Service
Agincourt was working up until 7 September 1914, when she joined the 4th Battle Squadron (BS) of the Grand Fleet. The fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow was not yet secure against submarine attack and much of the fleet was kept at sea, where Agincourt spent forty of her first eighty days with the Grand Fleet. This was the beginning of "a year and a half of inaction, only broken by occasional North Sea 'sweeps' intended to draw the enemy from his bases."
On 1 January 1915, Agincourt was still assigned to the 4th BS, but had been assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron before the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. She was the last ship of the Sixth Division of the 1st BS, along with HMS Hercules, HMS Revenge and the flagship, HMS Marlborough, the most heterogeneous group possible as each ship was from a different class. The Sixth Division was the starboardmost column of the Grand Fleet as it headed south to rendezvous with the ships of Admiral Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, then engaged with their opposite numbers from the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea. Admiral Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet, kept it in cruising formation until 6:15 p.m. when he ordered it to deploy from column into a single line based on the port division, each ship turning 90° in succession. This turn made the Sixth Division the closest ships in the Grand Fleet to the battleships of the High Seas Fleet and they fired on each ship as they made their turn to port. This concentration of fire later became known as "Windy Corner" to the British as the ships were drenched by German shell splashes although none were hit.
At 6:24 Agincourt opened fire on a German battlecruiser with her main guns. Shortly afterwards her six-inch guns followed suit as German destroyers made torpedo attacks on the British battleships to cover the turn to the south of the High Seas Fleet. Agincourt successfully evaded two torpedoes, although another struck Marlborough. Visibility cleared around 7:15 and she engaged a Kaiser-class battleship without result before it was lost in the smoke and haze. Around 8:00 Marlborough was forced to reduce speed because of the strain on her bulkheads from her torpedo damage and her division mates conformed to her speed. In the reduced visibility the division lost sight of the Grand Fleet during the night, passing the badly damaged battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz without opening fire. Dawn found them with only the detritus from the previous day's battle in sight and the division arrived back at Scapa Flow on 2 June. Agincourt fired 144 twelve-inch shells and 111 six-inch shells during the battle, although she is not known to have hit anything.
Although the Grand Fleet made several sorties over the next few years it is not known if Agincourt participated in them. On 23 April 1918, Agincourt and Hercules were stationed at Scapa Flow to provide cover for the Scandinavian convoys between Norway and Britain when the High Seas Fleet sortied in an attempt to destroy the convoy. The reports from German Intelligence were slightly off schedule, as both the inbound and outbound convoys were in port when the Germans reached their normal route so Admiral Scheer ordered the fleet to return to Germany without spotting any British ships.
Agincourt was later transferred to the 2nd Battle Squadron and was present at the surrender of the High Seas Fleet on 21 November 1918. She was placed in reserve at Rosyth in March 1919. After unsuccessful attempts to sell her to the Brazilian Government, she was listed for disposal in April 1921, but was used for experimental purposes later that year. She was sold for scrap on 19 December 1922 to comply with the tonnage limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty, although she was not actually broken up until the end of 1924.
Read more about this topic: HMS Agincourt (1913)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
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—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
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—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
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—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)