[78][79], When Belfast was first opened to the public, visitors were limited to the upper decks and forward superstructure. A 75mm shell struck a forward compartment, killing a British sailor of Chinese origin in his hammock and wounding four other Chinese ratings. By navigating the hazardous Pentland Firth, Belfast successfully evaded the Home Fleet. ILLUSTRIOUS-Class Fleet Aircraft Carrier ordered on 19th March 1937 from Harland and Wolff Ltd. at Belfast under the 1937 Programme. The most significant change was better accommodations for a smaller crew more fitting of post-war needs. Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. No lists were available for certain notable ships, or for years ending in 5, eg. The turret would represent a number of classes of cruiser (then disappearing from service) and would complement the museum's pair of British 15-inch naval guns. ww2dbaseAfter participating as an escort for a British carrier strike against the German battleship Tirpitz in March of 1944, HMS Belfast would head back to England. Each of the pages has its own set of notes (linked from a button top-right) to explain where the data came from and any points to look out for when using it. We are the largest and fastest growing community of UK forces veterans on the web with over 500,000 members! On 14 August, Belfast took part in her first exercise, Operation Hipper, in which she played the role of a German commerce raider attempting to escape into the Atlantic. CLIP databases provide a range of indexes and finding aids to help your research. Coastal vessels sometimes give a detailed schedule of calls but at others only a general description. HMS Glasgow in the Second World War 1939-1945 - The Wartime Memories Project - Naval Index HMS Glasgow 13th Apr 1940 On the Move 14th Apr 1940 On the Move 15th Apr 1940 On the Move 16th Apr 1940 Air Raid 21st Apr 1940 On the Move 22nd Apr 1940 On the Move If you can provide any additional information, please add it here. Served on indicates the ships we have listed for the person, some were stationed on multiple ships hit by U-boats. [84] Areas open to the public include the operations room, Admiral's bridge and gun direction platform. The goal of this Belfast is a cruiser of the third Town class. The aircraft, operated by the Fleet Air Arm's HMS Belfast Flight of 700 Naval Air Squadron, were stowed in two hangars in the forward superstructure. We place some essential cookies on your device to make this website work. Her November 1942 radar fit included one Type 284 set and four Type 283 sets to direct the main armament, three Type 285 sets for the secondary guns, and two Type 282 sets for the 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns. [61], She was opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1971. ). [4], With the end of the war, Belfast remained in the Far East, conducting a number of cruises to ports in Japan, China and Malaya and sailing for Portsmouth on 20 August 1947. We'd like to use additional cookies to remember your settings and understand how you use our services. Total costs for her operation was 2,141,514 British pounds and includes 75,000 pounds for the guns and 66,500 pounds for the aircraft. [51] Her close-range armament was standardised to six twin 40 mm Bofors guns, and her close-range fire direction similarly standardised to eight close-range blindfire directors fitted with Type 262 radar. We'll do our best to advise. This information will help us make improvements to the website. The T124T records detail the sea service of merchant seamen who served on tugs. [2] This gave her a maximum range of 8,664 nautical miles (16,046km; 9,970mi) at 13 knots (24km/h; 15mph). No attempt has been made to indicate whether the information covers the whole year, though this can sometimes be deduced. ww2dbaseRetaliation came quickly on November 21, 1939 for as Belfast left the Firth of Forth, she ran into a German magnetic mine that the German submarine U-21 left behind. These records have been selected on the basis that they reflect the economic, social and demographic condition of the UK, as documented by the state's dealings with individuals, communities and organisations outside of its own formal boundaries (2.2.2.1 of PRO's acquisition policy). [88] To emphasise the range of the ship's armament, the forward six-inch guns of A and B Turrets are trained on the London Gateway service area on the M1 motorway, approximately 12 miles (19km) away on the outskirts of London. a brief overview. HMS Formidable ( Navy Photos, click to enlarge) return to Contents List. Launched on 3 April, the bombers scored fourteen hits, immobilising Tirpitz for two months, with one Barracuda shot down. If an individual was commissioned from the ranks or moved between different services you may find service records in more than one set of files. In some cases there may be only a single sheet recording the release of a crew member; on the other hand, in later years, several documents sometimes make up one crew list. The Imperial War Museum's guidebook to HMS Belfast divides the ship into three broad sections. As flagship of the 5th Cruiser Squadron, Belfast was the Far Eastern Station's headquarters