Career
Ordered:	1912
Laid down:	January 31, 1913
Launched:	November 4, 1914
Commissioned:	February 19, 1916
Decommissioned:
Fate:	Sold for scrap
Struck:	March 19, 1948
General Characteristics (original configuration)
Displacement:	27,500 tons
Length:	645 ft 9 in (197 m)
Beam:	90 ft 6 in (27.6 m)
Draught:	28 ft 9 in (8.8 m)
Propulsion:	Steam turbines, 24 boilers, 4 shafts, 56,500 hp (42 MW)
Speed:	24 knots (44 km/h)
Range:	4,400 miles
Complement:	950–1,220
Armament:	8 x 15 inch (381 mm) guns, 14 x 6 inch (152 mm) guns, 2 x 3 inch (76 mm) guns, 4 x 47 mm guns, 4 x 21 inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes

HMS Valiant was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship of the Royal Navy built at the Fairfield shipyards in Glasgow and launched in November 1914. She was completed in February 1916.

In World War I she served in Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas's 5th Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. She took part in the battle of Jutland, 1916-05-31, where astonishingly she was not hit. She continued in service during the inter-war years, being modernised twice to improve her combat capabilities. In 1931 her crew took part in the Invergordon Mutiny.

She was one of three capital ships to take part in the Destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, and saw action at the Battle of Cape Matapan; she participated in actions during the battle for Crete, and was struck by two bombs. Along with her sister ship Queen Elizabeth, Valiant was mined and sunk by Italian frogmen in Alexandria harbour in December 1941. She was raised and repaired in South Africa, and then supported the landings in Sicily (Operation Husky) and at Salerno (Operation Avalanche) in 1943.

She was sent to the Far East in 1944, taking part in raids against Japanese bases in Indonesia. While in maintenance at Trincomalee, Ceylon, she was so severely damaged when a floating dock collapsed that repairs were stopped, and she was used as a training hulk at Devonport for the rest of her career; she was sold for scrapping in 1948.

See HMS Valiant for other ships of this name.

External links

• Page on the ship at battleships-cruisers.co.uk (http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/valiant.htm)