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) carrying Basque child refugees, to England. In July, as the war in northern Spain flared up, "Royal Oak", along with the battleship This same period saw "Royal Oak" star alongside fourteen other Royal Navy vessels in the 1937 British film melodrama "Our Fighting Navy", the plot of which centres around a coup in the fictional South American republic of Bianco. "Royal Oak" portrays a rebel battleship "El Mirante", whose commander forces a British captain (played by Robert Douglas) into choosing between his lover and his duty. The film was poorly received by critics, but gained some redemption through its dramatic