ship during the April 1949 Amethyst Incident, in which a British sloop, HMSAmethyst, was trapped in the Yangtze River by the communist People's Liberation Army. Her initial role during the Second World War was to accompany a convoy to Capetown from December 1940 to January 1941. With our small band of volunteers from around the world, and with the help of many archivists, we have: We have now completed all the transcription projects that we manage. IWM holds an almost complete run from 1914 and some of those from 18881970 are onAncestry(). ww2dbaseIn 1936, the British Royal Navy attempted to acquire two enlarged and improved versions of the Southampton class light cruisers. Source: Royal Navy/Wikimedia Commons HMS Belfast saw further combat action post-war during the 1950-52 Korean War and underwent an. The London Gazettealso lists commissions and promotions up to the present day. Her commander was Captain G A Scott DSO RN. After providing supporting fire for Operation Charnwood, Belfast returned to England for a short refit and rest before heading to the Far East. Most of these men were not born in Asia; many were Egyptian. We are continuing to add to Denomination: H.M.S. At a press conference in August the Trust announced "Operation Seahorse",[nb 4] the plan to bring Belfast to London. [22] On 9 October Belfast intercepted a German liner, the 13,615-ton Cap Norte, 50 miles (80km) north-west of the Faroe Islands. We'd welcome any feedback and suggestions - there's a link to our contact details on the menu bar above. HMS Cumberland provided additional cruiser cover with HMS Belfast and HMS Norfolk during passage of Russian Convoy JU53 and returning Convoy RA53. At 5:30am on 6 June, Belfast opened fire on a German artillery battery at Ver-sur-Mer, suppressing the guns until the site was overrun by British infantry of 7th Battalion, Green Howards. Disguised as a neutral Swedish vessel, SS Ancona, Cap Norte was attempting to return to Germany from Brazil; her passengers included German reservists. [20] On 1 October 1939 Belfast left Scapa Flow for a patrol in the North Sea. [45], With the outbreak of the Korean War, Belfast became part of the United Nations naval forces. Description: Registers, arranged numerically giving date of birth, ship or shore establishment and an account of service. Photographs. Belfast Class: Town-class light cruiser. These records were compiled at the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen. CLIP is a not-for-profit volunteer project, set up to assist research into the records of British merchant seafarers of the late 19th and early 20th century. and useful information about WW2. The British fleet engaged destroyers of the German Navy . The primary purpose of this list is to provide the names of ships for which crew lists and agreements are deposited in the Southampton Record Office, with the dates and number of items. Her initial close-range anti-aircraft armament was sixteen 2-pounder "pom-pom" guns in two eight-barrel mountings, and two quadruple Vickers .50 machine guns. HMS Belfast technical sheet . Please note that we do not do privately commissioned research, not at any price - we'd like you to have the fun. On 21 November, Belfast was to take part in the force's first sortie, a gunnery exercise. Users should note that the particulars of Owners, Masters and Voyages have been extracted by a number of different people, most of them inexperienced in this work, and it has not been possible to check more than obvious discrepancies. Crew: 748 sailors. The other vessels are the destroyer USS Laffey, part of the historic ships grouped at Patriots Point, South Carolina, and the dreadnought battleship USS Texas at San Jacinto, Texas. HMS Formidable was an Aircraft Carrier of the Illustrious class. In between convoy duties, she participated in offensive sweeps with British battleships and aircraft carriers. Her armament was updated with newer 2-pounder pom-pom mountings, and her anti-aircraft armament improved with eighteen 20mm Oerlikon guns in five twin and eight single mountings, replacing two quadruple 0.5-inch Vickers guns. [3], Belfast's aviation capability was provided by two catapult-launched Supermarine Walrus amphibious biplanes. On 5 October Belfast intercepted and boarded a neutral Norwegian factory ship that was sailing in company with six whaling ships. [21] On 8 October the ship sighted the Swedish merchant ship C. P. Lilljevach but, in poor weather, did not intercept or board her. Her empty hangars were converted to crew accommodation, and her aircraft catapult was removed. Scroll down to see more. Help us improve catalogue descriptions by adding tags. In July 1963 Belfast was recommissioned for the last time, with a crew of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and a number of Sea Cadets flying the flag of the Admiral Commanding Reserves, Rear Admiral Hugh Martell. [nb 2] On 10 July she sailed for Scapa, the fighting in France having moved inland beyond the range of her guns. [91], HMS Belfast also serves as the headquarters of the City of London Sea Cadet Corps,[92] and her prestigious location in central London as a result means she frequently has other vessels berthed