HMS Duke of York was one of five King George V-class battleships built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the late 1930s. Completed in November 1941, during the Second World War, the ship transported the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to the United States to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt the following month. Between March and September 1942 she was assigned to convoy escort duties in the Arctic as the flagship of the Second Battle Squadron, but in October she was transferred to Gibraltar where she became the flagship of Force H. The following month, Duke of York played a minor role in the Allied invasion of North Africa. After the invasion, the ship became the flagship of the Home Fleet, participating in diversionary operations designed to draw the Germans' attention away from Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. In October, Duke of York covered a force of Allied ships that attacked German shipping off Norway.