Spartan. Commissioning on the Moray, August 1943.

THE LIGHT CRUISER

In the mid-1930's the Royal Navy had two classes of light cruiser in service and under construction; the Leander and the Arethusa classes.

Essentially these could be defined as "trade protection" warships whose six inch main armament primarily afforded protection against surface attack.

Leander Class: HMS Orion.

Orion was at Anzio with Spartan. Orion's sister ships Leander and Achilles both served in the
Royal New Zealand Navy with the latter distinguising in the Battle of River Plate.
Another sister, Neptune, was mined in the Mediterranean with a heavy loss of life.

Arethusa Class: HMS Aurora.

The tricolour on B turret shows this photo was taken at the time of the Spanish Civil War.
At the time of Anzio, Aurora was being repaired in Taranto after being badly damaged.
Many of the Spartan crew were subsequently drafted to Aurora.

At the time the Admiralty saw the need for a class of small fleet cruiser to counter any airborne threat and subsequently evaluated seven designs.

The basic design requirements being; the ship must: be small enough to be built in reasonable numbers; be large enough to keep with the fleet in a seaway; have maximum gun power as the primary weapon; have speed and manoeuvrability; to have a small silhouette.

While the hull and propulsion system were largely derivative of the successful Arethusa Class, the main armament of this new Dido Class was the 5.25" high angle/low angle (HA/LA) turret which was also the secondary armament on the new King George V Class battleship. While the Didos were originally designed to have five turrets, as configured in the photo below, supply could not keep up with demand and resulted in some of the class being fitted with the 4.5" dual purpose mounting.

Dido Class: HMS Dido.

Dido was also at Anzio with Spartan and many of the Spartan survivors
were picked up by, or transferred to, Dido and taken to Naples the following day.

While sixteen Didos were originally planned and laid down, the onset of the war and the ensuing shortage of materials meant only ten of the ships were initially completed.

When the programme on the remaining six ships was finally reactivated several significant modification were incorporated. As a result these latter ships became known as "the Improved Didos" or Bellona Class. Perhaps the most obvious difference between Dido and Bellona being the elimination of Q Turret (that immediately in front of the bridge). This meant the bridge could be lowered and lengthened. The lowered bridge also obviated the need for the taller and raked funnels affording the Bellonas an even more compact silhouette.

Bellona Class: HMNZS Bellona.

In 1946, Bellona, along with sister Black Prince, was commissioned into the Royal New Zealand Navy.

After the war the Admiralty planned to further modify all six of the Bellona Class of which only the Royalist was completed. Apart from being fitted with the latest weapon control systems, the most obvious signs in the photo below are the enclosed bridge and lattice masts.

Modified Bellona Class: HMNZS Royalist.

Royalist enters Valletta 1956 on her delivery voyage (via the Suez Crisis) to New Zealand.