WARSPITE had a most distinguished career in both world wars and was the most decorated ever Royal Navy ship. This valiant record continued into the latter stages of her operational life. On 6 June 1944, she was the first ship to open fire on D-Day, but then just a week later she was badly damaged by a mine of Harwich. Patched up further at Rosyth dockyard to continue bombardment duties she was already in a poor state from earlier war damage. Just one example was a German glider bomb off Salerno in September 1943, this had torn a hole in her bottom. This had been patched up with concrete in Gibraltar in December 1943.
It was no surprise then that like many of the older battleships, WARSPITE was placed in reserve before hostilities ceased during World War 2. she was then worn out from her war service - for example, one of her four 15-inch turrets was out of action, and one other could only fire intermittently. For this reason, in 1946, she was the first of the Royal Navy's fleet of operational battleships to be put up for disposal - this first of ten over the next two years as the old battle fleet was reduced in size.