The Ship Model Forum

I recently bought the Imperial War Museum's 'Royal Navy at War' DVD Box set and was pleasantly surprised to find a special feature on H.M.S. Royal Sovereign at the end of the 'Know Your Own Navy' DVD. Sorry I can't post a link as I think it is currently out of production and i cannot find a permanent link to it. I got mine on Ebay.

Anyway the special feature is a five minute colour film sequence showing scenes featuring the crew on board H.M.S. Royal Sovereign, I estimate sometime in 1940-42. It was not listed in the description of the DVD so came as a pleasant surprise. There are multiple short sequences, as no doubt colour film was outrageously expensive in the early 1940s. No overall views of the ship as it was filmed from on board her but you can clearly see the vivid contrast in the colours of her camouflage scheme. It almost looks black and white in some scenes despite it being colour film, bearing in mind all the usual caveats when trying to judge warship colours from old film.

You can see the Quadruple PomPom on top of one of her turrets in one scene. I am not sure exactly when these were fitted to Royal Sovereign? They were not there in 1940 but were there by October 1941 as seen in photos on the Imperial War Museum Website. So that puts that particular sequence sometime between 1940 and October 1942 when she went to Philadelphia for overhaul. Again there are multiple short sequences and no dates are given so they could have been filmed over a number of months or years?

All told a valuable reference and well worth a look for anyone interested in the 'R' Class.

A couple of screenshots from this DVD, again well worth buying if you can find one.



View from astern facing forward. Of interest in the foreground is the circular catapult base. Unique to Royal Sovereign among the 'R' Class as far as I am aware. Plus the near black and white appearance to the camouflage colours. They appear to be either black and white or else very dark and very light grey? It was an unofficial camouflage scheme so the colours may have been altered at various times too?



View from the bridge facing forward. Gives a good indication of the colour of the deck planking. A shame there is no date so we do not know if she was fresh from overhaul or if the deck had been recently treated or cleaned when the film was taken? Of interest too is that the anchor cables are stowed away entirely with the anchors held in place by the Blake Slips. They must have been expecting heavy seas, there was doubtless no shortage of those while on convoy escort duty.

A nice Alamy stock photo of Royal Sovereign, probably in late 1941 or 1942 as she has the Quadruple PomPom Mountings on top of 'B' and 'X' turrets. I found it when looking for something else as it is captioned 'Royal Navy in World War 2' and not identified as Royal Sovereign.

Re-posted preview for ease of viewing, copyright rests with original owner:



Original here:

https://www.alamy.com/royal-navy-world-war-two-image67853340.html