WAR AT SEA HMS BELFAST
Eric Grove, a professor of naval history, describes the early career of HMS Belfast, one of the Royal Navy’s most famous warships and a well-known London landmark since 1971.
HMS Belfast under tow after striking a mine in the Firth of Forth.
(IWM)
Sleek, heavily armed and fast, HMS Belfast was a light cruiser of the Town-class – which were vessels of more than 9,000 tons laid down from 1934 in a trio of batches. Each of the three subclasses enhanced the previous design, with the final pair being even larger, at more than 10,500 tons standard displacement, and considerably longer than their predecessors: they were named after the cities of Edinburgh and Belfast.
