page_title: HMS Bellona (63)
section_title: Royal Navy
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Bellona (63) / Operational history / Royal Navy
caption_attribution_description: A Force 12 plus gale was blowing when this picture was taken from the bridge as HMS BELLONA plunged through mountainous seas on a convoy to Russia. Note the huge wave in front of the ship. Belladonna sailed in the convoy JW 64 Feb 1945 from The Clyde to The Kola Inlet
context_page_description: HMS Bellona was the name ship of her sub-class of light cruisers for the Royal Navy. She was the first of the fourth group of Dido-class cruisers. Built to a modified design with only four twin 5.25-inch turrets, but with remote power control for quicker elevation and training, combined with improved handling and storage of the ammunition. The light AA was improved over earlier Dido cruisers, with six twin oerilikons and three quad "pom pom".
  Entering service in 1943, the cruiser operated during World War II as an escort for the Arctic convoys, and as a jamming ship to prevent the use of radio-controlled bombs and in support of the Omaha Beach landings.
  In 1946 the cruiser was loaned to the Royal New Zealand Navy. Although not involved in the 1947 Royal New Zealand Navy mutinies, at the start of the month, 140 sailors elected to not return to the ship in protest at the poor pay and working conditions and how their colleagues had been treated. Fifty-two sailors were eventually marked as deserters while the others were charged with various lesser offences.
  Bellona was returned to the Royal Navy in 1956. She did not reenter service and was scrapped two years later.
context_section_description: Bellona participated in several Russian Convoys, both before and after D-Day. Prior to D-Day she took over the Channel patrol as a replacement for the cruiser Charybdis, which had been sunk off the Channel Islands by a radio-controlled bomb. On arrival at Plymouth, Bellona was fitted with equipment for jamming the radio signals that controlled the bombs. Bellona and seven destroyers were involved, including Tartar. The codename for the patrol force was 'Snow White and the seven dwarfs'.
  During the day the force anchored in Plymouth Sound, as air defence for Plymouth. At dusk, under cover of darkness and maintaining radio and radar silence, the force would proceed at full speed to the French coast to keep the German Narvik-class destroyers bottled up in Brest. The force would return to Plymouth by daylight. By day the RAF would patrol the Channel and by night, Plymouth.
  On D-day Bellona's duty was to help to support Omaha Beach, in the American sector, where she was placed along with US battleships USS Texas and USS Arkansas under the command of Rear admiral Carleton F. Bryant. As the army advanced, Bellona fired her guns inshore at targets spotted by aircraft and forward observation officers off-shore. On several occasions Bellona returned to Plymouth to get more ammunition and change her gun barrels because of wear. At night Bellona went close inshore to provide supporting fire.
  In July 1944 Bellona covered the carrier raids against the German battleship Tirpitz but the following month was back in the Channel, attacking German convoy traffic in the Bay of Biscay and off the Brittany coast.
  Bellona returned to northern waters, for the remainder of the war, sailing on Arctic convoys and accompanying carrier and cruiser sweeps along the Norwegian coastline before arriving in Copenhagen in time for the German surrender in May 1945.
  After the war she was part of the 10th Cruiser Squadron until 1946 when she was loaned to the Royal New Zealand Navy.
caption: A Force 12 plus gale was blowing when this picture was taken from the bridge as HMS Bellona plunged through mountainous seas on a convoy to Russia. Note the huge wave in front of the ship
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