Career
Ordered:
Laid Down:	10 December 1936 at Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast.
Launched:	17 March 1938 (St. Patrick's Day)
Commissioned:	5 August 1939
Decommissioned:	24 August 1963
Fate:	Museum ship since 21 October 1971
General Characteristics
Displacement:	11,553 tons
Length:	613 feet 6 inches (187 metres) overall
Beam:	69 feet (21 metres)
Draught:	19 feet 9 inches (6.1 metres)
Propulsion:	Four Admiralty oil-fired 3-drum boilers; four Parsons single reduction geared steam turbines driving four shafts at 80,000 shaft horsepower
Speed:	32 knots (58 km per hour)
Range:
Complement:	750 - 850 (as flagship)
Armament:	(1959) Twelve (4 × 3) 6 inch; eight (4 × 2) 4 inch HA/LA; twelve (6 × 2) Bofors AA
Armour:	4.5 inches (114 mm), deck 3 inches (76 mm)
Aircraft:	Two Supermarine Walrus aircraft (Removed in the latter part of WWII)
Motto	Pro Tanto Quid Retribuamas (Latin: For so much, how shall we repay?)

HMS Belfast, the Royal Navy's heaviest ever cruiser, was one of the two ships forming the final sub-class of British Town-class cruisers, the other being HMS Edinburgh. Belfast is now a museum ship in London. HMS Belfast, London File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Naval_Ensign_of_the_United_Kingdom. ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries began as a shipyard located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. ... March 17 is the 76th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (77th in leap years). ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... St. ... August 5 is the 217th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (218th in leap years), with 148 days remaining. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... October 21 is the 294th day of the year (295th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 71 days remaining. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated under pressure. ... A rotor of a modern steam turbine, used in a power plant A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into useful mechanical work. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore the Senior Service). ... The Town-class were a ten-ship class of light cruisers built in three distinct sub-classes, Southampton, Gloucester and Edinburgh classes respectively, each sub-class adding on further weaponry. ... His Majestys Ship Edinburgh (commissioned 1936, sunk 2nd May 1942) was a [[Town-class]] light cruiser of Britains Royal Navy. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and the largest city of England (strangely, England has no constitutional existence within the United Kingdom, and therefore cannot be said to have a capital). ...

The Town class cruisers were constrained to less than 10,000 tons by the Washington Naval Treaty. Originally intended to have quadruple 6 inch gun mountings, problems with building them caused the design to be reverted to using improved versions of the triple mountings fitted to the earlier ships of the class. The improved mountings neverthess were lighter than the original ones, and the weight saved was used to improve the ship's armour and anti-aircraft defences. The Washington Naval Treaty limited the naval armaments of its five signatories: the United States, the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, the French Third Republic, and Italy. ...

Belfast was launched on St Patrick's Day in 1938 at Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast by Anne de Vere Cole, the wife of the then prime minister, Neville Chamberlain. At that time, the budgeted overall cost of the ship was £2,141,514, of which £75,000 was for the guns and £66,500 for aircraft. She was commissioned in August 1939 under the command of Captain G A Scott DSO and assigned to the 18th Cruiser Squadron. Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a Conservative British politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940. ...

Second World War

When the Second World War started, the 18th Cruiser Squadron was used as part of the British efforts to impose a naval blockade on Germany. Working as part of the squadron, Belfast intercepted the German liner Cap Norte on 9 October 1939 as the liner was trying to return to Germany disguised as a neutral ship. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... A liner is a big passenger ship where the passengers can sleep onboard. ... October 9 is the 282nd day of the year (283rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

