HMS RAMILLIES (07) 1944

Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Ramillies after the Battle of Ramillies (23 May 1706):

Date picture taken
1944 (year is approximate)

Comments

HMS Ramillies (07) was a Revenge-class super-dreadnought battleship completed in 1917. Though she missed WWI combat, she had a highly active WWII career. 

World War II Major Battles & Campaigns
  • Convoy Defense: Throughout 1940 and 1941, she successfully shielded vital troop and supply convoys in the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. 
  • Battle of Cape Spartivento (November 1940): While escorting a Malta-bound convoy in the Mediterranean, Ramillies engaged elements of the Italian Navy, trading fire before the battle broke off. 
  • Battle of Dakar (September 1940): She participated in Operation Menace, engaging Vichy French shore batteries and the battleship Richelieu
  • Operation Ironclad & Diego Suarez (May-June 1942): While securing Madagascar, she was severely damaged by a torpedo fired from a Japanese midget submarine. She survived and was repaired in South Africa. 
  • D-Day (June 1944): Despite her obsolescence, she was selected to support Operation Overlord. Anchored off Sword Beach, she silenced German shore batteries and obliterated railway networks, firing 1,002 15-inch shells. 
  • Operation Dragoon (August 1944): She relocated to the Mediterranean to shell German defensive batteries during the Allied landings in southern France.