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When I started my apprenticeship in Colvilles Steelworks near Glasgow in 1960, Vanguard was being brought in from the breakers as scrap. We were melting the scrap down in the furnaces to make new steel. We apprentices used to go to the scrap bay to look for souvineers. There were still typewritten orders of the day fixed to bulkheads that could be read.
In the works ofice there was a photo of the steelworks managing director standing on the foredeck under the guns, with the caption 'We'll soon have this little lot in the melting pot" I thought then that it wasn't quite right and I still don't today.
In the works ofice there was a photo of the steelworks managing director standing on the foredeck under the guns, with the caption 'We'll soon have this little lot in the melting pot" I thought then that it wasn't quite right and I still don't today.
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Norm, just picked this link up, Vanguard was more or less in use till she was towed away which is why you found all the paperwork insitu rather than her being sat up the creek in Reserve rusting away, she was a rather expensive and well kept set of floating offices in her later years at Pompey I was in one of them. She was however a fine looking ship but from what I was told by old hands they found that firing her mains was a hazardous exercise and she was really just for show as our "mighty" Battleship. As far as I am aware specially converted Liberator Bombers were going to take Churchill and the Royal Family over to the States if we were overun by the Hun (as the Queen Mother called them!)
JUST COME ACROSS THIS LINK MYSELF AND ACCORDING TO MY LATE FATHERS STORY WHICH I HEARD HIM REPEAT MANY TIMES SINCE THE WAR HMS RENOWN WAS THE MEANS OF A QUICK EVACUATION FOR ALL DESIGNATED VIP,S AT THE TIME OF INVASION FEAR HE SAID SHE WAS KEPT IN UK WATERS FOR SUCH AN EVENTUALITY THE YARN OF LIBERATORS AND THE VANGUARD IS WAY OUT OF TOUCH EX CREW MEMBERS RENOWN COULD VERIFY THIS KYPROS
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