HMNZS Bellona

Specifications

 

Type: Improved Dido Class

Pennant No.: C63

Commissioned: 1/10/1946 – Paid off 17/4/1956

Displacement (full load): 7410 tonnes

Dimensions: 156.1m length, 154.2m height, 15.6m beam, 5.6m draught

Engines: 4 steam turbines, max speed 30 knots

               Cruising turbine max speed 21 knots

Armament:      8 x 130mm guns in four two-gun turrets

                        12 x 2pdr pom-poms

                        12 to 20 40mm anti-aircraft guns (removed at the end of WW2)

                         6 x 40mm guns added in the 1950s

                         6 x torpedo tubes

Complement: 550 officers and men

 

History:

This vessel was ordered by the Royal Navy in 1937. It was built in the Glasgow shipyards and completed in October 1943. Due to wartime shortages the design was changed during the construction. Two other ships were built, HMS Black Prince and HMS Royalist.[i]

 

Royal Navy Service:

HMS Bellona was commissioned into active service on 30 September 1943. She served with the Royal Navy in the North Sea to the Norwegian coast, participated in raids on the French coast and the D-Day landings in June 1944 and also raided the German battleship Tirpitz in Alten Fjord, Norway. Until the end of the Second World War Bellona served with the Russian convoys.[ii]

 

Royal New Zealand Navy Service:

In the immediate post-war period, the government decided to replace HMNZS Achilles and Gambia with two cruisers.  Bellona was selected as one of the replacements. In mid-1946, Bellona began a refit at Chatham and was commissioned into RNZN service on 1 October 1946. The crew came from the Achilles and Gambia who both had returned to service under the Royal Navy. Bellona arrived in NZ on 15 December 1946 to become the RNZN flagship. Bellona would fulfil the bulk of the duties required of these vessels in the role begun by HMS Chatham in the post-First World War Period.[iii] Interestingly, Bellona, the corvette Arbutus, and the fleet auxiliaries were the only vessels in service with the RNZN due to lack of manpower in the immediate post-war period.[iv] 

 

On 31 March 1949 Bellona was designated the flagship of the New Zealand squadron and would serve with the Loch-class frigates purchased from Britain in 1948. During its time in the Navy, the vessel made numerous port visits around NZ and from May 1947 an annual Pacific island cruise as part of training. Also there were exercises in the late 40s with RAN and CMT training 1950-51. In March 1949 Bellona used her guns for the last time when she sunk an old coal hulk in Palliser Bay.

 

When Bellona left Nelson port in November 1948, her bow failed to clear the mudflats off Haulashore Island. She was stuck fast for eight minutes and did not have any damage. It was a case of “all hands aft, engines full astern, and ‘everybody jump’ in unison”.[v] Bellona came free when the combined weight of 550 men (about 40 tonnes) did the trick. Unfortunately two of the cooks jumped overboard and had to be picked up. Earlier in June a serious boiler room fire occurred. And in December 1948, two ratings were killed in a ship’s boat accident while off anchor at Oamaru. In 1949, six men were injured when a gun charge flashed back in B turret during exercises with the RAN.[vi]

 

In March 1951 due to the waterfront strike, Bellona was ordered back to New Zealand from exercises to provide crew for handling strike-bound cargo on the wharves. Her crew worked the Wellington, Auckland and New Plymouth wharves alongside Army and Airforce personnel. Her “presence in the capital” was important in at least two ways. She “represented a 6270 ton (7801 tonnes) slice of authority” and could house and feed the men working on the wharves.  The sailors worked long hours when compared with the waterfront workgangs. Once the strike was broken in July 1951 the ship and its men returned to normal duty.[vii]

 

While on exercise with the RAN in February 1951, an aircraft from the carrier HMAS Sydney accidentally fired a practice rocket at the Bellona instead of the towed target. The missile struck the ship, damaged a whaler that had just been repaired, tore a hole in the quarterdeck aft of Y turret and bounced over the side. For the crew’s “feelings [towards the RAN] ran high for a time”.[viii] Fortunately, none of the crew was injured and the damage was repaired quickly.[ix]

 

Due to the cost of a refit for the Bellona, the Royal Navy decided that her sister-ship HMS Royalist was to be loaned to the RNZN for an indefinite period in place of the Bellona. In 1952, Bellona conducted a training voyage to Britain in order to bring back naval stores. Whilst in Britain she participated in a NATO exercise and arrived back in NZ on 14 December 1952 to be paid off.[x] Bellona’s company after arriving in Britain, commissioned the Royalist[xi]

 

In February 1953, Bellona put into reserve as a HQ ship of the reserve fleet, accommodation for ships undergoing refits, and training. Was refitted in 1954 and had sea-trials in May-June.[xii] HMNZS Bellona was recommissioned from reserve in September 1955. She sailed in October 1955 and arrived in Portsmouth in December 1955 and was prepared to be paid off and returned to the Royal Navy. The crew transferred to the refitted Royalist. Bellona was paid of from the Royal Navy in April 1956 and put into reserve. In 1958 Bellona was sold for breaking up and sent to a breakers yard near Swansea.[xiii]