HMS Norfolk (78)

HMS Norfolk was a County-class cruiser heavy cruiser of the Royal Navy; along with her sister ship HMS Dorsetshire (40) she was part of a planned four-ship subclass. She served throughout the Second World War, where she was involved in the sinking of the German Navy's battleships GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck and GERMAN BATTLESHIP Scharnhorst.

Construction
She was laid down in July 1927 at Govan by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd and launched on 12 December 1928. She was commissioned on 30 April 1930.

Inter-war period
In September 1931, the crew of the Norfolk were part of a mutiny that later became known as the Invergordon Mutiny. The ship later served with the Home Fleet until 1932 and was then Flagship of the 8th Cruiser Squadron on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda, between 1932 and 1934. Ships based at Bermuda spent much of the year cruising around the Americas individually or in small groups, while being available to respond to states of emergency (including hurricane relief and protecting British interests during civil wars such as the Cristero War in Mexico) anywhere in the region. The entire squadron would exercise at Bermuda. Norfolk left Bermuda, and the station, on Wednesday, 21 November, 1934, for England, in storm conditions. At 11:50 am the following morning at 35.39 North, 59.28 West, the Norfolk crew spotted the 25' cutter of Commander R.G. Graham, Royal Navy (Retired), bound single-handed from Newfoundland to Bermuda, where Graham had been based during the First World War on HMS Carnarvon. Graham had been delayed at Newfoundland for two months by illness or he "would never have attempted the voyage at this time of year". He did not sight Norfolk, which radioed Bermuda of the sighting but was unable to make a positive identification or to effect a rescue. Graham was beyond the point of exhaustion, did not know his longitude within 100 miles and was unsure of his latitude, his chronometer watch had broken, and he was navigating by dead reckoning while bailing water for days as his vessel was pounded and his dinghy washed away. He "never expected for one minute to come through", a prognosis shared by other mariners. By "the most amazing bit of luck" on the morning of Monday 26 November, when he was sailing under a stay-sail, he noticed the change in water colour (as he passed over the northern edge of the Bermuda Pedestal), then spied the beacon on North Rock shortly before he would have run over the northern reefline (which lies up to 14 miles from shore). The weather prevented him working around to the main shipping channel (at Bermuda's East End) through the reef, so he worked around the West End and when he was off Gibb's Hill a motor-boat came out and towed him to Ely's Harbour.

From 1935 to 1939, Norfolk served with the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, before coming home to refit in 1939, being still in dockyard hands when war was declared.

Second World War
At the outbreak of war in 1939, Norfolk was part of the 18th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet, and was involved in the chase for the German battleships GERMAN BATTLESHIP Gneisenau and GERMAN BATTLESHIP Scharnhorst. She was soon receiving numerous repairs for damage that she had received, not to mention vital modifications to the ship. Her first repairs were carried out in Belfast, after damage from a near-miss by a torpedo from GS U-47 (1938), the submarine responsible for sinking the battleship HMS Royal Oak (08) at Scapa Flow.

Shortly afterward, bomb damage that she had received from a heavy air raid by Kampfgeschwader 26 at Scapa Flow on 16 March 1940 forced her into yet another repair, this time on the Clyde. After these repairs had been completed Norfolk proceeded to a shipyard on the River Tyne for a new addition to her equipment – a radar set.

In December 1940, Norfolk was ordered to the South Atlantic on trade protection duties. Operating out of Freetown as part of Force K she participated in the hunt for the pocket battleship GERMAN CRUISER Admiral Scheer.. In January 1941 Norfolk, under the command of Capt. Phillips, joined in a search for the German auxiliary cruiser GERMAN AUXILIARY CRUISER Kormoran in the South Atlantic. In February, she escorted Atlantic troop convoys, but by May she had returned to Icelandic waters. Norfolk was the second ship to sight the German battleship GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck, after HMS Suffolk (55) another County-class cruiser she was patrolling with. Norfolk and Suffolk continued to trail the German battleship before and after the Battle of the Denmark Strait; Suffolk had to break off as it was low on oil. Norfolk later joined the battleships HMS Rodney (29) and HMS King George V (41) and her sister Dorsetshire as part of the force that finally sank Bismarck in the German ship's final battle.

From September onward, she was employed as an escort for the arduous Arctic Convoys. During this period, Dorsetshire had been bombed and sunk by Japanese torpedo and dive bombers in the Pacific Theatre as part of the Eastern Fleet's attempts to dodge Japanese advances on Ceylon. Norfolk was part of the cruiser covering force of Convoy JW 55B when it engaged Scharnhorst, on 26 December 1943. She scored three hits on the German ship, and received several 11-in shell hits (all passing through the thin-skinned ship without exploding) in return, before she withdrew; Scharnhorst was later caught and sunk by the battleship HMS Duke of York (17) and her escorting cruisers and destroyers.

She sustained damage (especially to X-turret and barbette) in that confrontation, and she was subsequently repaired/refitted (losing X-turret in favour of additional AA guns) on the Tyne, which prevented her from being involved in the historic D-day landings. Norfolk was the flagship of Vice Admiral Rhoderick McGrigor off North Norway during Operation Judgement, Kilbotn, an attack by the Fleet Air Arm on a U-boat base which destroyed two ships and GS U-711 on 4 May 1945, in the last air-raid of the war in Europe. When the war came to a close, Norfolk left Plymouth for a much needed refit at Malta, after transporting the Norwegian Royal family back to Oslo after their five-year exile in London. This was followed by service in the East Indies as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies.

Post-war
In 1949, Norfolk returned to Britain and was placed in Reserve. She was sold to BISCO for scrapping on 3 January 1950. On 14 February 1950, she proceeded to Newport, arriving on 19 February, to be broken up after 22 years of service, in which she gained the Norfolk lineage the majority of her battle honours, including her last.

Battle honours

 * Atlantic 1941
 * GERMAN BATTLESHIP Bismarck 1941
 * Arctic 1941–1943
 * North Africa 1942
 * North Cape 1943
 * Norway 1945