National Historic Ships: HMS Belfast World Naval Ships Forums Archive

Naval History by Country :

ROYAL
NAVY

US
NAVY

GERMAN
NAVY

FRENCH
NAVY

*VIEW ALL OF OUR CURRENT ART SPECIAL OFFERS ON ONE PAGE HERE*
NAVAL ART	AVIATION ART	MILITARY ART	SPORT ART

ALWAYS GREAT OFFERS :

20% FURTHER PRICE REDUCTIONS ON HUNDREDS OF LIMITED EDITION ART PRINTS

BUY ONE GET ONE HALF PRICE ON THOUSANDS OF PAINTINGS AND PRINTS

FOR MORE OFFERS SIGN UP TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER

National Historic Ships: HMS Belfast World Naval Ships Forums Archive

National Historic Ships: HMS Belfast

Posts 1 to 50

In 1939 my father, the newest officer in the Navy joined HMS Belfast, the newest cruiser in the Navy. Here are some contemporary pictures of those times. Stories will follow. tim
Attachments :

My Father in Law served on the Belfast (WW2) as well Tim William Seymour Percival Macey!! Yes, I know, that's a lot of names to have! :D Good job he was always known as "Bill"

I've got a photo of Belfast when she was brought back to Pompey for a refit in the 90s that might be of interest. It's 390kb, is this too big to attach? If so, how can I make it smaller please? Ta Alan Ok I think I've sussed it

When they brought the Belfast home for a refit.
Attachments :

And another of Liverpool from my Dads album.
Attachments :

I would like to suggest that a Sticky be made of this ! It is a terrific page full of excellent photographs of HMS Belfast as she is to-day. For all you ex matelots it will bring back hundreds of memories of life on board. All you want to make it perfect are the hum of the fans and that special smell which is hard to describe but all mariners would know it if they smelt it. It should attract one or two comments especially when you see the guy in his Hammock. How on earth does he stay in it and when you get to the crews bathroom ask yourself " where has all the Rainbow soap gone?" [url]http://rpmshipboat.fotopic.net/c884703.html[/url] Bob.

Some great photos amongst them. Recognise most of the electrical gear as I had two DC ships and it wasn't until 1972 that I joined an AC ship.

Give me a Hammock any day. And that's enough of this AC-DC lark too :D Alan

Last friday I had a meeting aboard HMS Belfast from where i went to the National Maritime Museum and Greenwich Old RN College. It was a very stormy day so I snapped of a couple of pics of the sky which I thought some of you might equally enjoy! The bofors gun was in the process of maintainence at the time; and yes, i did get soaked. tim
Attachments :

Nice photos Tim, and you should have had your brolly

Nice pictures Tim. My doesn't that sky look threatening? Bob.

Yes, dramatic pictures. I thought the English sky always looked like that! :D

I can assure you it was more than a threat! within 20 metres of the ship it was solid water and hail, fortunately there is an overhang on the adjacent building, within 10 mins it was gone but the streets were in flood and empty, the cab to Greenwich only took about 10 mins.

For those of you not familiar with that part of london the enormous conglomeration of new buildings seen between the cupolas of the ORNC are the banks huddled together on Canary Wharf at the top end of the Isle of Dogs, next to them is the FSA, financial regulatory agency. There is a foot tunnel under the Thames from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, very popular with buskers, and a few years ago the Docklands light railway was tunneled through next to it. The stormy sky over the banking centre struck me as rather symbolic!

HMS BELFAST came out to Singapore to take over from the cruiser CEYLON in1959 but the night before we were due to sail a couple of the crew played a prank and sneaked aboard her and retrieved the Admirals flag and replaced it with a white bed sheet,when this was discovered by the O.D. the ships company were mustered and the 2 crew men (RMs ) owned up to the prank, I believe they were given a warning, at least they sailed home with us, but these pranks were played out by other ships company during the 60s and 70s, all good clean fun. Great pictures of her in the war paint.

On July 29th 2008, the Telegraph (UK) published the obit. of Capt. 'Andy' Palmer, an ex-Ganges boy, who had a strong claim as Torpedo Officer of 'Belfast' to have sunk the Scharnhorst in 1943. The obit. covers his RN and post RN life and is very interesting. It should be still available on the Telegraph website, [url]www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2467560[/url]. Rob T

