HMS Belfast

HMS Belfast is a Royal Navy heavy cruiser of World War Two, now berthed on the Thames River near the Tower Bridge in London and serving as a museum ship. The ship is administered by the Imperial War Museum.

Launched in March 1938 as part of the Town class, HMS Belfast was the largest heavy cruiser ever built for the Royal Navy, with a displacement of 13,175 tons. She served with distinction during both the Second World War (in which she participated in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst, the Normandy Landings, and the force of Operation Zipper intended to eject the Japanese from Malaya but turned into a relief operation by the Japanese surrender) and the Korean War, in which her guns were used to support United Nations forces. She was decommissioned from the Royal Navy in 1963. She was saved for the nation in 1971 and towed to a new berth at Symon's Wharf just upstream of Tower Bridge and opened to the public on Trafalgar Day that same year.