HMS Royal Oak (1892) relieved by the battleship "Bulwark" and departed the Mediterranean in May 1902. She arrived at Plymouth on 16 May, and at Portsmouth the following day, and paid off there on 6 June 1902. She soon moved to Chatham Dockyard for a refit, during which casemates were provided for her six-inch upper deck guns. On 16 February 1903, "Royal Oak" recommissioned at Portsmouth for service in the Home Fleet using part of the battleship "Nile"'s crew as a nucleus. In the summer of 1903, she participated in combined exercises in the Atlantic involving the Home Fleet, Mediterranean, and Channel Fleets, as
HMS Royal Oak (08) who survived the sinking while serving as a Boy, First Class on "Royal Oak", served as the Royal Oak Association's Honorary Secretary. An annual ceremony of remembrance is held by the survivors and descendants of the crew at the Naval War Memorial, Southsea, on the anniversary of the sinking. The last remaining survivor of "Royal Oak", Arthur Smith, who had been a 17-year old Boy, First Class when the ship was struck, died on 11 December 2016. He had been on watch at the bridge and had jumped from the sinking ship, swimming in the wrong direction until he was