HMS Belfast,built by Harland & Wolff,launched 17/3/1938.Museum ship,River Thames,21/10/1971. At the start of the Second World War the 18th Cruiser Squadron was part of the British effort to impose a naval blockade on Germany. As part of this 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. At around 1:00 a.m. on 21 November 1939 she was seriously damaged as she left the Firth of Forth, with twenty-one men injured, by a magnetic mine laid on 4 November by the German submarine U-21 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Fritz FrauenheimHYPERLINK \l "cite_note-0"[1]. The mine broke the keel and wrecked the hull and machinery to such an extent that repairs at Devonport took nearly three years. 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 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. She was made flagship of the 10th Cruiser Squadron, under Rear-Admiral Robert Burnett, in which capacity she provided cover for Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union. On 26 December 1943, in what became 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 sank her. Belfast 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, moored at Altafjord in northern Norway. Tirpitz was hit by fifteen bombs and severely damaged, but not destroyed. Belfast was modernized between January 1956 and May 1959. During this refit all the AA guns (4 inch and 40 mm) were removed and replaced by more modern weapons of the same calibre. All the gunnery control equipment and radars fitted during wartime were also replaced. Finally the original bridge was rebuilt and enclosed to face the new constraints of NBC warfare and the original raked tripod masts were replaced by lattice masts. These alterations were very similar to the bridge structure and masting fitted on the new Tiger class cruisers. Between 1959-62 the ship operated in the Far East on exercises and "showed 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. The ship is currently painted in a camouflage scheme officially known as Admiralty Disruptive Camouflage Type 25. In the real timeline, HMS Belfast carried that paint scheme from November 1942 to July 1944. The anachronism is augmented by the fact that HMS Belfast in 1942-1944 had a distinctly different appearance from today, her silhouette and equipment having been vastly modified during her extended refit from January 1956 to May 1959. B a t t l e H o n o u r s-ARCTIC 1943 - NORTH CAPE 1943 - NORMANDY 1944
Attachments :

I know this is a different thread, but, in Alan B's photograph of Belfast returning for a refit you can see in the background the Queens Hotel. Part of the white building next to it used to be an RN nursing home. Does anybody have further information about this nursing home? Gary.

[B]Judge orders girl to write apology for killing HMS Belfast's cat [/B]A teenager who drowned a rescue cat adopted by the crew of HMS Belfast has been ordered to write a letter of apology as part of a nine-month supervision order. Last Updated: 8:07PM GMT 14 Nov 2008 The 16-year-old, wearing a distinctive white hoodie, was spotted by a security guard throwing the animal into the Thames from a gang plank connecting the ship to its dock in London. Kilo, who was rescued from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, has not been seen since February 9 and is missing presumed dead. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was part of a gang of three including her boyfriend who were spotted near the ship in the early hours of the morning. She denied hurling the cat into the water, but Camberwell Green Youth Court heard that a security guard recognised her distinctive outfit. The court also heard, at an earlier hearing during which the youngster was found guilty of an offence contravening the Animal Welfare Act, that the girl's boyfriend had written her a letter offering to take the blame. The youngster, who giggled throughout the hearing, also denied claims by police that all three were drinking heavily on the night the cat was drowned. She was ordered to complete a nine-month supervision order by District Judge Sue Green who also insisted that the teenager write a letter of apology to the staff of HMS Belfast. Judge Green said: "The offence is one which has caused enormous distress not merely to staff of HMS Belfast but a lot of right-minded members of the public who were upset by your disgraceful behaviour." Judge Green said that she expected the youngster "whether she liked it or not to write a letter of apology to staff from HMS Belfast and I would like a copy of that letter sent to me". Pc Scott Jarmy, the officer in charge of the case, said that the staff of HMS Belfast had received correspondence from around the world commiserating them for their loss. He said that in the days after Kilo's death the ship's second cat Oscar, also a rescue cat, had disappeared himself and is believed to have made his home elsewhere. Pc Jarmy said: "We were hoping for a brief custodial sentence. She showed contempt for the legal process by laughing during the trial and today but hopefully she will learn from what happened." Asked by the court whether she had anything to say, the youngster said: "I don't know what to say, I'm sorry for what happened."

The lost generation. They're not all bad. Get this girl out of circulation - no I don't mean gaol - and show her how the others live and what is expected of living within society. Punishment is useless. The writing of a letter is a good idea - assuming she can write.

No, I don't think she is sorry for what she did but she is sorry that she got caught doing it and that is something altogether different! Jan

Thanks for that update Tim. There is some justice, but nothing they can do that will really make a difference. There is that segment of society who just "don't get it" and never will. I agree with you Jan, she is just sorry that she was caught and writing a letter will just be something else she can laugh about. regards Vivian

I agree Richard that a custodial sentence would be useless. I think that a new way of thinking regarding suitable punishment is needed. Perhaps parading her around for a day with a placard of her horrible crime hung about her neck might give her an idea of the revulsion felt by people in general about this sort of cruelty. I feel sure she would think twice before doing such a thing again. One has to wonder what her parent[s] had to say about this - probably they should have been in the dock with her.

