The British battleship HMS Ramillies of 29150 tons displacement which was commissioned in 1917 ...

The British battleship HMS Ramillies of 29150 tons displacement which was commissioned in 1917 and later refitted in the period 1926-1927. She is wearing an unofficial camouflage scheme in which she was painted in the latter half of 1940 while serving in the Mediterranean Fleet. In late 1939, Ramillies was operating in the Indian Ocean for the protection of trade routes from German surface raiders. Then in the period to early 1940 Ramilles acted as escort to convoys carrying Australian and New Zealand troops to the Middle East. In June 1940, Ramillies joined the British Mediterranean Fleet and was engaged in escort of convoys to and from Malta. After taking part in the bombardment of Italian positions at Capuzzo and near Bardia in Libya in support of the British Army in late August 1940, Ramillies left the Mediterranean for home waters. In March 1942, Ramillies joined the 3rd Battle Squadron based in the Ceylon area and in April 1942 was in the naval force tasked for the capture and occupation of Diego Suarez on the island of Madagascar. During the night of 29 May, a Japanese light aircraft circled Ramillies lying at anchor in Diego Suarez harbour. Fearing an attack, an alert was given and Ramillies weighed and steamed around for a while before taking up a different anchor berth. At nightfall on the 30th May, two Japanese midget submarines were launched from their mother ships ten miles from the harbour entrance. At least one entered the harbour and scored a torpedo hit on Ramillies which caused some damage and an hour later torpedoed and sank a British tanker. It was later determined that this attack and a similar attack by Japanese midget submarines in Sydney Harbour were separated by only seventy minutes in actual time.