HMS Royalist (89)

The Royal Navy intended in late 1943 to use the Bellona class as flagships for escort carrier and cruiser groups for the projected invasion of Normandy and of southern France and for operations with the United States Navy and with the RN fleet in the Pacific Ocean. Royalist quickly diverged from the rest of the class from the start being fitted out - within months of commissioning - with further modifications. These modifications gave it two extra rooms for additional communications with aircraft carriers and Fleet Air Arm aircraft and one of the first implementations of an "Action Information Office" (AIO) – an early operations room for plotting and display of the tactical position and associated mechanical computers to make it more effective. Intended to enhance the vessel's role as a command ship in northern Atlantic waters for operations against the German capital ships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst, the extra equipment took the ship to the limit, leaving minimal comfort and sleeping provision for the crew.[1] The wartime development of radar and the requirement to equip Royalist as a "Carrier Flagship"[2] fitted with AIO increased the crew complement from 484 to 600, adding to the problem.

Royalist was built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Greenock laying down the keel on 21 March 1940. She was launched on 30 May 1942 and commissioned on 10 September 1943. She returned to the dockyard for alterations in November which were not complete until February 1944. Her French motto, Surtout Loyal, translates to "Loyal above all".[2]

A Supermarine Seafire of 807 Naval Air Squadron Fleet Air Arm flying above HMS Royalist during a training flight from the Royal Naval Air Station at Dekhelia, near Alexandria, Egypt in February 1945

Following her commissioning, Royalist spent several months working up, during which time she underwent repairs for trial defects and for alterations and additions. These included modifications for service as a carrier flagship.[2] In March 1944 Royalist joined the Home Fleet and served for a short period in the Arctic theatre. In this capacity, she took part in Operation Tungsten, the carrier raid in April 1944 against the German battleship Tirpitz at anchor in a fjord in Norway, as the flagship of Rear Admiral Arthur La Touche Bisset commanding Force Two (based around five carriers).

After Tungsten Royalist escorted carriers for attacks on shipping off Norway before entering dock for a refit.[3] After completion of the work in June, Royalist was ordered to the Mediterranean to support the Operation Dragoon landings in the south of France in August 1944. Royalist was the flagship (Rear Admiral Thomas Hope Troubridge) of the RN/USN Task Force 88 (comprising carrier groups TG88.1[lower-alpha 1] and TG88.2[lower-alpha 2]) that was to maintain air superiority over the beaches and support the landing operations.

After Dragoon, Royalist joined the Aegean Force preventing enemy evacuation from the islands in the Aegean Sea. On 15 September, accompanied by the destroyer HMS Teazer, she sank the transports KT4 and KT26 off Cape Spatha. She was then stationed in the Aegean until late 1944 when she was then in the eastern Mediterranean before a refit in early 1945 at Alexandria before transferring to the East Indies and joining the Eastern Fleet.

By April 1945 she was with the 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron as flagship, supporting the Rangoon landings of Operation Dracula.

From 10 May Royalist was covering a search group of carriers in Operation Mitre looking for Japanese warships carrying out evacuations in the area of Nicobar and Andaman Islands.[lower-alpha 3] For the remainder of the war she covered the carrier raids against targets in the East Indies and Sumatra.

Scottish author Alistair MacLean served on Royalist during the Second World War, and used his experiences as background for his acclaimed first novel HMS Ulysses (1955) as well as for some of his subsequent works.

Royalist was withdrawn from the East Indies after the conclusion of hostilities and returned home to be mothballed and dehumidified in 1946.

The modernisation of four Dido-class cruisers including Royalist was approved by the Admiralty board on 30 March 1950 and 6 April 1950.[lower-alpha 4][4] Royalist was planned to be the first of four to six Dido- and Bellona-class cruisers to be modernised under the programme, with work planned to begin in January 1953.[5] The decision to prioritise the updating of Royalist and the Didos were for the same reasons the RNZN accepted HMS Black Prince and Bellona as replacements for Gambia in 1946; the Didos were modern, more economical in fuel and manpower,[6] and could be modernised on a realistic timescale and budget by fitting Type 275 radar directors with British adaptions of the US Mk 37 fire control for effective medium range anti-aircraft cover.[7] Previous post war plans to refit the Colony-class and Swiftsure-class cruisers were abandoned in 1950 on cost and time grounds[8][lower-alpha 5] The Dido class had the same 5.25-inch guns as the King George V battleships and the battleship HMS Vanguard .

