[tense music] ROB (VOICEOVER): Majestic, powerful and deadly-- for over 400 years, British ships ruled the waves.

These magnificent vessels helped shape history across the globe.

I'm Rob Bell.

And in this series, I'll be exploring six of the world's greatest ships.

This time, I uncover the extraordinary story of HMS Belfast.

OK, I didn't expect that.

ROB (VOICEOVER): The warship that helped bring down the Nazi empire.

ROB: And with this information, a deadly trap could be laid.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Battling the world's most dangerous oceans, she took the fight to the enemy.

ERIC: And there is the German battleship taken completely by surprise.

ROB (VOICEOVER): In Britain's darkest hour, Belfast was the ship who dared and won.

♪ ♪ The North Atlantic, December, 1943.

Hitler has unleashed one of the great beasts of the Nazi war machine, the battleship Scharnhorst.

♪ ♪ Outgunned and outmanned is her pursuer, a British warship, the HMS Belfast, a lone warrior heading for what seems like certain death.

This is her story.

Launched on the eve of the Second World War, this ship has taken part in some of the most monumental moments in modern history.

Yet, just two months into the war, the Belfast was almost destroyed by a massive explosion.

But this ship is a born survivor with quite a story to tell.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Built in 1938, HMS Belfast was designed to deliver the perfect balance of speed and firepower.

She was a cruiser, smaller but faster than a battleship with a sleek lined hull that could cut through the roughest of seas.

Belfast was swift, but she was also deadly, armed to the teeth with guns that would play a vital role in bringing down the Nazi empire.

♪ ♪ These gun turrets weigh in at 175 tons.

They can fire a 112-pound shell at a target 14 miles away with pinpoint accuracy.

[gunfire] [calm music] ROB (VOICEOVER): One man who knows how to deliver this kind of precision is John Harrison, who took care of the guns.

That would go on to play a crucial part in D-Day.

JOHN: The fighting efficiency of A turret, that's the one at the front, and that was my duty.

Everything appertaining to A turret had to be in 100% working condition for immediate action.

Otherwise, why have you got guns?

[gunfire] [tense music] ROB (VOICEOVER): John even slept alongside his turret.

♪ ♪ Today, Belfast's weapons, including her anti-aircraft guns, are still kept in immaculate working order.

Hello.

- Hello, Rob.

- Andy, is it?

- Andy.

- Good to meet you.

How do you actually load this gun?

Initially, you'd have to manually open the breach and compress the springs.

OK, so we've opened the breach there.

ANDY: It's ready for a shell.

ROB: This is a four-inch shell here?

This is a four-inch drill shell.

It weighs 67 pounds.

And that would be rammed up into there.

How much would you say this weighs?

67 pounds.

Can I have a little go on that?

Oh, yeah.

Jeez!

Yeah, that is heavy.

So once you've got your shell in there, the breach is closed, how do you actually fire it?

We have a mechanical trigger, which is operated like this.

And that's the firing pin going.

So if you want to try the other one, it's all yours.

ROB (VOICEOVER): But Andy's got a little surprise in store for me.

- I just pull that too?

That's all you do, is it?

You just pull that in.

[gunfire] Hey, what's going-- OK, Andy, I didn't expect that.

Have we just fired a four-inch gun here?

Well, hopefully not-- not literally.

ANDY: A simulation of it.

ROB: Right, OK.

And so what rate could you be firing out of here?

ANDY: According to our books, they could fire 20 rounds per minute per barrel.

Wow.

[gunfire] ROB (VOICEOVER): This awesome firepower was there for a reason.

During the late 1930s, political tensions were on the rise as Hitler and Nazi Germany challenged the world order.

[calm music] Just two months after Belfast began her naval career, Hitler invaded Poland.

At 11:00 AM on the 3rd of September, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany.

[siren] 40 minutes later, on board HMS Belfast, the officer of the watch raced to the captain and handed him a small piece of paper without saying a word.

