What Everyone Thinks They Know About HMS Vanguard

Every battleship nut knows that when HMS Vanguard was built in WWII, her 8 main guns, their mounts, and their turrets came from HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, removed when these two 'large light cruisers' were converted into aircraft carriers. Right?

Wrong.

The turrets and mountings removed from Glorious and Courageous were indeed stored, and eventually, after much modification, were installed on HMS Vanguard. But the guns went into the service pool of 15/42 guns, with guns from this pool being used to replace guns damaged or worn out on active duty ships. After being refurbished and re-lined to be as good as new, the old guns went back into the pool of spares. The ones removed from Glorious and Courageous were eventually installed two each on the monitor Roberts, the battleships Warspite and Malaya, and the battlecruiser Renown as replacement weapons.

So where did Vanguard's guns come from?

Well, one gun from Glorious that was installed on Warspite was eventually removed, and after re-lining ended up on Vanguard. Two more of Vanguard's guns were ones removed from the battleship Queen Elizabeth, two were removed from the battleship Ramillies, one from the battleship Royal Sovereign, one from the battleship Resolution, and the last one came from the monitor Erebus.

So HMS Vanguard actually used spare turrets, mounts, and guns from 8 different ships.

So much for what everyone knows.