The reconstruction of Royalist from deep preservation with a new superstructure and advanced interim fire control fitted involved major work but was intended to extend the cruiser's life by only six years to cover the period of maximum danger and threat from the USSR.[lower-alpha 6]

In March 1953 the reconstruction of Royalist was started [10] The works included new superstructure and electronics, but retained the old engines. However after the Conservatives came to power in the general election of 1951, there was a change of focus. Churchill favoured the RAF and the 1952 Navy Estimates (the budget for the RN) was reduced.[11] The massive expansion in defence spending by the Attlee government which allowed the Dido and Town reconstruction programmes to be fully designed was unaffordable by 1952, and the Type 275 Mk 6 radar (which could have allowed immediate fitting of the in-service cruisers HMS Phoebe, Diadem, Cleopatra and Euryalus to give long range AA capability to the 5.25 DP guns), was unavailable in a UK/RN model until 1955 [12] and there was only enough unused stock of earlier equivalent sets[lower-alpha 7] to fit the carriers HMS Eagle and Ark Royal.[13][14]

The delays in equipment made completion of the Tiger class cruisers by 1954 impossible and an alternative plan to reconstruct the larger Town-class light cruisers, HMS Liverpool and HMS Glasgow for air defence was cancelled in 1952.[15]

The RAF had priority, and the Royal Navy's view of development centred on frigates and large carriers - was not liked by Churchill. The cruiser reconstruction program was suspended for three years. The radical defence review in June 1953 saw heavy cuts to the navy but Royalist's modernisation continued under a revised defence White paper in February 1954 which restored the RN programme and plans to complete the aircraft carrier Hermes[lower-alpha 8] and the Tiger-class cruisers, but rejected starting further Dido/Bellona conversions as they lacked the "dual war and peace, cold war capabilities required for the RN".[16][17] [lower-alpha 9] The other Dido's – HMS Sirius and Phoebe – scheduled in the 1952 program to start reconstruction in April 1954,[19] were inspected in 1954 and declared for scrap due to inadequate mothballing combined with the poor wartime steel used in their construction.[20] Plans were made in 1952 for a more comprehensive modernisation of Cleopatra and Diadem starting in June and November 1955 with reboilering, full NBC protection,[21] and new radar[lower-alpha 10][22] but reconstruction by 1955 at 5-6 million pounds per cruiser was twice that of an AD conversion of Battle-class destroyers capable of carrying out some cruiser presence, patrol and GFS roles. The radical reviews of the RN in 1953 and 1954 concluded that the risk of a third world war had lessened. The immediate provision of interim AA cruiser conversions and the upgrade of the Type 41, Type 61 and Type 12 frigates then under construction with 3-inch automatic guns and 40 mm guns instead of 4.5-inch guns was cancelled in February 1955 to reduce the cost of the rearmament programme and reallocate the approved 25 3-inch AA turrets to the Tiger cruisers and scheduled large 18,000 ton missile cruisers.[23] The Type 41 design was upgraded in 1954 with extra communications UHF, HF channels, generator capacity and the addition of LRAW 960/965 radar in February 1954 to play the radar picket role intended for Royalist with Commonwealth aircraft carriers and amphibious groups. This meant the Type 41 no longer had the space and weight to take the massive twin 3-inch mounts. The new Type 275 Mk 6 flyplane fire control systems would be refitted to eight Ca-class destroyers instead of the Didos in 1955-59. It was envisaged the destroyers could play a cruiser role, escorting convoys and task forces, destroying enemy trade and attacking enemy heavy units in torpedo and gun attacks as part of RN destroyer and cruiser groups. The unrealism of the role announced for the Ca destroyers nearly saw the 2nd Ca flotilla reconstruction cancelled in 1954-5 although it is clear the RN saw their real role in the North Sea and south east Asia.[24] The Royal Navy planned on the incorrect basis that guns would be ineffective for AA from 1963, as air targets were assumed to have increased speed from Mach 0.9 to Mach 2. It was decided by February 1955 that low (55-degree) elevation 4.5-inch guns would be adequate and accurate for GFS and sufficient surface cover [25] for the new Type 81 General Purpose frigates and updated Ca destroyers. A reduction in the naval budget with more standardisation of classes and gun calibre was essential and the 4.7-inch and 5.25-inch gun equipped classes of battleships, cruisers and destroyer were transferred to reserve, sold or scrapped.

