HMS NEWFOUNDLAND SERVICE UNDER TWO FLAGS
The last days of 1942 saw a bustle of activity at Swan Hunter’s shipyard on the River Tyne as a new cruiser was prepared for sea. Named Newfoundland after the then British-ruled dominion adjacent to Canada, she successfully completed a series of trials in January 1943 before joining the operational fleet. Soon to be deployed to the western Mediterranean to add weight to the growing Allied offensive in the region, the cruiser was to enjoy almost four decades of service under two different flags.
ORIGINS
was the tenth of 11 Fiji class cruisers that were delivered to the Royal Navy between May 1940 and July 1943. The class traced its origins to the London Naval Treaty of 1936, which placed a more stringent limit on the standard displacement of new cruiser construction of 8,000 tons maximum. This limitation had been driven by a British desire to
