page_title: HMS Nelson (28)
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Nelson (28) / Construction and career / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS NELSON at sea in the Firth of Forth, September 1940. HMS NELSON seen from her sister ship HMS RODNEY as they proceeded to sea from the Firth of Forth. A wave is breaking over the bow of NELSON.
context_page_description: HMS Nelson was the name ship of her class of two battleships built for the Royal Navy in the 1920s. They were the first battleships built to meet the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. Entering service in 1927, the ship spent her peacetime career with the Atlantic and Home Fleets, usually as the fleet flagship. During the early stages of Second World War, she searched for German commerce raiders, missed participating in the Norwegian Campaign after she was badly damaged by a mine in late 1939, and escorted convoys in the Atlantic Ocean.
  In mid-1941 Nelson escorted several convoys to Malta before being torpedoed in September. After repairs she resumed doing so before supporting the British invasion of French Algeria during Operation Torch in late 1942. The ship covered the invasions of Sicily and Italy in mid-1943 while bombarding coastal defences during Operation Baytown. During the Normandy landings in June 1944, Nelson provided naval gunfire support before she struck a mine and spent the rest of the year under repair.
context_section_description: When Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939, Nelson and the bulk of the Home Fleet were unsuccessfully patrolling the waters between Iceland, Norway and Scotland for German blockade runners and then did much the same off the Norwegian coast from 6–10 September. On 25–26 September she helped to cover the salvage and rescue operations of the damaged submarine HMS Spearfish. A month later, the ship covered an iron ore convoy from Narvik, Norway. On 30 October Nelson was unsuccessfully attacked by the German submarine U-56 near the Orkney Islands and was hit by two of the three torpedoes fired at a range of 870 yards (800 m), none of which exploded. After the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi off the coast of Iceland on 23 November by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, Nelson and her sister participated in the futile pursuit of them. On 4 December 1939 she detonated a magnetic mine (laid by U-31) at the entrance to Loch Ewe on the Scottish coast and was under repair in HM Dockyard, Portsmouth until August 1940. The mine blew a 10-by-6-foot (3.0 by 1.8 m) hole in the hull forward of 'A' turret which flooded the torpedo compartment and some adjacent compartments. The flooding caused a small list and caused the ship to trim down by the bow. No one was killed, but 74 sailors were wounded.
  After returning to service in August, Nelson, Rodney and the battlecruiser Hood were transferred from Scapa Flow to Rosyth, Scotland, in case of invasion. When the signal from the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay that she was being attacked by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer on 5 November was received by the Admiralty, Nelson and Rodney were deployed to block the gap between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, although Admiral Scheer headed for the South Atlantic afterwards. When the Admiralty learned that Gneiseanu and Scharnhorst were attempting to breakout into the North Atlantic to resume commerce raiding operations, Nelson, Rodney and the battlecruiser Renown were ordered on 25 January 1941 to assume a position south of Iceland where they could intercept them. After spotting a pair of British cruisers on 28 January, the German ships turned away and were not pursued. 
  Nelson became a private ship on 1 April and she was detached to escort Convoy WS.7 from the UK to South Africa, visiting Freetown, Sierra Leone, on the 4th. On the return voyage she and the aircraft carrier Eagle passed the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis at a range of 7,700 yards (7,000 m) during the night of 18 May in the South Atlantic without spotting the German ship. After the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May, the German battleship Bismarck was spotted two days later heading for France and Nelson and Eagle were ordered to join the pursuit from their position north of Freetown. Bismarck was sunk the following day well before Nelson and her consort could reach her. On 1 June the battleship was assigned to escort Convoy SL.75 to the UK. After the German supply ship Gonzenheim was able to evade the armed merchant cruiser Esperance Bay on 4 June, Nelson was detached to intercept the German ship, which was scuttled by her crew when they spotted Nelson approaching later that day. After arriving in the UK, the ship rejoined the Home Fleet.
caption: Nelson in the Firth of Forth, September 1940; the Unrotated Projectile mounts are visible on the roofs of two of her main-gun turrets
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