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Belfast Sunset - in London
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Now the largest exhibit in the Imperial War Museum's collection, HMS Belfast is permanently moored on the River Thames in the Pool of London. She is seen here from outside Old Billingsgate Market on the river's north bank as a bright autumnal day comes to a close.
The Town-class cruisers (Belfast and Edinburgh) were constrained to less than 10,000 tons by the Washington Naval Treaty of the early 1920s. The original design included quadruple 6-inch gun mountings, but due to problems with construction, improved versions of the triple mountings fitted to the earlier ships of the class were fitted instead. These were lighter than those planned, and the weight saved was used to improve the ship's armour and anti-aircraft defences.
Belfast was launched on St Patrick's Day in 1938 at Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast and was commissioned in August 1939. At around 0100 on 21 November 1939 she was seriously damaged leaving the Firth of Forth by a magnetic mine laid on 4 November by the German submarine U-21. The mine broke the keel and wrecked the hull and machinery to such an extent that she only returned to service in the Home Fleet in November 1942. Improvements had been made to the ship during repairs, notably bulged amidships to improve her longitudinal strength and stability, and fitting the latest radar and fire control; her displacement had risen from 11,175 to 11,553 tons, making her Britain's heaviest cruiser.
On 26 December 1943, in what became the Battle of North Cape, Norfolk, Belfast and Sheffield encountered the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst, and, with the battleship HMS Duke of York, sank her. In June 1944, Belfast took part in the D-Day bombardment in support of landings on Gold and Juno beaches. Belfast was almost continuously in action for the next five weeks, firing thousands of rounds from her 6 and 4inch batteries in support of troops until the battlefront moved out of range inland. Her final salvo in the European war was fired on 8 July during Operation Charnwood, the battle to capture Caen, when she engaged German positions together with the battleship HMS Rodney and the monitor HMS Roberts.
Belfast served in the Korean War, supporting UN forces by naval bombardment. In July 1952 she was hit by a Communist battery, losing one man killed and four wounded. Belfast was modernised between January 1956 and May 1959. In December 1961 she provided the British guard of honour at Dar-es-Salaam during the Tanganyika independence ceremony. The ship was finally paid off on 24 August 1963.
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