Carrying the name of the legendary Greek king, the first HMS Agamemnon in the Royal Navy had earned a host of battle honors when in her prime. By 1805, she was an aging 64-gun third-rate that had seen better days and rightfully should have been condemned. Still, given a reprieve from the shipbreakers to serve as part of Nelson’s weather column at Trafalgar, she closed with and helped force the surrender of the first-rate 112-gun Spanish four-decker Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad, complete with the deafened and injured RADM Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros aboard. Her “Trafalgar 1805” battle honor joined a quartet (Ushant 1781, The Saints 1782, Genoa 1795, Copenhagen 1801) she had already picked up.
An 1807 composite painting by Nicholas Pocock showing five of the ships in which Nelson served as a captain and flag officer from the start of the French Wars in 1793 to his death in 1805. The artist has depicted them drying sails in a calm at Spithead, Portsmouth, and despite the traditional title, two of them were not strictly flagships. The ship on the left in bow view is the ‘Agamemnon’, 64 guns. It was Nelson’s favorite ship, which he commanded as a captain from 1793. Broadside on is the ‘Vanguard’, 74 guns, his flagship at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 flying a white ensign and his blue flag as Rear-Admiral of the Blue at the mizzen. Stern on is the ‘Elephant’, 74 guns, his temporary flagship at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. She is flying the blue ensign from the stern and Nelson’s flag as Vice-Admiral of the Blue at her foremast. In the center distance is the ‘Captain’, 74 guns, in which Nelson flew a commodore’s broad pendant at the Battle of St Vincent, 1797. Dominating the right foreground is the ‘Victory’, 100 guns, shown in her original state, with open stern galleries, and not as she was at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She is shown at anchor flying the flag of Vice-Admiral of the White, Nelson’s Trafalgar rank, and firing a salute to starboard as an admiral’s barge is rowed alongside, amidst other small craft. (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection)
The second Agamemnon, a 91-gun steam second rate, added a battle honor to the name in the Crimea.
The third, an early 8,500-ton Ajax class battleship armed with 12.5-inch ML rifles and clad in as much as 18 inches of cast iron armor, spent much of her 20-year career primarily in the East Indies and off Zanzibar and Aden, showing the White Ensign.
The fourth, a more modern 17,000-ton Lord Nelson-class battleship, had the rare distinction of shooting down the German Zeppelin in 1916 and earned a battle honor for the Dardanelles before she was disposed of in 1927 in line with the interbellum naval treaties.
9.2″/50 Vickers Mk XI guns of HMS Agamemnon firing on Ottoman Turkish forts at Sedd el Bahr on 4 March 1915. IWM HU 103302
HMS Agamemnon has her BL 12-inch Mk X guns replaced during a refit at Malta in May–June 1915, IWM Q 102609.
The fifth Agamemnon (M10) was an unsung WWII minelayer, and, since 1946, the Royal Navy has not had the name on its list…well, until now.
The sixth and future HMS Agamemnon (S124), coincidentally the sixth Astute-class hunter-killer, has been under construction alongside sister HMS Anson at BAE Systems’ yard in Barrow-in-Furness, since 2010 and was christened inside the cavernous Devonshire Dock Hall on 22 April.
As noted by the RN:
HMS Agamemnon will act as both sword and protector – able to strike at foes on land courtesy of her Tomahawk cruise missile – and fend off threats on and beneath the waves with Spearfish torpedoes.
“Awesome Aggie” is expected to enter the fleet later this year.