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) scenes of naval action. In 1938, "Royal Oak" returned to the Home Fleet and was made flagship of the Second Battle Squadron based in Portsmouth. On 24 November 1938, she returned the body of the British-born Queen Maud of Norway, who had died in London, to a state funeral in Oslo, accompanied by her husband King Haakon VII. Paying off in December 1938, "Royal Oak" was recommissioned the following June, and in the late summer of 1939 embarked on a short training cruise in the English Channel in preparation for another 30-month tour of the Mediterranean, for which her crew