Smith - The Great Ships : British Battleships in World War II

THE GREAT SHIPS

The Stackpole Military History Series

---

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Cavalry Raids of the Civil War

Ghost, Thunderbolt, and Wizard

Picketts Charge

Witness to Gettysburg

WORLD WAR II

Armor Battles of the Waffen-SS, 194345

Army of the West

Australian Commandos

The B-24 in China

Backwater War

The Battle of Sicily

Beyond the Beachhead

The Brandenburger Commandos

The Brigade

Bringing the Thunder

Coast Watching in World War II

Colossal Cracks

A Dangerous Assignment

D-Day to Berlin

Dive Bomber!

A Drop Too Many

Eagles of the Third Reich

Eastern Front Combat

Exit Rommel

Fist from the Sky

Flying American Combat Aircraft of World War II

Forging the Thunderbolt

Fortress France

The German Defeat in the East, 194445

German Order of Battle, Vol. 1

German Order of Battle, Vol. 2

German Order of Battle, Vol. 3

The Germans in Normandy

Germanys Panzer Arm in World War II

GI Ingenuity

The Great Ships

Grenadiers

Infantry Aces

Iron Arm

Iron Knights

Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge

Kursk

Luftwaffe Aces

Massacre at Tobruk

Mechanized Juggernaut or Military Anachronism?

Messerschmitts over Sicily

Michael Wittmann, Vol. 1

Michael Wittmann, Vol. 2

Mountain Warriors

The Nazi Rocketeers

On the Canal

Operation Mercury

Packs On!

Panzer Aces

Panzer Aces II

Panzer Commanders of the Western Front

The Panzer Legions

Panzers in Winter

The Path to Blitzkrieg

Retreat to the Reich

Rommels Desert Commanders

Rommels Desert War

The Savage Sky

A Soldier in the Cockpit

Soviet Blitzkrieg

Stalins Keys to Victory

Surviving Bataan and Beyond

T-34 in Action

Tigers in the Mud

The 12th SS, Vol. 1

The 12th SS, Vol. 2

The War against Rommels Supply Lines

War in the Aegean

THE COLD WAR / VIETNAM

Cyclops in the Jungle

Flying American Combat Aircraft: The Cold War

Here There Are Tigers

Land with No Sun

Street without Joy

Through the Valley

WARS OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Never-Ending Conflict

GENERAL MILITARY HISTORY

Carriers in Combat

Desert Battles

Guerrilla Warfare

THE GREAT SHIPS

British Battleships in World War II

Peter C. Smith

STACKPOLE
BOOKS

Dedicated to two very special and wonderful people, Pat and Jack

---

Copyright 1977, 1997, 2008 by Peter C. Smith

Published in paperback in 2008 by

STACKPOLE BOOKS
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055
www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

For information on all of Peter C. Smiths books, please visit www.divebombers.co.uk

Cover design by Tracy Patterson

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Peter Charles, 1940

[Great ships pass]The great ships: British battleships in World War II / Peter C. Smith.p. cm. (Stackpole military history series)Originally published: The great ships pass: British battleships at war 19391945 / Peter C. Smith. 1977.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-8117-3514-81. World War, 19391945Naval operations, British. 2. BattleshipsGreat BritainHistory20th century. 3. Great Britain. Royal NavyHistoryWorld War,19391945. I. Title.D771.S63 2008940.54'5941dc22

2008003817

eISBN: 9780811749350

Contents

---

vi

viii

Introduction

---

I n 1960, an almost-unnoticed event took place that to a few people seemed to symbolize the ultimate acknowledgment that Great Britain had long ceased to be a major naval power. That event was the consigning to the scrap yard of the HMS Vanguard , the last of the mighty battleships to fly the White Ensign.

Although by this date she represented merely an obsolete hulk of an era and age long passedwith her ironic name ( Rearguard would have been more apt) and her forlorn isolation for many years sealed up in reserve in Portsmouth Harbor in full view of her most illustrious forebear, the HMS Victory the physical act of severing the last link with Britains former maritime greatness was a sad occasion.

The last British battleship went to the breakers about 100 years after the arrival of the first ironclad battleship, the HMS Warrior , had effected a revolution in warship design, but the lineage of the Vanguard and her kind went back much fartherback four centuries, in fact, before the armada of 1588.

In those four centuries, Britain rose to become the greatest power in the world, the richest nation on earth, and the most widespread and benevolent empire ever known. This unique position was achieved by command of the sea, and that command, for almost all of that long period, ultimately rested on Britains great ships, its ships of the line, its battleships.

No weapon of war did more for Great Britain over such a length of time and so economically. Behind those forbidding but majestic bulwarks, Britain remained immune from the envy and hatred of the other lesser powers who sought to conquer and despoil it and subject its free peoples.

No tyranny succeeded in passing those defenses, though many tried. Spanish king, French emperor, Prussian emperor, German and Italian dictatorsall failed. But in the end, decay came from inside, and the decline and passing of the battleship ultimately matched exactly in its timing and speed the passing of the British nation as a major power and factor in world events. This was undoubtedly a coincidence, but it was somehow apt. Over the centuries, neglect and shortsightedness had often threatened both. Finally, the will to maintain them was eroded, and battleship and national greatness passed into history.

The last brief years of the battleship saw them reach their zenith in size and power, but these same years were marked with acrimony and derision about the battleships usefulness and purpose, and its ultimate passing went unmourned in Britain at large. All that remains of the battleship era are two 15-inch guns mounted incongruously on the lawn of a London museum. It is not enough.

A great many books have been written about the technical development of the battleship. The most worthwhile one is Dr. Oscar Parkess magnificent volume, a worthy monument indeed. When one turns for a brief description of what these great ships achieved during the last two decades of their long development, the situation is less satisfactory. Whereas there are several books that purport to tell the full story of their achievements in the last years, few do so in any detail. Most books of this nature dismiss the years 1919-45 in a chapter or two at best. Battleships in World War II are generally presented as already obsolete. When they put to sea, they were sunk wholesale by bombers and submarinesor so the story goes. When not sunk, they achieved nothing at all constructive to the war effort. These are the usual generalizations.

Next page