Five-year life extension refits for Colony-class cruisers Bermuda and Gambia, were completed at half the cost,[26] of a Bellona reconstruction, as was the reconstruction of destroyers as AD/AW picket role planned in 1955 using the 1943 Battle class destroyers completed in 1948. Life extension of the Town class cruisers, HMS Sheffield and HMS Belfast, in reserve for eight years, from 1959 and 1963 respectively, was arguably not a good return on expensive refits. HMS Swiftsure was reconstructed in 1/1957-6/1959, but never recommissioned. The final cruiser refits were as flagships, NATO command and shore bombardment. The older more spacious Town-class with more compartments were much easier to refit with extra electronic systems and more comfortable East of Suez. The later Colony cruisers (1942), Swiftsureclass (1944-45), Dido class ships rebuilt in the USA (1944) and Bellonas (1943) were too cramped for use as flagships or peace time RN diplomacy in the Far East.[27]

The postwar RN programme envisaged that Soviet bombers would be improved Tupolev Tu-4s[lower-alpha 11] or Lincolns flying at 320 mph (510 km/h) at 4.4 mi (7.1 km) height, however, as part of the 1954 May Day parade, the new Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 "Badger" and Myasishchev M-4 "Bison" jet bombers were first shown to the public and the West. Flying 7 mi (11 km) high at 600 mph (970 km/h); it would take 20 seconds for 5.25-inch shells to reach that height. An updated 5.25 cruiser was a possible solution and deterrent to the new Soviet threat, which could not be countered by a frigate with a single 4.5-inch turret.[28]

The New Zealand Prime Minister Sid Holland decided to accept the offer of Royalist in February 1955. By then the cruisers reconstruction was only half completed at a cost of 3 million pounds;[29] New Zealand ultimately paid £4.5 million for the reconstruction. In early 1955 Holland reached the decision after a seven-week visit to the US and UK where he met American vice president Richard Nixon, secretary of state John Foster Dulles, and Churchill. He stressed that a modernised cruiser rebuilt for limited war East of Suez was of more value than modern frigates for escort duties against submarines in broken back war. In Churchill's view, a nuclear war was likely to be a brief exchange of the new thermonuclear weapons and unlikely to last long enough for anti-submarine convoys to be useful. Holland was more influenced by the advice of the British Minister of Defence Harold Macmillan,[30] to refocus NZ defence on the Pacific and shorter lines of communication to South East Asia[31] rather than Middle East. The British First Sea Lord and Admiralty minister stressed the availability of Royalist and that an order of two or three anti-submarine frigates would probably proceed,[32] the Type 12 frigate was untested and unproven and the RN viewed it was desirable to wait for new frigates suitable for NZ conditions with more gunpower and anti-submarine capability.[32]

The cost of Royalist's reconstruction reached £4.5 million.[33] (the same as the cost of two new 2,500-ton frigates). A minority of RNZN opinion, including Captain Peter Phipps, saw it as a policy reversal, stopping the RNZN from maintaining six frigates, good training conditions and commonality with new RN frigates. However Royalist, with massive assistance from the RN and US Navy, was operational, post-refit for nine and half years. After Suez in 1956, the Royal Navy transferred the bulk of the fleet to the Indian and Pacific Oceans from 1957 to 1967. As a result, Royalist could be deployed with the RN carrier fleet.

