She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.

After the start of the Second World War in 1939, Glorious spent the rest of the year hunting for the commerce-raiding German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee in the Indian Ocean before returning to the Mediterranean.

While evacuating British aircraft from Norway in June, the ship was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the North Sea with the loss of over 1,200 lives.

During the First World War, Admiral Fisher was prevented from ordering an improved version of the preceding Renown-class battlecruisers by a wartime restriction that banned construction of ships larger than light cruisers.

[6] A pair of QF 3-inch (76 mm) 20 cwt[Note 1] anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast of the mainmast on Glorious.

[12][13] On 16 October 1917 the Admiralty received word of German ship movements, possibly indicating some sort of raid.

Admiral Beatty, commander of the Grand Fleet, ordered most of his light cruisers and destroyers to sea in an effort to locate the enemy ships.

The British continued in pursuit, but lost track of most of the smaller ships in the smoke and concentrated fire on the light cruisers as opportunity permitted.

[17] Glorious required five days of repairs to fix damage caused by premature detonation and her own muzzle blast.

[22] The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limited the amount of capital ship tonnage and the Royal Navy was forced to scrap many of its older battleships and battlecruisers.

[26] Glorious received a dual-purpose armament of sixteen QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mark VIII guns in single mounts.

In a fog on 1 April 1931 Glorious rammed the French ocean liner Florida amidships while steaming at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph).

Glorious participated in the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 20 May 1937 for King George VI before returning to the Mediterranean.

The Walruses were quickly flown off to Harstad, but the airfield in Skånland was not yet ready for the Hurricanes and they were still aboard when Glorious returned to Scapa on 21 May.

One possibility was that Glorious, with her Swordfish detachment equipped with long-range fuel tanks, had been selected for Operation Paul, the mining of Luleå harbor, which had to happen before Narvik was evacuated.

Admiral Hipper and the four destroyers were sent to Trondheim to refuel and then provide artillery support for the German force (Gruppe Feuerstein) advancing to Narvik.

At 15:45 a lookout at the highest platform on Scharnhorst sighted a dust cloud, and then the mast of Glorious at a distance of 46 km (29 mi).

No combat air patrol was being flown, no aircraft were ready on the deck for quick take-off and there was no lookout in Glorious's crow's nest.

[44] Glorious was hit again in the centre engine room at 17:20 and this caused her to lose speed and commence a slow circle to port.

[47] As the German ships approached Glorious, Acasta, which had been trying to maintain the smokescreen, broke through her own smoke and fired two volleys of torpedoes at Scharnhorst.

With Scharnhorst damaged by the torpedo hit and unaware that Allied ships were not in contact with Glorious the German force withdrew and did not try to pick up survivors.

[49][41] The Norwegian ship Borgund, on passage to the Faroe Islands, arrived late on 10 June and picked up survivors, eventually delivering 37 alive to Tórshavn of whom two later died.

Another Norwegian ship, Svalbard II, also making for the Faeroes, picked up five survivors but was sighted by a German aircraft and forced to return to Norway, where the four still alive became prisoners of war for the next five years.

[54] It emerged that the heavy cruiser Devonshire had passed within 30–50 miles (48–80 km) of the battle, flying the flag of Vice-Admiral John Cunningham, who was carrying out orders to evacuate the Norwegian royal family to the UK and maintain radio silence.

[55] It was also alleged that there was confusion over the use of wireless telegraphy frequencies on board Glorious which could have contributed to the failure of any other ship or shore-station to receive a sighting report.

The absence of normal airborne patrols over Glorious and its destroyers, in conditions of maximum visibility, was named as a contributor to the sinkings.

[57] After the existence of the Bletchley Park intelligence activities was made public in the 1970s, it was revealed that Naval Section personnel at Bletchley Park predicted a breakout into the Baltic by German warships based on traffic analysis but the RN Operational Intelligence Centre did not agree on the interpretation, and did not inform the Home Fleet.

[citation needed] For many years the only memorial to the seamen lost in the three ships was a stained-glass window in the church of St Peter Martindale in Cumbria, on the east side of Ullswater.

On 8 June 2010, 70 years after the loss of Glorious, Acasta and Ardent, a memorial plaque inscribed in English and Norwegian was unveiled near the Trondenes Historical Centre in Harstad, Norway, the two destroyers' last port of call.

On 8 June 2019, a memorial plaque was unveiled in the Belvedere Gardens, Plymouth Hoe, dedicated to all crew members who lost their lives onboard HM Ships Glorious, Ardent and Acasta.