HMS Belfast United Kingdom

Legendary

Commissioned in 1939, Belfast saw extensive duty during the Second World War, including the Normandy invasion.

Photo by Barry Marsh

Two months into the Second World War, HMS Belfast hit a German mine and nearly ended her career before it started. Barely anyone was hurt, but her hull was so badly twisted that she spent the next three years in dry dock being rebuilt.

She came back in November 1942 with better guns, better armour, and better radar. At that point she was the largest and probably the most powerful cruiser in the Royal Navy.

The ship was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She was launched on St Patrick's Day, 17 March 1938, by Anne Chamberlain, wife of the prime minister at the time.

Her most famous fight came on 26 December 1943, in the Arctic darkness north of Norway. The German warship Scharnhorst had sailed out to attack a convoy carrying supplies to the Soviet Union.

Belfast picked her up on radar and shadowed her through the night. Royal Navy ships closed in from two directions, and the Scharnhorst was sunk.

Out of 1,963 German crew aboard, only 36 survived. The battle is known as the Battle of North Cape.

Six months later, Belfast was off the coast of Normandy on D-Day. She reportedly fired some of the first shots of the landings and stayed for five weeks supporting troops ashore.

She served again in the Korean War, then retired from the Royal Navy in 1963. The government planned to scrap her.

A private trust formed in 1971 to fight that decision, and they won. The government handed the ship over, and she opened to the public in London on 21 October 1971.

Climb down through nine decks, from the bridge all the way to the boiler rooms far below the waterline. Stand inside one of the 175-ton gun turrets that fired on the Normandy beaches. Look out from the deck at Tower Bridge and the Tower of London, right across the Thames.