THE young Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, happened to be in a in a London gallery when she came across a coloured engraving print of HMS Vanguard, a Royal Navy galleon that had been commissioned in 1586 and had fought the Spanish Armada two years later.
In May 1946 she came north to the John Brown’s yard at Clydebank bearing the engraving, which she presented to the newest HMS Vanguard - “the world’s greatest battleship”, in the words of the Glasgow Herald - during its blessing ceremony. The princess had become its godmother at the launch of the £9 million ship on St Andrew’s Day, 1944. The engraving was presented to Captain W.G. Agnew, much to the delight of the officers and ship’s company.
In August 1960, however, HMS Vanguard completed its final journey, sailing past the Cloch Lighthouse in the Firth of Clyde en route to the shipbreakers’ yard at Faslane. Since 1956 she had been in reserve, and been used as a training establishment and floating transit camp. She had gained “doubtful fame”, this paper reported, “as the [battleship] which never fought a battle not fired a shot ‘in anger’.” Vanguard remained docile to the end, returning home as 40,000 tons of scrap, at slightly more than £12 a ton. Within 15 minutes of her arrival, workmen were taking acetylene burners to her 15-inch forward guns.
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