Old Photograph Sailor HMS Warspite Dunfermline Scotland

Old photograph of a Royal Navy sailor from HMS Warspite in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. HMS Warspite was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, the sixth warship of the Royal Navy to carry the name. Her thirty-year career covered both world wars and took her across the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Pacific Oceans. She was involved in several major engagements, including battles in the North Sea and Mediterranean, earning her the most battle honours ever awarded to an individual ship in the Royal Navy and the most awarded for actions during the Second World War. For this and other reasons Warspite gained the nickname the Grand Old Lady after a comment made by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham in 1943 while she was his flagship. On 19 April 1947, Warspite departed Portsmouth for scrapping at Faslane, on the River Clyde near Glasgow. On the way, she encountered a severe storm and the hawser of the tug Bustler parted, whilst the other tug Melinda III slipped her tow. In storm force conditions Warspite dropped one of her anchors in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England, which did not hold, and the storm drove her onto Mount Mopus Ledge near Cudden Point. Later refloating herself she went hard aground a few yards away in Prussia Cove. Her skeleton crew of seven was saved by the Penlee Lifeboat. There were several attempts to refloat her but the hull was badly damaged. In 1950 an attempt to refloat her, buoyed by 24 compressors pumping air into her tanks, and watched by a large crowd, the press and the BBC, failed. There was insufficient depth of water to float her clear of the reef in a rising south westerly gale. The salvage boat Barnet, standing guard overnight under the Warspite’s bows was holed in the engine room, towed off and eventually drifted ashore at Long Rock, a few miles to the west. However, by August the battleship was finally beached off St Michael’s Mount and after further salvage another attempt was made to refloat her in November. The Falmouth tug Masterman spent the night on the Hogus Rocks after failing to tow Warspite; and her sister tug Tradesman had 60 feet of wire wrapped around her propeller when trying to haul Masterman off the rocks. Aided by her compressor and two jet engines from an experimental aircraft the hulk was finally moved 130 feet closer to shore and by the summer of 1955 she disappeared from view. A memorial stone was placed near the sea wall at Marazion and later moved a short distance. The stone was unveiled by Admiral Sir Charles Madden and prayers were read by a former crew member. The remains of the masts lie in the yard at Porthenalls House, Prussia Cove and one portion was erected on a headland, overlooking Prussia Cove. One of her 15 inch tompions is on display in the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, England.



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