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This forthcoming book by Iain Ballantyne tells Rodney’s story. We go from her inception, as one of two innovative battleships built in the 1920s for a cash-starved Royal Navy, through the Invergordon Mutiny of the early 1930s and her hard-fought Malta convoy, to jousting matches with Vichy French shore batteries and her key role off the D-Day beaches in 1944. Her guns helped to shatter many Nazi army units, the sheer power of her bombardments leaving the few enemy survivors psychological baggage.

As with other titles in the Warships of the Royal Navy series, the story of Rodney is told very much from the perspective of the ordinary sailor. Many of them are speaking about their experiences for the very first time, and, in so doing, bring to light often startling, frequently humorous, but sometimes tragic, perspectives on what it was like to serve in a battleship at war. The book also touches on the many famous fighting admirals who at one time or other commanded Rodney, or were part of her complement: Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, who masterminded the Allied naval campaign that defeated the Axis in the Mediterranean; Admiral Sir John Tovey, who later commanded the Home Fleet in its pursuit of the Bismarck and watched Rodney’s guns destroy the German ship. The Rodney was frequently a flagship in her own right, leading the Home Fleet under the flag of Admiral Charles Forbes during the ill-fated Norwegian campaign of 1940.