It was an order from the British admiralty simply stating, commence hostilities at once with Germany.

HMS Belfast's war had officially begun.

ROB (VOICEOVER): With Britain and her allies yet to engage on land, this was a war that began at sea.

In the waters around Britain, the Allies mounted a naval blockade, patrolling the northern seas to intercept merchant ships carrying supplies to the ports of Germany.

♪ ♪ On the 9th of October, Belfast spotted a ship bearing the name Ancona and flying a Swedish flag.

However, as the Belfast drew closer, the sharp-eyed crew noticed the ship's name had been painted over.

Definitely suspicious.

[alarm] ROB: The only way to be sure where the ship really came from was to send over a boarding party.

They had to row over to the suspect vessel and then scramble a 50-foot rope ladder up the side of the ship, easier said than done in the rough North Sea with waves as big as a house.

[tense music] ROB (VOICEOVER): Pitching and tossing, the tiny boat made it to the Ancona.

The boarding party struggled up the rope ladder and onto the suspect ship.

♪ ♪ ROB: As soon as they could, a group of Royal Navy engineers raced down to the engine room.

♪ ♪ Their job was vital.

If the ship turned out to be German, the crew could open the bilge pumps, sinking the ship.

And with the valves secure, the captain was questioned and soon admitted that the ship was indeed German.

Her real name was the Capnorte.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Mission accomplished.

The Capnorte was one of the largest merchant ships captured by the British Navy during World War II.

And this is a classic case of what a cruiser was meant to do, to command the seas, to exercise command of the sea.

And that's what Belfast was doing.

♪ ♪ The Belfast's crew were treated as heroes in the Navy's canteens and mess halls.

But the war was about to heat up.

Rumors were rife that the Germans had developed a new weapon, invisible to the naked eye.

It lurked on the seabed.

ROB (VOICEOVER): And HMS Belfast would soon feel the force of its devastating power.

[suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ [tense music] ♪ ♪ 1939, while Britain readied herself for the onset of war, HMS Belfast was a vital part of the Navy task force patrolling the North Sea.

♪ ♪ Her orders were to be battle ready 24 hours a day, so she'd taken on an extra 200 crew, eating and sleeping cheek by jowl.

♪ ♪ ROB: Now, hammocks were slung anywhere and everywhere-- the engine rooms, boiler rooms, corridors, absolutely anywhere.

Sailors would swear that it was the most comfortable way to sleep at sea as it would gently sway back and forth to match the roll of the ship in heavy seas.

Now, seeing as we've got one here, feels like I should probably give it a try.

And I've been told the best way to get in is to hoist yourself up on something solid and then swing the rest of your body in.

Um, I'll try this.

I have no idea if this is gonna work or not.

I need quite a swing here.

All right, now what?

Jeez!

OK, stabilize.

Well, OK, and I'm in.

Whoa, I wasn't quite sure how that was gonna go.

All right, I'm in now.

Well, that's just me trying to get in.

Imagine everyone trying to get in at the same time.

[suspenseful music] ROB (VOICEOVER): For the ship's officers, life on board was rather different.

ERIC: Inevitably, the social structure of the Navy reflected the social structure of Britain.

Most officers came from the middle class, upper middle class even.

To become an officer, you had to go to Dartmouth, which was effectively a public school, and you had to pay 850 pounds a year, the price of a house.

So you had to be quite rich to enter the officer corps.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): One of the privileges of the officer class was separate sleeping quarters.

This is an officer's cabin.

And as you can see, there's far more space in here than the men had down below.

They had their own drawers, a wash basin, and a bed, look, with a mattress.

But something else, far more important on a ship with a thousand other men-- a little bit of privacy.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Despite the obvious class divide, relations between officers and men were generally good, united by a common purpose.

On the decks, the crew were on constant lookout for enemy ships and the dreaded U-boats which prowled below.

Rumors were rife that the Nazis had developed a devastating new weapon that could take out entire ships.