The ship was handed over to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 9 July 1956. When Captain Phipps went to take command of Royalist in 1955, New Zealand diplomat Frank Corner showed his own view when he noted that Phipps agreed that the ship was a white elephant unsuitable for use in the Pacific. However, The RNZN had operated the Bellona[lower-alpha 12] and Black Prince (the same class as Royalist) since 1946 as part of NZ Defence contribution in 1946–54.[34] Phipps claimed the cruiser's range was limited and it could not even reach Panama without refuelling. However, Phipps also stated publicly when the cruiser reached Auckland, that it was updated as a most modern warship with the capability to take "three targets simultaneously and shoot down air targets with reasonable frequency often on the first salvo"[35]

The Type 12 (Whitby-class) anti-submarine frigates proved in use to have only 2/3rds of the projected endurance of 4000 nm at 15 knots. By comparison, the longer-range diesel version Type 41 Leopard-class anti-aircraft frigates, with two twin 4.5 turrets, would have countered the problem of unreliability with the single turret of the Otago-class. The Type 41 (and Type 61 Salisbury-class aircraft direction frigate) original radar and fire control fit was similar to Royalist and the Type 12 [36][37] except the frigates had AC electrics.

The New Zealand Navy Board, which included three RN officers, argued the RN view that the RNZN needed a cruiser in the South Pacific and to support the RAN/RN. The point of Royalist from the RN viewpoint was a powerful interim late 1950s medium-range AA platform. The space and comfort problems were only minimally altered by any economy in the AIO suite or 40 mm light AA and reducing to three main turrets destroyed the cruiser's primary AA value. The cruiser was an RN cruiser on loan, and not renamed "HMNZS New Zealand". The UK did not regard the RNZN as an independent force compared to the RAN and RCN. Phipps demanded some improvements and refused on 6 April 1956, in front of the dockyard superintendent and 40 assembled dockyard and Royalist RN/RNZN officers to sign the standard RN D448 release form for accepting the Royalist refit was completed to a specified standard,[38][39] while in command of HMS Bellona as an accommodation ship. Phipps finally accepted the cruiser three weeks later after the minimum of adjustments; four showers were added; the officers' baths removed and minor ventilation improvements.

The Royal Navy saw Phipps' action as a disruption of the Suez naval preparations by a colonial upstart and an action unfitting of a serious RN senior officer and gentleman.[38] Post-Suez the RNZN view of Phipps, the RNZN, its officers, and men, was unchanged. New Zealand was viewed as having zero capability for strategic assessment[40] and the RN requested confirmation from the New Zealand government that in 1957 the RN East Asian staff would have authority of Royalist.

Royalist lacked the pre-wetting, ABC spraydown equipment, specifically requested by the RNZN in 1955.[41] The Devonport UK dockyard noted that installing spraydown to wash nuclear fallout was possible, providing a copy of the plan of the pre-wetting system under installation in HMS Sheffield, and suggested the New Zealand dockyard could do the job. In 1957, Royalist like the other Dido-class cruisers had beds only for 47 officers, in a standard cabin; the ratings had only a hammock. Royalist lacked even the single extra room with a sofa for senior rates on other Dido cruisers but did offer speed and extra communications systems and an Action Information Office (AIO) fitted late 1943. The other Dido-class cruiser fitted with AIO, HMS Scylla, was also seen as valuable post-war. Scylla had detonated a mine on 23 June 1944 off Arromanches. It was deemed uneconomic to return her to wartime service. But reconstruction at Chatham began in 1945 with a new fit of two twin Mk 6 3-inch/70 mounts and Type 992 radar approved.[42][43] In 1947, after £350,000 of work, defence cuts, and delays, the cruiser was written off.[44] AIO-fitted cruisers (usually late Colony class and Minotaur class[45]) doubled the effectiveness of armament in RN postwar assessment,.[46]