However at around 1 am on 21 November 1939 the ship was seriously damaged by a magnetic mine as she left the Firth of Forth, injuring 21 crew. The damage broke the keel and wrecked the hull and machinery to such an extent that it took nearly three years to repair her, the work being carried out at Devonport. The mine had been laid on 4 November by the German submarine U-21 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Fritz Frauenheim^[1]. November 21 is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Firth of Forth from Calton Hill The Forth Bridges cross the Firth Satellite photo of the Firth and the surrounding area The Firth of Forth (Abhainn Dhubh [Black River] in Scottish Gaelic) is the estuary or firth of Scotlands River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea... Devonport in 1909, courtesy WW1 Archive Devonport Dockyard and the Hamoaze from the Rame Peninsula, Cornwall Her Majestys Naval Base (HMNB) Devonport (HMS Drake), commonly called Devonport Dockyard, is a major Royal Navy base located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon. ... November 4 is the 308th day of the year (309th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 57 days remaining. ... German UC-1 class World War I submarine A model of Günther Priens Unterseeboot 47 (U-47), German WWII Type VII diesel-electric hunter-killer (SSK) submarine Inside of the Argonaute, showing the typical obstructed, tiny space of a post-WWII diesel attack submarine. ... Kapitänleutnant is the third lowest officers rank in the German Navy. ...

She returned to service in the Home Fleet in November 1942 under the command of Captain Frederick Parham. Improvements had been made to the ship during her repairs, notably bulged amidships to improve her stability and fitting the latest radar and fire control; and increasing her displacement from 11,175 tons to 11,553 tons, making her Britain's heaviest cruiser. The Home Fleet is the traditional name of the fleet of the Royal Navy that protects the United Kingdoms territorial waters. ...

She was made flagship of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett when she provided cover for Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. On 26 December 1943, in what developed into the Battle of North Cape, the cruiser squadron, consisting of Norfolk, Belfast and Sheffield, encountered the German Gneisenau class battlecruiser Scharnhorst, and with the battleship HMS Duke of York subsequently sunk her. Gneisenau sank itself in 1945 as a blocade of one of german ports December 26 is the 360th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, 361st in leap years. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... Combatants Germany United Kingdom Commanders Erich Bey† Bruce Fraser Strength 1 battleship 5 destroyers 1 battleship 4 cruisers 4 destroyers Casualties 1 battleship sunk 1 heavy cruiser and light cruiser lightly damaged The naval Battle of the North Cape took place on December 26, 1943 during World War II, fought... Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Norfolk, from an 80-gun third-rate to todays powerful and sleek Type 23 frigate. ... Three Royal Navy ships have been named HMS Sheffield after the city and county borough of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. ... The Gneisenau class were two large heavy-gun warships of the World War II German navy, the Kriegsmarine. ... HMS Hood (left) and the battleship HMS Barham (right), in Malta, 1937. ... Scharnhorst was a 31,500 tonne Gneisenau class battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine, named after the Prussian general and army reformer Gerhard von Scharnhorst and to commemorate the World War I armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst. ... HMS Duke of York was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, and the second of the name, the predecessor having been a 4-gun cutter purchased in 1763 and sold in 1766. ...

The ship was part of the escort force in Operation Tungsten in March 1944, a large carrier-launched airstrike against the Tirpitz, at that stage the last surviving German heavy warship, which was moored at Altenfjord in northern Norway. Although the attack failed to destroy Tirpitz, the ship was hit by 15 bombs and severely damaged. Operation Tungsten was one of a number of aerial attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz while she was in Norwegian waters (the Altenfjord) by the Fleet Air Arm (the air units of the Royal Navy). ... Tirpitz was the second Bismarck class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, sistership of Bismarck. ...

Belfast took part in the bombardment of enemy positions at the beginning of the landing phase of the D-Day landings, Operation Neptune, in June 1944 as flagship of bombardment Force E. This was part of the Eastern Eastern Naval Task Force, with responsibility for supporting the British and Canadian assaults on Gold and Juno beaches and, at 5.30 am on 6 June 1944, was one of the first ships to fire on German positions. The Battle of Normandy was fought in 1944 between the German forces occupying Western Europe and the invading Allies. ... Operation Neptune refers to the landing phase of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Normandy. ... Combatants United Kingdom Germany Commanders Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey, British 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, German 716th Static Infantry Division Generalleutnant Dietrich Kraiss, German 352nd Static Infantry Division Strength 24,970  ? Casualties 400 altogether Unknown Gold Beach was the Allied codename for the centre invasion beach during the... Combatants Canada Germany Commanders Major-General R.F.L. Keller, 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, Lieutenant-General H.D.G. Crerar, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, German 716th Static Infantry Division Strength 15,000 Unknown Casualties 574 dead, 340 wounded Unknown Juno Beach was one of the landing sites... June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining // 1508 - Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year truce and cede several territories to Venice 1513... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ...

