Warspite!

The peoples are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the launching of HMS Warspite. A quick review of Warspite’s World War II fighting record confirms that the most common understanding of the role that battleships played in World War II is wrong, or at least incomplete. While Americans tend to concentrate on the rarity of surface battleship engagements in the Pacific, most Royal Navy battleship took part in surface combat of some type during the war, with Warspite fighting in several battles. I quite enjoy Iain Ballantyne’s account of Warspite’s career.