And Belfast was about to get a taste of its awesome power.

♪ ♪ JOHN: I was down below checking air bottles.

And suddenly, the deck seemed to come up, and it bounced three times.

I thought, well, that's unusual.

[explosion] [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ The ship was plunged into darkness as the electrics failed.

♪ ♪ The telephones were down, so the captain couldn't communicate with the crew.

And the sickbay had to be abandoned as it flooded with oil.

[alarm] ROB (VOICEOVER): At this point, none of the sailors had any idea what had hit them.

JOHN: After the ship had settled down, I made my way out on the deck to be greeted with the fact we're in danger of sinking.

ROB (VOICEOVER): There was no sign of an enemy ship or U-boat.

So what was the cause of the massive explosion which had blasted the ship?

All that chaos was down to one of these, a magnetic mine.

Thankfully, this one's been deactivated.

The Germans dropped them into shallow waters where they'd sink to the seabed and lie undetected.

Undetected, that is, until a large steel ship passed over the top of them.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ ERIC: A magnetic mine reacts to the magnetic field of the ship.

So as this large piece of metal passes over it, it so affects the magnetic field around the mine that the mine detonates and explodes.

[explosion] The main thrust of the German maritime offensive against Britain wasn't submarines or surface ships.

It was actually magnetic mines.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): The deadly power of these new magnetic mines posed a massive threat to the Royal Navy.

For decades, they'd been used to dealing with an altogether different type of mine.

Contact mines floated on the surface.

And although these mines were destructive, ships didn't always sink if they hit one.

♪ ♪ Conventional mines exploded on contact, puncturing a hole in the side.

And if the ship didn't sink immediately, it was relatively easy to fix.

All you had to do was rivet some new steel plates back over the hole.

Things were very different with magnetic mine blasts.

Because the explosion happened on the seabed, the entire force of the blast was directed upwards towards the keel of the ship.

When the Belfast was hit, the damage initially seemed superficial.

But the concentration of the blast had actually bent the whole ship out of shape.

ROB (VOICEOVER): With her keel critically damaged, Belfast was now unseaworthy.

The stricken cruiser and her shocked crew were towed back to port.

[tense music] ROB: Some of the most visible evidence of the damage the mine did is right here on the boat deck.

You can see here where these steel plates have been welded down over the deck right across her breadth where the explosion nearly broke the ship in two.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): Magnetic mines caused heavy losses among allied ships during the war.

Although Belfast's hull is ship-shape now, a clue to the power of these weapons lies underneath the ship.

♪ ♪ Marine engineer Jane Templeton and her team of divers are inspecting Belfast's 613-foot hull for signs of damage and corrosion.

ROB: Is there an element of danger in this work, considering the location?

JANE: Yeah, there is.

So we only dive at high tide slack or low tide slack so the diver can go down safely without getting pulled too hard either way.

We can talk to the diver from the boat.

ROB: Yeah?

MARINE ENGINEER: OK, so you.

1.5 meters away from the prop.

JANE: So when they're right underneath the vessel, we have full communication with them.

And because we're in the Thames, it's incredibly dark under there.

You can't see more than 30 centimeters in front of you, definitely not.

But it's primarily a tactile survey, so they do it all by feeling.

I guess you know about the history of it as well and where she had been hit, where she had suffered stress in her structure.

Yeah, we've been learning as we're on the job.

We've been really reliant on the historical drawings to see how the vessel's structured and sharing that information with the divers.

[suspenseful music] ROB (VOICEOVER): Under the waterline, it's possible to see close up the solid steel plating of the Belfast.

♪ ♪ Incredibly, although in places the metal is a chunky 10 centimeters thick, this steel armor was no match for the power of the German magnetic mine.

♪ ♪ In November, 1939, Belfast's war was over before it had really begun.

♪ ♪ ROB: Once she'd been towed back to port, it was clear that repairing HMS Belfast was not gonna be a quick fix.