The inescapable truth is that this child, like so many others, is a product of her society and her parents. And it's a never ending cycle. For instance, we learn to be sorry - to take responsibility for our actions. But how to break it? What needs to change? A return to "the good old days" perhaps? What was different then? One thing - at that time, I called everyone over the age of 21 "sir" and it was quite natural that I did.

I am reading all your comments with interest and I feel, as I'm sure you all do, that what is needed is a change of attitude by our society. Those that must set an example are the authority figures with help of course from the rest of us. Sometime ago I suggested to some local magistrates that instead of prison, offenders should be put to work in the local community painting old folks bungalows, repairing pavements or whatever. They all agreed with me until I added that these criminals should be made to wear orange jump suits with "CRIMINAL" displayed on the back and there names in capitals over the breast pocket. Shock! Horror of horrors! The magistrates could not believe that anyone would seek to stigmatise these people in this way. What was Mr. Steer thinking of!! See what we are up against chaps? regards Jan

I agree Jan - it is almost as if our society has a death wish with our present system of punishment options.

Only yesterday an English man was jailed for giving his young son a smack on the leg for running away after dusk.

I'm a new member (see "son of an old salt"). My Dad was on the Belfast from 1942 to 1944. Attached is one of his photos showing what the old girl went through in the north atlantic. Ian
Attachments :

Welcome to the Forum Ian and thanks for sharing that chilly looking photograph with us. It gives a graphic illustration of the conditions that the crews endured in the Arctic.

Seeking information on HMS Belfast post war. Interested in dates Dec 48 to April 49. Appreciate any help given regards roy

this is my first reply to a post, but I know what I would like to do to that young BRAT because thats all she is. the minority of youngsters these days think that things like that are funny, but he majority are very good but the others think everything is all a good laugh oooooohhhh!!! i could get on my high horse but I think i will leave it there slinger

I am recently retired as a high school chemistry teacher. In our school, we had the fewest fights, and generally the best discipline of any school in the district. Teachers were required to treat students with respect. I promised my students I would do that on the first day of each term. Whe one disrespected me I talked to them privately after class. It worked. I was seldom disrespected a second time. Once I was sent to another school to hold an in-service work-shop for teachers, this school had a vacant classroom for the workshop, ours did not.. It was terrible. I heard teachers cussing students, and there were several fights in the hall outside the room where I was holding the workshop. Teachers were calling the students derogatory names both to their face and behind their backs. The teachers speech was filled with profanity. Adults are partly to blame for our kids behavior. My son is now 50, and I was always, and occasionally still am, complimented on how polite he was/is. Sir, and Ma'am were used by his parents, and he learned it. My last principal used to dress me down (gently) for calling her Ma'am. I told her I couldn't help it, it was now automatic! (She was 12 years my Junior, but my superior.)

Bring Back the Cat !!!! The Cat O Nine Tails, Spare the rod ,spoil the child. The PC Brigade have made the world a miserable place and these young hoods know there is no punishment to fit any crime.:mad: What a sad cruel little girl she must be? In a few years she will have offspring that will be even worse under their mothers tutorlidge. :( We are in a downword spiral and I don't know where the last step is! These 3 youths seem have a life it would seem that revolves around Anarchy !

[QUOTE=tim lewin;26351][B]Judge orders girl to write apology for killing HMS Belfast's cat [/B]A teenager who drowned a rescue cat adopted by the crew of HMS Belfast has been ordered to write a letter of apology as part of a nine-month supervision order. Last Updated: 8:07PM GMT 14 Nov 2008 The 16-year-old, wearing a distinctive white hoodie, was spotted by a security guard throwing the animal into the Thames from a gang plank connecting the ship to its dock in London. Kilo, who was rescued from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, has not been seen since February 9 and is missing presumed dead. The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was part of a gang of three including her boyfriend who were spotted near the ship in the early hours of the morning. She denied hurling the cat into the water, but Camberwell Green Youth Court heard that a security guard recognised her distinctive outfit. The court also heard, at an earlier hearing during which the youngster was found guilty of an offence contravening the Animal Welfare Act, that the girl's boyfriend had written her a letter offering to take the blame. The youngster, who giggled throughout the hearing, also denied claims by police that all three were drinking heavily on the night the cat was drowned. She was ordered to complete a nine-month supervision order by District Judge Sue Green who also insisted that the teenager write a letter of apology to the staff of HMS Belfast. Judge Green said: "The offence is one which has caused enormous distress not merely to staff of HMS Belfast but a lot of right-minded members of the public who were upset by your disgraceful behaviour." Judge Green said that she expected the youngster "whether she liked it or not to write a letter of apology to staff from HMS Belfast and I would like a copy of that letter sent to me". Pc Scott Jarmy, the officer in charge of the case, said that the staff of HMS Belfast had received correspondence from around the world commiserating them for their loss. He said that in the days after Kilo's death the ship's second cat Oscar, also a rescue cat, had disappeared himself and is believed to have made his home elsewhere. Pc Jarmy said: "We were hoping for a brief custodial sentence. She showed contempt for the legal process by laughing during the trial and today but hopefully she will learn from what happened." Asked by the court whether she had anything to say, the youngster said: "I don't know what to say, I'm sorry for what happened."[/QUOTE] I really do despair at incidents such as this because it is so indicative of the way things are now. What is society doing wrong when this sort of thing is not a rare event? I am not P.C., I admit it! I feel like throwing this excuse for a human being into the river after the cat!

