admiralty admitted that Barham had been sunk and described the circumstances that Tiesenhausen knew that he had sunk her. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross that day. The Barham's crew are commemorated by a memorial bench, located in Nothe Gardens, Weymouth.

Helen Duncan, considered the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735, came to the attention of the authorities after claiming to have contacted the spirit of a sailor of Barham, at the time when the ship's sinking was being hidden from the general public.

title: HMS Barham (04)