World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseHMS Rodney entered British Royal Navy service in 1927. Like her sister ship HMS Nelson, all of her primary guns were unusually placed forward of the superstructure. Although her armor protection was less than originally designed (due to the Washington Naval Treaty limitations), she was considered one of the world's most powerful battleships through the 1930s. Her pre-WW2 career saw her with the Atlantic Fleet and with the Home Fleet. During the German invasion of Norway, she operated off the coast in support of the ground operations; on 9 Apr 1940, off Karmøy, she was hit by a German aerial bomb that penetrated the armored deck but failed to explode. After the completion of the Norwegian campaign, she returned to Britain, from where she would guard against any potential German cross English Channel operations and would set sail to escort convoys crossing the Atlantic Ocean to and from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In Jan 1941, she participated in the failed search for German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. On 16 Mar 1941, while escorting a convoy, she made contact with potential German raiders, but no action ensued as the Germans were under orders to avoid confrontation. In May 1941, while escorting the troop ship Britannic to Canada, she received new orders to intercept German battleship Bismarck; action was engaged in the early morning of 27 May, during which HMS Rodney hit Bismarck several times (including one battleship-to-battleship torpedo hit, the only time in history such situation had occurred), contributing decisively to Bismarck's eventual demise. After some time spent in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, then a non-belligerent nation, for repairs, she joined Force H in Gibraltar, from where she would escort convoys to Malta. She returned to Britain in Nov 1941, and shortly afterwards served briefly from Iceland. In Nov 1942, she supported the Operation Torch landings in North Africa. In 1943, she supported the landings at Sicily and Salerno in Italy. She returned to the Home Fleet in Oct 1943. Her final major responsibility took place during the Allied Cross-Channel invasion, during which she bombarded German defensive positions and routes of transportation along the Normandie coast in France. In Sep 1944, she covered convoys going to and returning from Murmansk, Russia. Having covered 156,000 nautical miles between 1942 and 1945 without going through scheduled maintenance due to war demands, she was deemed to be in poor mechanical shape at the war's end. She was scrapped in 1948.

Battleship Rodney (29) Interactive Map

Photographs

Rodney Operational Timeline

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25.  C. Peter Chen says:
29 Mar 2020 10:21:32 AM

Thanks James Duff, we have made the correction.