Description
HMS Belfast is a Second World War cruiser, now a museum ship moored on the Thames in London, next to Tower Bridge. Nine decks are open, from the bridge and gun turrets down to the engine rooms, and the ship is run by the Imperial War Museum.
Her forward guns are aimed at a motorway service station. The 6-inch guns of A and B turrets are trained on London Gateway, on the M1 some 19 kilometers away, to show just how far they could fire.
The visit follows three themes. Life on board shows the sick bay, galley, laundry, chapel and mess decks, some with dressed figures. The inner workings take you below the waterline to the engine and boiler rooms, a shell room and the transmitting station, home to a mechanical computer.
Action stations covers the upper deck, the operations room, the admiral's bridge and the guns. Don't miss Y Turret, the aftmost gun turret, where sound and effects recreate a gunner's battle during the Battle of North Cape.
Launched in Belfast on St Patrick's Day 1938, the cruiser was less than three months into the war when a magnetic mine broke her keel. Many expected her to be scrapped. Instead she spent more than two years under repair and came back with more armor and new radar.
On 26 December 1943, in the Arctic night, she helped hunt down the German battleship Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape. For this she was the flagship of the cruiser squadron that found the Scharnhorst and forced her to retreat.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, she opened fire at 5:30 am on a German battery at Ver-sur-Mer, near the beaches of Gold and Juno. Churchill wanted to watch the landings from her deck; it took the King to stop him.
She went on to fight in Korea. In 1971 she was once again headed for the scrapyard when a private trust saved her and moored her in the Pool of London, near Tower Bridge. She became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978.
Two details tell her story. She is painted in the Admiralty Disruptive camouflage she wore from 1942 to 1944, and her two masts were made in 2010 at a shipyard near Saint Petersburg, supported by Russian businesses, with Arctic convoy veterans at the ceremony.
Her forward guns are aimed at a motorway service station. The 6-inch guns of A and B turrets are trained on London Gateway, on the M1 some 19 kilometers away, to show just how far they could fire.
The visit follows three themes. Life on board shows the sick bay, galley, laundry, chapel and mess decks, some with dressed figures. The inner workings take you below the waterline to the engine and boiler rooms, a shell room and the transmitting station, home to a mechanical computer.
Action stations covers the upper deck, the operations room, the admiral's bridge and the guns. Don't miss Y Turret, the aftmost gun turret, where sound and effects recreate a gunner's battle during the Battle of North Cape.
Launched in Belfast on St Patrick's Day 1938, the cruiser was less than three months into the war when a magnetic mine broke her keel. Many expected her to be scrapped. Instead she spent more than two years under repair and came back with more armor and new radar.
On 26 December 1943, in the Arctic night, she helped hunt down the German battleship Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape. For this she was the flagship of the cruiser squadron that found the Scharnhorst and forced her to retreat.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, she opened fire at 5:30 am on a German battery at Ver-sur-Mer, near the beaches of Gold and Juno. Churchill wanted to watch the landings from her deck; it took the King to stop him.
She went on to fight in Korea. In 1971 she was once again headed for the scrapyard when a private trust saved her and moored her in the Pool of London, near Tower Bridge. She became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978.
Two details tell her story. She is painted in the Admiralty Disruptive camouflage she wore from 1942 to 1944, and her two masts were made in 2010 at a shipyard near Saint Petersburg, supported by Russian businesses, with Arctic convoy veterans at the ceremony.