Following the First World War the major naval powers entered into an agreement restricting the construction of capital ships and limiting the numbers that signatories were allowed to maintain, so numerous ships were scrapped or disposed of and the majority of planned vessel were either canceled whilst being built or never laid down. By the late 1920s the Royal Navy’s battle force comprised of the two Nelson-class ships, the battlecruisers ‘Hood’, ‘Renown’ and ‘Repulse’, and ‘Revenge’ and Queen Elizabeth-class ships, all designed before the First World War. In 1928 the Royal Navy began planning a new class of battleships which was put on hold with the signing of the Treaty of London. In 1935, realizing its battle fleet was becoming dated as other nations laid down new classes of battleships, the Royal Navy recommenced planning capital ships within treaty limitations. The result was the King George V-class battleships. Regarded by some as the worst new-generation battleships in the Second World War the King George V-class were Britain’s most modern battleships during the conflict and saw action in some of the most famous engagements from the sinking of the ‘Bismarck’ in 1941 to the surrender of Japan in 1945. This book charts the story of the King George V-class from its conception and design through to the operational history of the ships in the class.
Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Treaty Battleships; 2 Anatomy of the King George V-Class; 3 HMS ‘King George V’: Construction and Work Up; 4 HMS ‘Prince of Wales’: Construction and Work Up; 5 The ‘Bismarck’; 6 The Atlantic Charter; 7 Mediterranean Interlude; 8 The Singapore Strategy; 9 The Loss of HMS ‘Prince of Wales’; 10 ‘We Are All in the Same Boat Now’; 11 The Arctic Convoys; 12 ‘The Severest Test of Any’; 13 Operation Husky; 14 North Cape; 15 Tungsten; 16 The Eastern Fleet; 17 Goodwood; 18 The British Pacific Fleet; 19 Operation Iceberg; 20 Victory Over Japan; 21 After the War; 22 The Wreck of HMS ‘Prince of Wales’; Epilogue; Appendix I: Commanding Officers; Appendix II: King George V-Class and North Carolina-Class: A Comparison; Appendix III: HMS ‘Prince of Wales’ Battle of the Denmark Strait Roll of Honour; Appendix IV: The Atlantic Charter; Appendix V: Admiral Pound’s Minute; Appendix VI: HMS ‘Prince of Wales’ Roll of Honour, 10 December 1941; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index.
