Warspite joined the Second Battle Squadron in 1919, made Mediterranean cruises, and appeared at the 1924 Spithead fleet review before entering a major modernization. The refit trunked her two funnels into one, added torpedo bulges, changed the anti-aircraft armament, and removed half of her torpedo tubes. When she emerged in 1926, she became the Atlantic Fleet commander-in-chief's flagship. James Somerville commanded her during this period, linking the ship's interwar development to one of the Royal Navy's important Second World War admirals. His 1927 grounding of Warspite on an uncharted Aegean rock also shows that a prestige flagship could still suffer ordinary navigational mishaps and return to Portsmouth for repair.
Notable Point · 6:31-8:20
Modernization turns Warspite into an interwar flagship
Warspite's 1924-26 refit and command appointments show how a wartime battleship became the Atlantic Fleet's working flagship.