As has been commented on elsewhere on the forum, the PC and do-gooder brigades have ensured that these **** know that they will get away with whatever crime they commit with a slap on the wrist or someother nanby-pamby punishment. Even if they re-offend they know that it will only be another slap on the wrist etc. As for not being named because of their age, if their old enough to do such a despicable deed, then they should be named. I'm not a great lover of cats because they use my garden as a toilet, but in no way do I condone such an act as this. Mik

And as I have said elsewhere - if underage then their parents names should be published as well.

As usual, there's been no follow-up to this story. Well, none that I have found. Did the wretched girl write the letter?

Same as you Richard - no more info. Once the media have their money full of shock-horror, they are looking for the next outrage rather than as you say following the story through. I cant speak for anybody else - but I feel the need for some closure over this. For example I would love to hear that the caretaker[s] of Belfast had got hold of a pair of unwanted cats and given them a new home - so at least some good could come out of this...

I would like to see what this girl actually writes that would be counted as a meaningful apology, not that I think it will mean anything to her. As for punishments, if the judges would just apply what the law already allows we might be getting somewhere, but they don't or they won't. regards Vivian

I think this is a case for the Cat of Nine Tails, a dispicable act of cruelty Doug.Birch.

I see merit in both of what you say - but I still would like to see that two unwanted cats had found a home in the Belfast and that a great tradition has not been abandoned because of a despicable and mindless act of cruelty. No matter what else does or does not come from the previous vile and sad act, this has to be the bottom line. "Out of darkness, cometh light." A fine saying that I know will find favour in one of our members at least.

I to see the merit in that in some form or another. Here in the States that form of cruely not tolerated in any form. Moreover, If in this case if the parental control is not up to level it should be then, "maybe" the parent's in conjunction with this child should be held accountable and NOT left up to the court's to give guidance on proper conduct in the public domain.... It is sad that this young generation is in some case's a wild bunch of kid's out of control! Regards CGRET

I've suggested one possible solution here: [url]http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3232[/url]

Yes we have all discussed solutions. I was just trying to put across an additional need which I felt was as well as being an admirable sentiment was also a vital consideration for the future. The need to ensure that the keeping of a ships cat or cats on Belfast was not lost because of this outrage. Sadly despite mentioning this twice all that came back were the same views that whilst I totally agree with them, have already been mentioned.

Here's a thought for you Terry. Maybe some of the English members could donate a cat (or two) to HMS Belfast on behalf of all the members. Assuming that they don't have any now.

On the subject of animal cruelty, I have a non-naurical story from another era of my life. For many years, I worked as a fire and explosion investigator in the private sector. I mostly worked for insurance companies. There was a lot of Arson here in Tennessee, and it was seldom prosecuted. The state had only three investigators. Shelbyville Tennessee is the center of the Tennessee walking horse industry. Everybody there is in some way connected to the horse business. One day I got a call to investigare a fire near Shelbyville. When I got there I found the house had been soaked in kerosene, but the fire had gone out because there was too little air. The windows were all closed. During the fire there had been a horse tethered between the house and the garage, The horse had injuries from pulling on its halter and lead. The Insurance company denied the claim and sued for a declaratory Judgement that they did not have to pay, and we won that case. The District Attorney agreed to prosecute a criminal case on the charge of arson. We thought we had a fool-proof case, but we lost. The maximum penalty then for arson was 5 years. We couldn't bring a criminal case for arson again, because of the double jeopardy prohibition. The DA then got the Idea of prosecuting for cruelty to the horse. The penalty for that was 15 years. We won. Everyone was up in arms over cruelty to the horse, but seemed to think Arson was OK!

