Prince of Wales as an unlucky Royal Navy name

Will the modern HMS Prince of Wales overcome the name's reputation for bad luck?

Perhaps, but earlier Royal Navy ships named Prince of Wales provide an unusually mixed record from the age of sail through 1941.

The name's service record runs from eighteenth-century warships to a pre-dreadnought and the King George V-class battleship. The sequence includes missed opportunities, short careers, and the 1941 ship's gun failures at Denmark Strait before her loss with Force Z. Names do not determine outcomes, though remembered service histories can create traditions of naval luck. The result is a compact genealogy of the name behind the modern carrier HMS Prince of Wales.