page_title: HMS Ajax (22)
section_title: Two years out of action (1942 & 1943)
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Ajax (22) / Two years out of action (1942 & 1943)
caption_attribution_description: IWM caption&#160;: PRIME MINISTER WINSTON CHURCHILL DURING HIS VISIT TO GREECE, 28 DECEMBER 1944. Prime Minister Winston Churchill leaving HMS AJAX to attend a conference ashore. Athens can be seen in the background
context_page_description: HMS Ajax was a Leander-class light cruiser which served with the Royal Navy during World War II. She became famous for her part in the Battle of the River Plate, the Battle of Crete, the Battle of Malta and as a supply escort in the Siege of Tobruk. This ship was the eighth in the Royal Navy to bear the name. In February 1942, she was adopted by the civil community of Halifax.
context_section_description: On 6 February she departed Suez for the United Kingdom via the Cape of Good Hope, calling at Mombasa (9 March) and Freetown (9 April), arriving in the Clyde on 14 April. On 6 June, she was taken in hand for refit at Chatham Dockyard, which lasted until September. Her anti-aircraft (AA) gunnery was augmented by eleven Oerlikon 20 mm cannons. Various radar sets were also installed; fire control radars for her main guns (Type 284), AA armament (Type 285) and barrage control (Type 283); an improved aircraft warning radar (the Type 281, replaced the Type 279), surface warning radar was also fitted, (the Type 272). Her aircraft facilities were removed. Ajax underwent post refit trials in October and after being recommissioned on 24 October, she worked-up at Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet during November. On 31 December, she joined Force Q at Bône, in Algeria for the interdiction of enemy convoys and convoy defence.
  Ajax was disabled by a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb—dropped by an aircraft from II./SKG 10 or II./StG 3— hitting "B" boiler room on 1 January 1943 while at Bône, after convoy escort duty; she was towed on 7 January to Gibraltar for temporary repairs, which continued into February. Permanent repairs were arranged to take place in the United States and she was taken in hand at Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia; these lasted until September. During repair work, Ajax was equipped with US quadruple 40mm anti-aircraft mountings with provision for a British fire control radar Type 282, IFF Type 242 fitted and a US fire control radar replaced her existing Type 284. After post refit trials in October, she returned to Britain, via Bermuda, in November and the fitting of British equipment was completed. Ajax was recommissioned at Portsmouth on 25 December and joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow once more for work-up before returning to the Mediterranean in February 1944 after nearly two years out of action – apart from just a couple of days in January 1943.
caption: Winston Churchill leaves Ajax to attend a conference in Athens, 28 December 1944. Captain Cuthbert: "I hope, Sir, that while you are with us we shan't have to open fire...if we are asked to give supporting fire I must do so." Winston Churchill: "Pray remember, Captain, that I came here as a cooing dove of peace, bearing a sprig of mistletoe in my beak but far be it from me to stand in the way of military necessity."[16]
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