For the next five weeks the ship was almost continuously in action, firing thousands of rounds from her 6 inch and 4 inch batteries in support of troops until the battlefront moved so far inland as to be outside of the range of her guns. Her final shoot in the European war was on 8 July during Operation Charnwood, the battle to capture Caen, when she engaged German positions in company with the battleship HMS Rodney and the monitor HMS Roberts. July 8 is the 189th day of the year (190th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 176 days remaining. ... During World War 2, Operation Charnwood (Allies, 1944) had the objective to capture Caen and its surroundings during the ongoing Battle of Normandy. ... Caen is a commune of northwestern France. ... Six ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Rodney, at least the last five after Admiral George Brydges Rodney. ... USS Monitor became the prototype of a form of ship built by several navies for coastal defence in the 1860s and 1870s and known as a monitor. ...

Two days later she returned to Devonport for a short refit for service in the Far East, and joined Operation Zipper which was intended to expel the Japanese from Malaya but turned into a relief operation following the Japanese surrender. During World War II, Operation Zipper was a British plan to capture of either Port Swettenham or Port Dickson, Burma as staging areas for the recapture of Singapore. ... Map of Peninsular Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia (Malay: Semenanjung Malaysia) is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula, and shares a land border with Thailand in the north. ...

During the last days of the war in Europe she was spotted in the North Sea by a German submarine without being aware of it. The German captain decided not to fire, however, since the war was almost over.^{[citation needed]}

Post-war

She also served in the Korean War, in which her guns were used for naval bombardment in support of the United Nations forces. In July 1952 she was hit by a Communist battery, killing one and wounding four others. Combatants United Nations: Republic of Korea United States United Kingdom Canada Australia The Netherlands France Philippines Turkey Ethiopia Communist states: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea People’s Republic of China Soviet Union Commanders Syngman Rhee Chung Il Kwon Douglas MacArthur Mark W. Clark Matthew Ridgway Kim Il-sung Choi... The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, and social equity. ...

Between 1959-62 the ship operated in the Far East on exercises and "showing the flag". In December 1961 she provided the British guard of honour at Dar-es-Salaam during the Tanganyika independence ceremony.

The ship left Singapore on 26 March 1962 for the UK where she made a final visit to Belfast and after an exercise in Mediterranean was paid off on 24 August 1963. Following a campaign led by Rear Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles DSO OBE CM, a former captain of the ship, she was brought to London to become a museum ship and was first opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1971. March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... Rear-Admiral Morgan Charles Morgan-Giles (born 19 June 1914) is a British Conservative Party politician. ... October 21 is the 294th day of the year (295th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 71 days remaining. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ...

The bridge

HMS Belfast and City Hall seen from the top of The Monument

Belfast coming alongside USS Bataan off the coast of Korea on 27 May 1952

Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 479 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): HMS Belfast (C35) Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 479 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): HMS Belfast (C35) Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1901x1469, 553 KB) HMS Belfast and City Hall seen from the top of the Great Fire of London Monument. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1901x1469, 553 KB) HMS Belfast and City Hall seen from the top of the Great Fire of London Monument. ... City Hall, taken from the high walkway on Tower Bridge City Hall in London is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London. ... The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known as the Monument, is located in the City of London, near to the northern end of London Bridge close to where the Great Fire of London (1666) started. ... HMS Belfast (C35) coming alongside USS Bataan (CVL-29) off the coast of Korea on 27 May 1952 Downloaded from [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... HMS Belfast (C35) coming alongside USS Bataan (CVL-29) off the coast of Korea on 27 May 1952 Downloaded from [1] File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... USS Bataan (CVL-29), originally planned as USS Buffalo (CL-99) and also classified as CV-29, was an 11,000 ton Independence class light aircraft carrier which was commissioned in the United States Navy during World War II. Buffalo (CL-99) was reclassified CV-29 and renamed Bataan on... Korea (Korean: 한국 or 조선, see below) is a geographic area, civilization, and former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. ... May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