The concern of New Zealand naval servicemen and Phipps was on living conditions, recruitment, ammunition resupply in the Pacific and an affordable schedule of new frigates. The New Zealand Department of External Affairs viewed the British Treasury as getting rid of an odd cruiser and getting New Zealand to pay for the warships refit.[47][48] However, as with Bellona and Black Prince in 1946, transferring Royalist was supplementing Australian defence. By 1955 the RAN had only light 4.5-inch gun, Battle-class and Daring-class destroyers (building) and light carriers, HMAS Melbourne and Sydney, with obsolete Sea Venom fighters. Royalist could join an RAN task force with Melbourne and Sydney and the cruisers 82 lb (37 kg) shells, offered AA and some deterrence to Sverdlov cruisers. Royalist, had modern two-channel fire control for its guns and radar processing and communications with the RN/ RAN Fleet air arms.[49] The Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was dubious that RN policy in the age of nuclear deterrence, was a "minor fleet to the Far East in peacetime only" and no real counter to piecemeal communist erosion in Southeast Asia.[50][51] The UK defence review released on 10 July 1953, argued that new hydrogen bombs reduced the likelihood of 'long' broken-backed war requiring trans-Atlantic convoys and maintaining cruisers. The RN could not afford new AA gun models to supplement expensive missile developments like the Seaslug missile.[52] Mountbatten publicly defended Royalist as the most modern British cruiser in Auckland when it arrived in December 1956[53] and regarded Phipps as inexperienced and unsuitable.[54] Mountbatten viewed New Zealand's cabinet and officials as out of touch with the Cold War need to maintain ready, broad-based naval and defence capabilities and frequently visited New Zealand to make appeals.[55]

Royalist was fitted with a powerful combination of the standard fit of mid-1950s new RN warships radar, fire control and (three) STAAG 2 close in anti-aircraft systems firing RN 40 mm ammunition. STAAG was a maintenance nightmare[56] withdrawn from the RN in 1959–60.[57] The 5.25-inch DP guns, which were also fitted to Vanguard and at Gibraltar were accurate, unlike the 4-inch AA on the Colony class. Royalist's modernisation for AA/AW and particularly air defence support of RN carrier fighters and strike aircraft would prove useful for Suez, the Malaysian Emergency and the confrontation with Indonesia.

Royalist could escort convoys across the whole distance at a speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph), compared with the Type 12's ability to make the long leg from Suva to Honolulu at 10/15. It was arguable that the traditional cruiser's role in trade defence against Soviet cruisers and raiders was relevant,[58] as was contributing effective AW/AD to RN/ RAN carrier task forces.[59]

HMNZS Royalist at the Devonport Naval Base, 1956

After refitting, Royalist was re-equipped with new equipment as an AA and AD picket for carriers. The cruiser retained 5.25-inch guns, upgraded to RP20 as more powerful high level AA and surface weapons. The refit was to prepare it for all-out hot wars and high-level gun engagement of shadowers.[26] Except for Royalist, this modernisation was cancelled in 1953 on cost grounds.[26] Defence review and RAF assessments that the Sverdlov and Russian air threat in the 1955–58 period was exaggerated. The RAF estimated 300 Badger jet bombers in 1956 - the actual number was 500. The delay in the cruiser programme meant most war legacy cruisers had reached 12 years in service, doubling the cost of structural modernisation and reducing the programme. Only Royalist's update and a ten-year life extension of HMS Ceylon was approved in 1953.[26]

In transferring Royalist to New Zealand, the Royal Navy assumed the RNZN as an extension of the RN and the junior New Zealand service and government followed British command. Around 25% of the officers on Royalist were RN officers on loan or exchange, as were many of the specialist ratings. The RNZN officers on the cruiser were usually of junior experience and had lengthy training with the RN in the UK. Even on the cruiser's final deployment in 1965 on Confrontation patrols in southeast Asia, many RN and RAN officers occupied higher-ranking officer positions on board.[60]

Royalist was paid off on 4 June 1966 and, after eleven years in the RNZN, Royalist reverted to Royal Navy control in 1967. She was sold for scrap to the Nissho Co, Japan, in November 1967 and was towed from Auckland to Osaka on 31 December 1967.

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• Media related to HMS Royalist (ship, 1942) at Wikimedia Commons