The second
HMS King George V (pennant number 41) was the lead ship of the
King George V
class of battleships of
1939.
Construction
Following the tradition of naming the first battleship constructed
in the reign of a new monarch after the current
monarch, she was planned to be named
King George
VI (after
George
VI). However the King instructed the
Admiralty to name the ship in honour of his
father,
George V.
King
George V was built by Vickers-Armstrong at Walker's Naval Yard,
Newcastle upon
Tyne
and laid down on 1 January 1937, launched on 21
February 1939, and commissioned on 11 December 1940.
Operational History
King George V (KG5) began convoy escort duties in February
1941. The ship also took part in an unsuccessful search for the
German warships
Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau
during the
Kriegsmarine
Operation Berlin.
The ship
was made the flagship of the Home Fleet
under the command of Admiral Sir John
Tovey after the destruction of HMS
Hood, and was involved in the chase and the sinking of
Hood's opponent, the German battleship
Bismarck
. On 27 May 1941, she fired 339 x 14 inch and
660 x 5.25 inch shells at
Bismarck.
King George's
shell fire helped damage
Bismarck's Superstructure and disable its main armament.
At 10:39 that morning,
Bismarck
sank.
escorting convoy
PQ-15 to
Murmansk
on 1 May
1942,
King George V collided with the
destroyer HMS
Punjabi, resulting in the sinking of the latter ship
with 49 crew, and bow damage to the battleship.
In the
Mediterranean
, King George V covered the Operation Husky landings at Sicily, as well as transporting the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, back to
Britain
from the
Tehran Conference.
From 1944 until the surrender of Japan,
King George V
served with the
British Pacific
Fleet, and was present off Japan during the official surrender
ceremony.
She was recommissioned as flagship of the
Home Fleet in 1946.
Just three years
later, King George V was decommissioned into the Reserve Fleet and subsequently scrapped at
Dalmuir
in 1957.
Refits
During her career,
King George V was refitted on several
occasions, in order to bring her equipment up-to-date. The
following are the dates and details of the refits undertaken.
| Dates |
Location |
Description of Work |
| Early 1941 |
|
Type 271
Radar added |
| December 1941 |
|
Removal of UP mountings;
addition of one 4-barrelled 2 pdr
"pom-pom" mounting, one 8-barrelled 2 pdr Pom-pom, and 18
Oerlikons cannon; UP directors
were replaced with pom-pom directors; the Type 271 radar was
replaced with the Type 273;
5 Type
282 radars were also added |
| May-June 1942 |
Liverpool |
Damage from the collision with HMS
Punjabi repaired; external degaussing coil replaced with an internal coil; 4
Type
285 radars added; FM2 MF D/F added |
| Late 1943 |
|
20 20 mm Oerlikons cannon
added |
| February-July 1944 |
Liverpool |
Removal of one 4-barrelled 2 pdr Pom-pom, 12 20 mm Oerlikons cannon, Type 273 radar and
HF/DF; addition of three 8-barrelled 2 pdr Pom-poms, six
2-barrelled 20 mm and two 4-barrelled 40 mm Bofors guns; the Type 279
radar replaced by the Type 279B, the Type 284
with the Type 274;
addition of the Types 277,
293, 2 ×
282, and 285 radars, and the RH2 VHF/DF; removal of the aircraft
and catapult equipment, replaced
with new superstructure upon which the ship's boats were
relocated. |
| 1945 |
|
Removal of two 20 mm Oerlikons
cannon, 2 40 mm Bofors guns
added |
See also
Notes
References
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