laststandonzombieisland

Some 80 years ago this month.

The class-leading fast battleship HMS King George V (41) returns to Portsmouth after the war on 6 March 1946, having steamed a total of 73,722 miles since sailing to join the British Pacific Fleet from Scapa on 28 October 1944, and having burned 61,077 tons of oil fuel in the process.

KGV had earned battle honors during the war for Atlantic (1941), Bismarck Action, Arctic (1942-43), Sicily (1943), Okinawa (1945), and Japan (1945), attending the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay on VJ Day.

In the sinking of the Bismarck, she fired 339 main (14-inch) shells and 700+ secondary (5.25-inch) shells at the German leviathan, and in targeting Japanese industrial areas around Hitachi delivered another 2,000 14-inchers ashore.

Japanese Surrender, Tokyo Bay, USS Missouri, HMS Duke of York, HMS King George V, by Charles David Cobb via National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth

After her arrival back home, she became the flagship of the Home Fleet until 1950 (only missing Korea), when she was placed in Reserve, her class a fleet in being in the rare case they should ever have to fight the few remaining Soviet battleships or deliver NGFS during a large amphibious assault.

King George V class battleships listing, Jane’s 1946

Laid up in the Gareloch, she was never recommissioned and was placed on the Disposal List in 1957.

Sold to BISCO for demolition by Arnott Young, she was towed to Dalmuir on the Clyde to be de-equipped on 20th January 1958. Demolition was completed at Troon, where she arrived during May 1959.