References

1. ^ Uboat.net

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: HMS Belfast (C35)

• HMS Belfast on the Imperial War Museum website
• Royal Naval Amateur Radio Society (RNARS) — operates the radio rooms and amateur radio station onboard
• Aerial view of HMS Belfast from Google Local
• 360 Panorama of the Arctic Mess Desk on H.M.S. Belfast

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... The Royal Naval Amateur Radio Society (RNARS) is a specialised group or club for Amateur Radio operators who have a link with maritime employment, such as members of a navy, merchant marine, or similar employment. ... An amateur radio station is a facility equipped with the apparatus necessary for carrying on radiocommunications in the Amateur Radio Service. ...

Coordinates: 51°30.440′N 0°4.825′W This is a list of Royal Navy cruisers. ... There are over 240 museums in London. ... The centre of the museum was redeveloped in 2000 to become the Great Court, with a tessellated glass roof by Buro Happold and Foster and Partners surrounding the original Reading Room. ... The public entrance to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms is a small hole on the corner of a very grand building. ... The Design Museum is a museum in Shad Thames, near Tower Bridge in central London. ... Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, London. ... The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art is a museum in Canonbury Square in the district of Islington on the northern fringes of central London. ... The Foundling Museums Court Room The Foundling Museum was set up in 1998 and houses the nationally important art collection of the Foundling Hospital. ... Sigmund Freuds couch used during psychoanalytic sessions can be found at the Freud Museum In 1938, the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, left Vienna after the Nazi annexation of Austria and moved to London, taking up residence at 20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead, Londons most intellectual suburb. ... Geffrye Museum frontage. ... Hayward Gallery, London The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the South Bank Centre, situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. ... Categories: Museum stubs | London attractions ... The Imperial War Museum is a museum in London featuring military vehicles, weapons, war memorabilia, a library, a photographic archive, and an art collection of 20th century and later conflicts, especially those involving Britain, and the British Empire. ... Metropolitan Railway steam locomotive number 23, the only surviving locomotive from the worlds first underground railway, is preserved in the museum Londons Transport Museum, formerly known as the London Transport Museum, is a museum which seeks to conserve and explain the transport heritage of London, the capital city... Interior showing the Mayors state coach The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Palaeolithic to the present day. ... The National Gallery from Trafalgar Square The National Gallery is an art gallery in London, located on the north side of Trafalgar Square. ... The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is the leading maritime museum of the United Kingdom, and one of the most important in the world. ... The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in St Martins Place, London, England, which opened to the public in 1856. ... The Natural History Museum from the south east The Natural History Museum, one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, Kensington, London (the others are the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum), is home to life and earth science collections comprising some 70 million items. ... The Queens Gallery is a public art gallery located at Buckingham Palace, home of the British monarch, in London. ... This article refers to an art institution in London. ... The Saatchi Gallerys new premises in Chelsea, opening early 2007. ... The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. ... The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, central London, which focuses on modern and contempory art. ... The Soane Museum is a museum of architecture, and was formerly the house and studio of Sir John Soane. ... The central courtyard of Somerset House in London. ... The Courtauld Institute of Art is a listed organisation of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. ... The Gilbert Collection was formed by the English businessman Sir Arthur Gilbert, who made most of his fortune in the property business in California. ... The Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House in London are a venue for temporary exhibitions of items from the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in Russia. ... Tate Britain is a part of the Tate Gallery in Britain, along with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. ... Tate Modern from the Millennium Bridge Tate Modern from St Pauls Cathedral. ... The Theatre Museum in the Covent Garden district of London, England, is the United Kingdoms National Museum of the Performing Arts. ... The Victoria and Albert Museum viewed from Thurloe Square. ... Exterior of the museum The official opening of the Bethnal Green Museum by the Prince of Wales in 1872. ... The Wallace Collection is a national art museum located in London. ... The Whitechapel Gallery, founded 1901, was one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London. ... Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...