Photo supplied by Paul Strathdee is an evocative view of HMS VANGUARD passing Erskine on her way down the Clyde for sea trials.

Launch Anniversary of the Day 
HMS VANGUARD
30th November 1944

Recently Britain witnessed the launch the third of a series of destroyers which are the biggest surface combatants in decades, but HMS DIAMOND is a tiddler compared to the last British battleship to be built in Britain.

On 30th November 1944 HMS VANGUARD, which displaced a mind-boggling 42,500 tons, slide majestically into the Clyde from the John Brown shipyard.

When she left the yard on completion, crowds lined the banks to stare awestruck at the sheer size and brutal majesty of this leviathan.

Her cost was £9 million, at today's prices the equivalent would be roughly £250 million.

The 814 foot long warship was driven by Parsons turbines and could achieve speeds in excess of 29 knots.

Her design had been conceived as long ago as 1939 but it was decided to concentrate building on smaller vessels that would be quicker to build. VANGUARD was laid down on the 2nd of October 1941 and only completed after war had ended, being commissioned on 9th August 1946. The last battleship and the only one that never fired a shot in anger!

Used mainly as a flagship and training ship, her moment of glory came in 1947 when the Royal Family went on a tour to South Africa, and was the first time our present Queen, as young Princess Elizabeth, had visited outside of Britain.

After only thirteen years of pottering around, she was decommissioned in 1959. She put up her one and only bit of a fight when she was being towed from Portsmouth the following year, grounding herself in the harbour, but the tugs soon pulled her free and she made her way to the area of her birth and arrived at Faslane, on the 9th August, where she was broken up.

A pity, she was an incredible looking machine and indeed there were efforts made to save her as a museum, but to no avail.

For all that the modern fighting ships being built on the Clyde today could outflank her and destroy her from many miles away before she could fire a shell, they will never achieve the fearful majesty of battleships like VANGUARD, another example of the end of an era.