Warship is pronounced like worship, but worship is not pronounced like warship.
Warship “wor ship” and worship “wur ship”.
Warship “wor ship” and worship “wur ship”.
That depends on the accent, tbh.
In my area, the ship on the sea is more like whar or wahr, and worship is more were-ship as in "it were a ship for war", and not a person that changes into a ship at the full moon; or wurship, depending on how you pronounce your "u"s
Then again, we also pronounce where in multiple ways, depending on exactly what town and county you're from. It can be said as war, whar, whir, or way-ur
I pronounce them differently, and I grew up on the West coast, too. California, in my case. Did you grow up in Warshington?
Anything to do with ‘r’s is a bit contentious. Like America still uses ‘r’s how they’re written.
Now the British are like “Goodness me, you still pronounce the ‘r’ in cah and fah? How uncouth, we’ve moved those pesky ‘r’s to other words ages ago”.
“Moved to where?”
“Any word ending in the lettah ‘a’ I suppose.”
For me, the wor in worship sounds like "were" (eg. they were naked), and the war in warship sounds like "wore" (eg. they wore clothes).
Maybe this is what OP means. Warship is pronounced wor-ship (And Worship is pronounced wer-ship)