Dear All, As you know I do various things to help the Belfast where the ship's director is a good friend. Years ago when HMS Corunna came to the end of her seagoing days the owners presented my father with her wheel, actually the emergency steering position aft wheel which was up on the Staag deck. A kindly chippy (was it one of you?) made a spindle for it and turned it into a glass-topped coffee table which followed him around the MoD until he retired and then went into his office at home where it annoyed everyone who walked past because they caought their legs in the spokes. After he died there was no room at my house for it and it sadly languished in my barn until one day the Belfast director bemoaned to me that when his ship had been handed over someone had made off with the tandem wheels of the emergency steering position to make coffee tables. "A-ha! a goood home if ever i though of one, an a nice reversal of fortune. A ship's wheel belongs in a ship, not under a coffee cup. Duly presented, he drove off with it securely lashed to the spare wheel of his Morgan promising joy in the fullness of time; we have waited a year or so while the machinery, and wheel, were renovated. This has just been finished, here are a couple of shots, tomorrow we will wet the baby's head and I'll take a few more for you. Corunna's wheel is the nearest one. I think it looks absolutely fine, the old chap would be pleased as punch, he served in Belfast from her commissioning to mining in 1939. The steering position is in the centre of the Admiral's flat, directly above the rudder, directly below the centre of the quarterdeck. tim
Attachments :

Well done Tim, every time I visit London I try to go around Belfast again.

Here is the actual wheel in 1956 aboard Corunna. The ship was always heavy to steer to starboard which given my father's predilection for dramatic manouvres caused greif to the QM. He had the chippy onboard replace the king-spoke of the wheel in the wheelhouse with one several inches longer so that when the order came down the voicepipe "Stbd 20" he could stand askance to the wheel and heave it over fast enough to put the lee rail under. Further back in the posts on Corunna and steering there is the mystery story of the "steering breakdown" in the river leading up to Belfast. tim
Attachments :

Dear All, Some time ago we launched an appeal in Russia to try to raise funding to replace both of the masts aboard HMS Belfast, the existing ones are just too degraded by time and tide to be repairable. The rationale behind this was to comemorate Belfast's two years of service on the Kola run (on which she was usually supported by the Tribals). This service culminated in the Battle of North Cape and the sinking of the Scharnhorst on Boxing Day 1943. The idea was to have the masts made from Russian steel, by Russian engineers in a Russian shipyard close to Archangelsk, all very symbolic. The finished items would be shipped in sections to London in a Russian flag ship and then the old one would be removed by a floating crane alongside and the new ones lifted into place. We succeeded in gaining support from then-President Putin and the cabinet and some donations from industrialists but unfortunately the economic wind changed and there is now no longer the abundance of cash in Russia that there was when we started. To help us with the appeal I enlisted the help of a group of Russian artists and film technicians to make a short DVD. I wrote the script, the IWM and the ship provided the materials and images, they did the rest. To launch the appeal we had a party in Moscow in the British Embassy which the Ambassador Sir Anthony Brenton kindly put at our disposal. The party was a huge media success and raised a lot of interest in the project but unfortunately not too much in extra loot! The video we displayed on a big screen greatly impressed one ofthe Embassy's youg security people who went on to post it on You Tube which I discovered only yesterday. Here is the link, it is in russian but there are sub-titles. [url]http://mft39.multiply.com/video/item/56/The[/url] British Royal Navy ship HMS Belfast this would not cut/paste so i had to re-type it myself so i hope it works for you. Will try to C&P later. I will post some pictures of the party later; the booze at the event was sponsored by Russkiy Standard vodka which you can now buy in UK supermarkets, and Massandra Wines from the Crimea, the estate built by Nicholas II to make wine for his own palaces. good luck with the link tim

More Posts

Everything we obtain for this site is shown on the site, we do not have any more photos, crew lists or further information on any of the ships.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE. ALL IMAGES DISPLAYED ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT LAW, AND ARE OWNED BY CRANSTON FINE ARTS OR THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. NO REPRODUCTION OR COPYING ALLOWED ON OTHER WEBSITES, BOOKS OR ARTICLES WITHOUT PRIOR AGREEMENT.

Contact Details
Shipping Info
Terms and Conditions
Cookie Policy
Privacy Policy

Sign Up To Our Newsletter!

Stay up to date with all our latest offers, deals and events as well as new releases and exclusive subscriber content!

This website is owned by Cranston Fine Arts. Torwood House, Torwoodhill Road, Rhu, Helensburgh, Scotland, G848LE

Contact: Tel: (+44) (0) 1436 820269. Email: cranstonorders -at- outlook.com

Return to Home Page