alongside. [53][pageneeded], Belfast arrived in Singapore on 16 December 1959 and spent most of 1960 at sea on exercise, calling at ports in Hong Kong, Borneo, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, the Philippines and Japan. The old masts were then cut down in sections, the new masts erected, and the original fittings replaced. Search Discovery, our catalogue, by name of person or ship in T 335 to find what the award was, the person's rank at the time, and the ship they were serving on. [97], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}513024N 00453W / 51.50667N 0.08139W / 51.50667; -0.08139. Crew lists, originally termed muster-rolls or muster-books, began in the 18th century and were initially kept in order to collect a levy from seamen's wages for a relief fund, and as a record of the names, ratings, dates of entry and final discharge for all men serving on board a ship. Commissioned in . At 11:40 that morning, Belfast received the message Commence hostilities at once against Germany. The ship left Singapore on 26 March 1962 for the UK, sailing east via Hong Kong, Guam and Pearl Harbor, San Francisco, Seattle, British Columbia, Panama and Trinidad. The number of items entered for each year is the number of documents, not of complete returns. Or perhaps additional information?If you wish to add a crewmember to the listing we would need most of this information: ship name, nationality, name, dob, place of birth, service (merchant marine, ), rank or job on board. If you have hit a snag, please ww2dbaseOn the day after Christmas in 1943, HMS Belfast participated in the Battle of the North Cape as she and other British warships, including the battleship HMS Duke of York, engaged and sank the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst as the German warship was hunting for the Arctic convoys. A full set of these publications is held by TNA. HMS Belfast dropped anchor for the last time of its career in London, in the Thames river near the London Bridge where it can be visited today. Two infantry companies, 30 officers and 230 other ranks, would be carried. All comment submissions will become the property of WW2DB. [64] With the establishment of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) Advisory Committee on National Historic Ships in 2006, Belfast was listed as part of the National Historic Fleet. Welcome to CLIP - the Crew List Index Project. [19] On 8 September Belfast put to sea from Scapa Flow with the battlecruisers Hood, Renown, her sister ship Edinburgh and four destroyers, on a patrol intended to intercept German ships returning from Norway. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [52] Modern passive sonar Type 174 and 176 was installed and noise-reducing rubber insulation fitted to the propeller shaft. Her standard displacement during her sea trials was 10,420 long tons (10,590t). She is now permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London and is operated by the Imperial War Museum. She was launched on the 25 Feb, 1936. [48], In reserve, Belfast's future was uncertain: post-war defence cuts made manpower-intensive cruisers excessively costly to operate and it was not until March 1955 that the decision was taken to modernise Belfast. HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy. [6] Her displacement had risen to 11,550tons. Work began on 6 January 1956. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. 23 Jan 1941. This is a listing of people associated with this ship.We also have a detailed page on the British Light cruiser HMS Belfast (35). [15] Her expected cost was 2,141,514; of which the guns cost 75,000 and the aircraft (two Supermarine Walruses) 66,500. complicated tale and if you really are stuck, do please get in touch. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. We have place for a photo as well if provided. Based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands, 18th Cruiser Squadron was part of the British effort to impose a naval blockade on Germany. In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast's expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. Her beam had increased to 69ft (21m) and her draught to 19ft (5.8m) forward and 20ft 2in (6.15m) aft. She was built by Harland & Wolff Ltd. in Belfast, Northern Ireland being launched on the 17th of August 1939. [97], The closure delayed the construction of a new two-storey bank-side pavilion to replace Belfast's existing retail and admissions building. WW2DB site administrators reserve the right to moderate, censor, and/or remove any comment. Total costs for her operation was 2,141,514 British pounds and includes 75,000 pounds for the guns and 66,500 pounds for the aircraft. from our data, or from other data sites, or by helping you find the original documents so that you can order copies. shooting in sahuarita arizona; traduction saturn sleeping at last; is bachendorff a good brand; By the time she arrived in Sydney on 7 August Belfast had been made flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the British Pacific Fleet. [13] In May 1936 the Admiralty decided to fit triple turrets, whose improved design would permit an increase in deck armour.