NORFOLK HMS cruiser 1930

[aukepalmhof]

Built as a cruiser under yard No 628 by Fairfield in Govan for the Royal Navy.
08 July 1927 keel laid down.
12 December 1928 launched as the HMS NORFOLK, one of the Dorsetshire class heavy cruisers.
Displacement 9.995 tons standard, 13,775 tons full load. Dim. 630 x 66 x 17ft.
Powered by four Parsons geared steam turbines, 80,000 shp, four shafts speed 32 knots.
Bunker capacity 3,200 tons of oil.
Armament 6 – 8 inch, 8 – 4 inch AA, 12 – 2pdrs pompoms, 8 – 21 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 852 during peace
30 April 1930 completed.

After completion a unit of the Home Fleet in the Atlantic during 1930/32. Thereafter in service on the America and West Indies Stations between 1932/34.
From 1935 to 1939 served at the East India Station, returned to the U.K. for a refit in 1939.
She was still in dry-dock hands when war was declared on Germany.
06 September 1939 joined the 8th Cruiser Squadron with the Home Fleet in the Denmark Straits.
In early December, with the return of HMS BERWICK from the West Indies and HMS DEVONSHIRE from the Mediterranean, the NORFOLK with HMS SUFFOLK re-formed the 1st Cruiser Squadron, operating with the Home Fleet in northern waters.
16 March 1940 while at Scapa Flow she came under air attack by German planes, she was bombed and hit, went to the Clyde for repair the repair took from March 1940 until June 1940.
After repair she joined again the Home Fleet.
December 1940 sailed to the South Atlantic for protection of the shipping lines, operating from Freetown as part of Force K and she was also tasked with the hunt for the German warship ADMIRAL SCHEER, and in January 1941 the raider KORMORAN.
February 1941 escorted Atlantic troop convoys, and returned to Iceland waters in May, she patrolled the Denmark Straits, at the time the German battleship BISMARK sortie in the North Atlantic. She was present by the final sinking of the battleship, having taken part in the whole action from her discovery in the Demark Straits.
From July to September was the HMS NORFOLK refitted, and the rest of the war was she used for Arctic convoy duties to Russia.
She was used in the action against the SCHARNHORST off the North Cape in December 1943, sailed with convoy JW 55B which sailed with 19 ships from Loch Ewe on 20 December, she was hit hard by shells fired by the SCHARNHORST on 26 December 1943. Five crew killed and five wounded.
Repaired and refitted on the Tyne from January 1944 until November 1944, after repair returned to the Home Fleet.
Took parts in the sweeps along the Norwegian coast in 1945 until the end of the war.
05 June 1945 carried King Haakon of Norway to Norway, arrived 08 June in Oslo.
October 1945 joined the 5th Cruiser Squadron in the East Indies, and from November 1945 she was the flagship there.
1949 Sailed to Simonstown for a refit before she sailed to Great Britain where she arrived on 3 May 1949 in Devonport.
Paid off after arrival and put in Reserve, before laying up at Falmouth.

03 January 1950 handed over to BISCO for scrapping, and she arrived under tow by Cashmore, Newport for breaking up on 19 February 1950.

Bahamas 15c 2001 sg?, scott?
Gibraltar 1982 15½p sg 476 (crest only)


Source: Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II. http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono ... orfolk.htm
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