All five ships saw combat during World War II, with King George V and Prince of Wales being involved in the action on 24 May to 27 May 1941 that resulted in the German battleship Bismarck being sunk.

In the aftermath of the sinking, King George V, Duke of York, Howe and Anson provided escort duty to convoys bound for Soviet Union.

In October 1942 Duke of York was sent to Gibraltar as the new flagship of Force H and supported the Allied landings in North Africa in November.

[3] The King George Vs were the first British battleships to alternate engine rooms and boilers in the machinery spaces, which reduced the likelihood of one hit causing the loss of all power.

[11] After 1942 the Royal Navy was forced to use fuel oils with considerably higher viscosity and greater seawater content than these boilers could efficiently use.

[12] The poor quality of the oil fuel combined with the seawater contamination reduced the efficiency of the steam power plant and increased the maintenance required.

The outer compartment of the SPS was normally an empty or 'void' space (containing only air) and this allowed the initial explosion from a torpedo to expand while minimizing damage to the ship.

The centre compartment was filled with oil or seawater and this spread the pressure pulse over a larger area while the liquid contained any metal splinters that were created from the torpedo explosion.

[45] Above the SPS, and directly behind the armour belt, was a series of compartments, typically used for washrooms or storage spaces, which were designed to allow for upward venting of over-pressure from a torpedo hit.

[46] The SPS was also a key component of the ship's damage control system, as lists resulting from flooding could be corrected by counterflooding empty void spaces, and/or draining normally liquid filled compartments.

[53] Subsequent inquiries into her loss at the time[54] identified the need for a number of design improvements, which were implemented to a lesser or greater degree on the other four ships of the class.

[60] The inability to survey the wreck during the war no doubt frustrated efforts[61] to arrive at a definitive cause for the loss of Prince of Wales and, subsequently, that somewhat flawed analysis[62] has led to a number of incorrect theories regarding the reasons for the sinking being inadvertently disseminated over the years.

[74] The Admiralty studied vessels armed with a variety of main armaments including nine 15-inch (381 mm) guns in three turrets, two forward and one aft.

It proved impossible to include this amount of firepower and the desired level of protection on a 35,000 ton displacement and the weight of the superimposed quadruple turret made the stability of the vessel questionable.

[77][78][79] The armour-piercing capability of the gun and its ammunition is exhibited by the conning tower on the wreck of the German battleship Bismarck, provided with 14-inch thick armour, which is said to resemble a "Swiss cheese".

[87][91] The number of known defects in the main armament that was hampering 14-inch fire, the damage sustained and the worsening tactical situation forced Captain Leach to disengage from combat.

"[98][99] During the later action with Bismarck, HMS King George V was also having trouble with her main battery, and by 09:27 every gun missed at least one salvo due to failures in the safety interlocks for antiflash protection.

[102]During the early part of her action against the German capital ship Scharnhorst at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943, Duke of York, firing under radar control in poor weather, scored 31 straddles out of 52 broadsides fired and during the latter part she scored 21 straddles out of 25 broadsides, a very creditable gunnery performance.

[107][108] Despite this Prince of Wales was credited with several 5.25-inch kills during Operation Halberd and damaged 10 of 16 high-level bombers in two formations during her last engagement, two of which crash landed.

The pom-poms in King George V were designed and produced by Vickers Armstrongs, as a result of a post-World War I requirement for a multiple mounting which was effective against close-range bombers or torpedo planes.

The first model, tested in 1927, was a very advanced weapon for its time and in 1938 the Mark VI* had a muzzle velocity of 2,400 feet per second, a 1.6-inch bore and a barrel length of 40 calibres.

Prince of Wales would attempt to reengage Bismarck on two more occasions, but was unable to land any further hits owing to the distance being in excess of 20,000 yards, and was then forced to return to Iceland for refueling and would play no further part in actions against the German battleship.

[126][127] After being repaired at Rosyth, Prince of Wales transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Canada for a conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that resulted in the Atlantic Charter being declared, which laid out how the allies intended to deal with the post-war world, on 14 August 1941.

On 2 December the group docked in Singapore and Prince of Wales then became the flagship of the ill-fated Force Z under Admiral Sir Tom Phillips.

[133] Duke of York, the third ship of the class, first saw action on 1 March 1942, when she provided close escort for convoy PQ 12 and was later joined by King George V on 6 March, as Admiral John Tovey believed that the German battleship Tirpitz would attempt to intercept the convoy; however, aircraft from Victorious were able to prevent Tirpitz from leaving her base in Norway.

They bombarded Trapani naval base on 12 July and defended Algiers against an air raid, before departing to take part in Operation Avalanche.

One of Duke of York's shells exploded in Scharnhorst's number one boiler room, slowing her significantly and allowing British destroyers to close to torpedo range.

Duke of York and Anson arrived too late to take part in hostilities, but on 15 August they accepted the surrender of Japanese forces occupying Hong Kong.

After the end of World War II, King George V became the flagship of the Home Fleet until December 1946, when she became a training vessel, before being scrapped in 1957.

[149] Anson briefly served as the flagship of the 1st Battle Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet and helped to re-occupy Hong Kong.