HMS Nelson

Nelson was laid down on 28 December 1922 at Armstrong Whitworth's Low Walker shipyard in North Tyneside, Newcastle upon Tyne, launched on 3 September 1925, and commissioned on 15 August 1927 at a cost of £7,504,055. She and her sister Rodney were the first battleships built to meet the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 — essentially a smaller, 23-knot battleship version of the G3 battlecruiser, cancelled for exceeding the treaty's constraints.

The design answer was to match the firepower of the American Colorado and Japanese Nagato classes within 35,000 long tons: nine breech-loading 16-inch guns in three turrets, all mounted forward of the superstructure, with 'B' turret superfiring over the others. A dozen 6-inch guns in twin turrets sat aft, three on each broadside, alongside six 4.7-inch anti-aircraft guns and two submerged 24.5-inch torpedo tubes angled off the centreline.

She measured 709 feet 10 inches overall on a beam of 106 feet, displacing 33,300 long tons at standard load. Two sets of Brown-Curtis geared steam turbines, fed by eight Admiralty 3-drum boilers, were rated at 45,000 shaft horsepower; on trials on 26 May 1927 she made 23.6 knots. Her unusual profile earned nicknames — Nelsol, The Queen's Mansions, and the Cherry Tree class, as the ships had been cut down by the Washington Treaty.

Nelson's waterline belt was Krupp cemented armour, 14 inches thick between the main gun barbettes and thinning to 13 inches over the machinery spaces, its upper edge inclined 18 degrees outward to improve its ability to deflect plunging fire. The main turret faces carried 16 inches of armour, the barbettes 12 to 15 inches, and the armoured deck over the main magazines ran to 6.25 inches.

Below the waterline she carried a double bottom five feet deep and a torpedo protection system of an empty outer compartment and a water-filled inner one, twelve feet deep in total, backed by a 1.5-inch torpedo bulkhead. Wartime refits layered on radar — Type 279 early-warning in 1940, then gunnery and surface-search sets — and her anti-aircraft battery grew until a 1944 refit in the United States left her with 61 Oerlikon guns and quadruple Bofors mounts.

From 21 October 1927 Nelson served as flagship of the Atlantic Fleet — renamed the Home Fleet in March 1932 — and remained so, aside from refits and repairs, until 1 April 1941. Prince George, fourth son of King George V, served aboard as a lieutenant on the Admiral's staff, and in April 1928 the ship hosted King Amanullah of Afghanistan during exercises off Portland. She took her place at George V's Silver Jubilee Fleet Review at Spithead in 1935 and George VI's Coronation Fleet Review in 1937.

Her peacetime record had rougher passages. In September 1931 her crew took part in the Invergordon Mutiny, refusing orders to sail for an exercise until the Admiralty softened the pay cuts that had prompted it. On 12 January 1934 she ran aground on Hamilton's Shoal off Southsea; she floated off undamaged at the next high tide, and the investigation faulted no officer, blaming her poor handling at low speed.

Nelson's war opened with fruitless patrols for German blockade runners between Iceland, Norway and Scotland. On 30 October 1939 the submarine U-56 hit her with two torpedoes near the Orkneys — neither exploded. After Scharnhorst and Gneisenau sank the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi in November, she joined the futile pursuit. Then, on 4 December 1939, she detonated a magnetic mine laid by U-31 at the entrance to Loch Ewe; the blast tore a hole ten feet by six forward of 'A' turret, wounded 74 men, and kept her under repair at Portsmouth until August 1940.

In May 1941 she was ordered north from Freetown to join the hunt for Bismarck, which was sunk before she could reach her. From July she escorted convoys to Malta with Force H under Vice-Admiral James Somerville, who flew his flag in her from 8 August. During Operation Halberd in September 1941 an Italian SM.84 torpedo bomber put a torpedo into her bow at 450 yards, blowing a 30-by-15-foot hole; down eight feet at the bow and limited to 12 knots, she stayed with the fleet so the Italians would not know she had been hurt.

Repaired by May 1942, she became flagship of Vice-Admiral Edward Syfret for Operation Pedestal, the major August effort to resupply Malta. The convoy fought through repeated Axis air and submarine attacks — the carrier Eagle was sunk on the first day — but Nelson came through undamaged. That autumn she covered Operation Torch, the invasion of French Algeria, screening the landings against any interference by the Regia Marina.

In July 1943 Nelson patrolled the Ionian Sea with Force H to cover the invasion of Sicily, and on 31 August she and Rodney bombarded coastal artillery between Reggio Calabria and Pessaro ahead of Operation Baytown. At Salerno in September she fired her 16-inch guns in barrage mode against German torpedo bombers. On 29 September 1943 the Italian surrender was signed aboard her, between General Dwight Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio.

She gave naval gunfire support at Normandy in June 1944 until she struck two mines on the 18th, and was repaired at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Sent to the Eastern Fleet in 1945, she became its flagship at Colombo and took part in Operation Livery off Malaya. On 2 September 1945 the Japanese forces there formally surrendered aboard her at George Town, Penang — the second capitulation signed on her decks.

Ten days after the Penang ceremony she was present at Singapore when Japanese forces across South-east Asia surrendered. She reached Portsmouth on 17 November 1945 and became flagship of the Home Fleet, until King George V replaced her in April 1946 and she was made a training ship, flagship of the rear-admiral commanding the training battleships until Anson relieved her that October. She went into reserve at Rosyth on 20 October 1947, and from June to September 1948 served as a target for 2,000-pound armour-piercing aerial bombs testing their ability to penetrate her armoured deck. She arrived at Inverkeithing on 15 March 1949 for scrapping by Thos. W. Ward.