Not too long to Halloween now, but 31st of October is also memorable as the day the Warspite was laid down. Warspite being the vessel that put the 'battle' in Battleship and enjoyed a long career shooting and ramming into things. Sometimes intentionally.
She was the original Grand Old Lady and archetype for all those old but rugged warships that tend to show up in fiction. Very much a ship that liked to do things her own way and cheated fate one final time by running aground on the way to the breakers and stubbornly fighting off the salvage ships which tried to take her away, somehow sinking one of them.
She ran aground at a place called Prussia Cove, my personal theory is she saw the word 'Prussia' and immediately decided to attack. Lacking guns she made a successful ramming attack. Old habits.
Having visited the place myself there's still some of the old lady there just under the surface and a few mementos saved by the locals. It is however a very beautiful bit of the country to settle as a last resting place.
After hearing the ship had run aground one of her former crew, Lt-Cmdr R A B Mitchell, wrote the following as a final epitaph
"The Subject"
You say you have no subject
And your brushes all have dried;
But come to Marazion
At the ebbing of the tide.
And look you out to seaward,
Where my Lady battle scarred
Hugs the rock that is more welcome,
Than the shameful breakers yard.
Paint her there upon the sunset
In her glory and despair,
With the diadem of victory
Still in flower upon her hair.
Let her whisper as she settles
Of her blooding long ago,
In the mist than mingles Jutland
With the might of Scapa Flow.
Let her tell you, too, of Narvik
With its snowy hills, and then
Of Matapan, Salerno
And the shoals of Walcheren;
And finally of Malta,
When along the purple street
Came in trail the Roman Navy
To surrender at her feet.
Of all these honours conscious,
How could she bear to be
Delivered to the spoiler
Or severed from the sea ?
So hasten then and paint her
In the last flush of her pride
On the rocks of Marazion,
At the ebbing of the tide.