HMS Valiant (1914)
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| Missing image HMS_Valiant_(1914).jpg HMS Valiant | |
| Career | 
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|---|---|
| Ordered: | 1912 |
| Laid down: | January 31, 1913 |
| Launched: | November 4, 1914 |
| Commissioned: | February 19, 1916 |
| Decommissioned: | |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, scrapped in 1950 |
| Struck: | March 19, 1948 |
| General Characteristics (original configuration) | |
| Displacement: | 27,500 tons |
| Length: | 645 ft 9 in (197 m) |
| Beam: | 90 ft 6 in (27.6 m) |
| Draught: | 28 ft 9 in (8.8 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam turbines, 24 boilers, 4 shafts, 56,500 hp (42 MW) |
| Speed: | 24 knots (44 km/h) |
| Range: | 4,400 miles |
| Complement: | 950–1,220 |
| Armament: | 8 x 15 inch (381 mm) guns, 14 x 6 inch (152 mm) guns, 2 x 3 inch (76 mm) guns, 4 x 47 mm guns, 4 x 21 inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, After modernisation 10 x Twin 4.5" AA guns, 4 x Octuple 2-pdr pom-pom, 26 x Twin 20mm Oerlikon |
HMS Valiant was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship of the Royal Navy built at the Fairfield shipyards, Govan in Glasgow and launched in November 1914. She was completed in February 1916.
In World War I she served in Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. She took part in the battle of Jutland, 31st May 1916, where she escaped damage. However in August that same year she collided with HMS Warspite and was in repairs until September. Between the wars she was modernised twice to improve her combat capabilities. In 1931 her crew took part in the Invergordon Mutiny.
She was one of three capital ships to take part in the Destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, and saw action at the Battle of Cape Matapan; she participated in actions during the battle of Crete, and was struck by two bombs. Along with her sister ship Queen Elizabeth, Valiant was mined and sunk by Italian frogmen in Alexandria harbour in December 1941. She had in fact only sunk a few feet to the bottom of the harbour and her decks remained clear. Although immobilised she was able to give the impression of full battlereadiness. She was raised, repaired in South Africa, and then returned to the Mediterranean to support the landings in Sicily (Operation Husky) and at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) in 1943.
She was sent to the Far East in 1944, taking part in raids against Japanese bases in Indonesia. While in maintenance at Trincomalee, Ceylon, she was so severely damaged when a floating dock collapsed that repairs were stopped and she had to return to the UK, and only completed repairs in 1946. Thereafter she was a training ship at Devonport for the rest of her career. She was sold for scrapping in 1948.
See HMS Valiant for other ships of this name.
External links
- Page on the ship at battleships-cruisers.co.uk (http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/valiant.htm)
| Queen Elizabeth-class battleship |
| Queen Elizabeth | Warspite | Valiant | Barham | Malaya |
| List of battleships of the Royal Navy |