The Warspite was a journeyman, a work-horse of the Royal Navy and far and away the most battle proven ship in British service.
She was a Queen Elizabeth Class "super-Dreadnaught" and had been in service since 1915. She had two accident during her early service where she twice damaged herself by running aground in the River Forth and colliding with her sister ship Barham.
From May 31st to June 1st 1916 she was heavilly engaged in the biggest naval battle of the First World War at Jutland. There she was hit 15 times and almost sank, when her steering jammed while attempting to avoid another of her sister ships Valiant her captain maintained the forward momentum and she went in circles, becoming a tempting target for the German fleet, drawing their fire from the Warrior - which was badly damaged at the time - who's crew believe the action intential and admired the Warspite for it. With control of her steering restored after two full circles she found herself sailing towards the German fleet she found herself handicapped again as her rangefinders and transmission station weren't functioning and she could only fire with "A" turret under local control and all 12 shots fired falling short of their target. She suffered 14 killed and 16 wounded in the battle but although badly damaged she returned to home waters under her own power. A German U-Boat attempted to sink her with three torpedos, all missed and she attempted to ram the U-Boat before returning to Rosyth for repairs.
After her repairs were completed misfortune once more crossed her path when she collided with the Valiant - which led to her needed more repairs - and then in 1917 the collided with the HMS Destroyer. In here moorings at Scapa Flow she was rocked when HMS Vanguard exploded when an ammunition magazine detonated. In 1918 one of her boilers caught fire, necessitating further repairs.
During the between-war years she was part of the flotilla during the Royal review at Spithead, she was the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet, she had a tour of duty in the Atlantic and became a subject of newspaper reports about dissillutioned crews. She also underwent a £2 million refit in Portsmouth which improved her armor, lightened her, improved her propulsion system and feul consumption, and improved the range of her armament while also allowing her to fire larger shells, an aircraft hanger was fitted and her fire control system was modernized. With this accomplished she once more became the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet.
With the outbreak of the Second World War the Warspite was transfered back to the home fleet. There she supported the fleet in hunting German capital ships without any ship making contact. This changed at the battle of Narvik.
To support the action on the ground in the Norweagan Campaign the Warspite and sailed to Narvik with 9 destroyers. After the British had failed to defeat the Germans at Narvik in the first naval battle the Warspite and her support was ordered in to do the job. The Warspite struck the first blow when an aircraft lanuched from her hanger sunk a German U-Baot - the only occaison of the was that an aricraft launched from a battleship sunk a U-Boat - and in the battle to follow three Germans destroyers were sunk and five more scuttled, German shore batteries were badly damaged by the Warspite's guns while the worse the British suffered was damage to three destroyers. Warspite herself, during the battle, destroyed the Erich Koellner and badly damaged the Diether von Roeder - which was had to be scuttled by the Germans soon after - and the Erich Giese - which was then sunk by the other British destroyers present.
After Narvik the Warspite was utilized in the Norweagan Campaign to conduct bombardments of targets on the shoreline but once the Allies had failed, overall, with the campaign she was sent back to the Mediterranean once more. There she fought in several engagements and was credited with one of the longest range gunnery hits of a moving target in naval history at the battle of Calabria - a hit achieved at a range of 26,000 yards.
As ABC Cunningham's flagship in the Mediterranean she sallied forth against the Italian fleet at Cape Matapan and, in conjunction with the Valiant and Barham, destoryed the heavy crusiers Fiume and Zara in a devastating night bombardment. She then attacked Tripolli before being damaged by a German Air attack in the Battle of Crete.
She was repaired in Bremerton, US, and had her 15'' guns replaced before sailing off to the Indian Ocean. There she hunted Japanese naval groups which attempted to attack Allied shipping in the Indian Ocean without success and generally had an uneventful spell in the theatre.
She returned to the Medterranean again and took part in the invasion of Sicily, provided support for the landings at Salerno and lead the Italian Fleet to internment after Italy's surrender. She then returned to support the Allies at Salerno where her accurate fire cause havoc amungst the Germans before she was damaged by another German air attack and had to go to Malta for repairs, and eventually returning to Rosyth to complete the repairs.
Returning to service she supported the Allies Invasion of Normandy at Sword, Gold and Omaha beach and went on to support the actions at Brest, Le Harve and Walcharen with bombardments from sea.
She was the most decorated ship in British Naval History. She had battle honors for Jutland, the Atlantic, Narvik, Norway, Calabria, the Mediterranean, the Matla Convoys, Cape Matapan, Crete, Sicily, Salerno, the English Channel, Nomandy, Walcharen and Biscay. "The Grand Old Lady", as Admiral Cunningham called her, should have had a perminant home alongside the Victory and Warrior, a unique piece of British Naval History preserved for all future generations, but it was not to be.
After the Second World War she was decomissioned and sold for scrap despite called for her to be retained as a museaum ship alongside HMS Victory and the Warrior. Famously she refused to go to her doom quietly and broke off from her tugs to run aground then refused to refloat, yet the last act of defiance was in vain for it did nothing to stop her from being scrapped, it merely delayed the inevitable.
A great ship, an icon of the Royal Navy and a legend.