Battle Honours of "Enlarged Southampton" Class Light Cruiser "HMS Belfast" on display on the Thames at London Bridge, 02/73. Scanned slide taken with a Kowa SET. The largest light cruiser built for the Royal Navy at 11,000 tons and the pinnacle of British cruiser design, being very well protected and well armed. She was a fine seaboat and her size enabled her to be continually updated throughout her service life. Completed just before World War II in 1939, she had a distinguished war career, capturing the German liner "Cap Norte" in 1939 but she was also hit by a mine laid by a U-boat and almost broke her back. Somehow she survived and got back to port and was then rebuilt. In December 1943 she played a major part in the Battle of North Cape where she hit the fast German battlecruiser "Scharnhorst" several times enabling the Royal Navy Battleship "HMS Duke of York" to catch up and destroy "Scharnhorst" in dreadfully bad weather off Norway. In 1944 She was the flagship of the Eastern Task Force off Normandy at D-Day. In 1945 she served in the Pacific Fleet and post war she served in the Far East, including participation in the Korean War. She was the last WWII cruiser in commission in the Royal Navy when she was placed In Reserve in 1963 but was not "disposed of" by the RN until 1970 when she bacame a museum ship in the Pool of London.