Some argued it would be better for the war effort to remove her guns, fix those to new ships, and send the rest of her to the scrapyard.

After just two months service in the Royal Navy, the fate of the Belfast hung in the balance.

But she had a very powerful advocate, Winston Churchill.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Underneath the bowler hat was a Navy man.

Churchill at the time was First Lord of the Admiralty.

He insisted the cruiser should be saved.

[tense music] During the next three years, she would undergo the rebuild of a lifetime.

♪ ♪ ROB: And the admiralty were determined that when she sailed again, the Belfast would be one of the most advanced cruisers afloat.

She'd have new armor, state-of-the-art radio communications, sonar, and crucially, a radar system.

♪ ♪ ERIC: By the time Belfast was ready for service, a great technological revolution, you might say, had taken place in naval warfare.

Radar was now much more important.

You could give Belfast the latest radar fit.

Other technologies had improved, so therefore, the Belfast that came out of refit was a very different and more capable ship than the Belfast that had gone in.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): With a newly-armored hull, updated weaponry, and 10 different types of radar, Belfast was the most technologically-advanced and powerful cruiser in the Royal Navy.

♪ ♪ But a new threat loomed on the horizon, and it wouldn't be long before the young ship would come face to face with one of the terrors of the Nazi war machine.

[suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ [calm music] ♪ ♪ [explosion] ROB (VOICEOVER): By the skin of her teeth, HMS Belfast had escaped the scrapyard.

She was back, bristling with the latest radar technology.

And in 1942, she rejoined the war.

♪ ♪ Her crew had been issued with a special uniform for tropical weather, so the ship was alive with speculation about where they were going, perhaps the Pacific Ocean to take on the battleships of the Imperial Japanese Fleet, or the North African Coast to fight the Italian Navy.

It must have come as quite a shock when they were told that they would actually be heading to one of the coldest places on Earth, the Arctic Circle.

Many of the men threw their tropics uniforms overboard to make more room in their lockers for thick jumpers.

[tense music] ROB (VOICEOVER): Belfast had been selected for a vital mission, the escort of British and American ships carrying much needed supplies to the Soviet Union.

The Arctic convoys operated in one of the most dangerous regions on the planet, running the gauntlet through the waters of Nazi occupied Norway all the way to the Port of Murmansk.

ERIC: The Russian convoys were quite significant in two ways.

First of all, they delivered material that was actually of more importance to the Soviets than the Soviets like to admit.

And secondly, they were a sign of British support for the Soviets.

They helped keep Russia in the war and supplied her with vital equipment without which they might have lost.

[suspenseful music] ROB (VOICEOVER): The Germans were desperate to stop the supplies getting to Russia.

They threw everything they had into sinking the ships.

Belfast's crew lived in constant fear of attack from the U-boats below and the Luftwaffe above.

♪ ♪ And all the while, the Arctic weather sent the mercury crashing to 40 below, creating storm-force winds and mountainous waves.

Winston Churchill called it the worst journey in the world.

♪ ♪ ROB: The seas were so rough on one voyage that every member of the crew was seasick.

And the force of a single wave ripped the roof off one of the gun turrets.

But the high seas and the Luftwaffe weren't the biggest threats to the ship.

[tense music] ROB (VOICEOVER): In the grip of the Arctic winter, seawater froze as soon as it hit the deck, covering the entire ship with a thick coating of ice.

And that created a huge problem.

♪ ♪ ROB: This one small block of ice weighs over 15 pounds.

And if the entire deck of HMS Belfast was covered in a layer of ice just six inches thick, it would add another 300 tons to the weight of the ship.

But worse still, because all of that weight would be above the waterline, it would make the ship top heavy and threaten to capsize her.

To counteract this threat, the crew of the Belfast were sent out in the most hostile conditions to chip away at the ice and break it free from the deck.

ROB (VOICEOVER): To carry out this vital duty, the ship's crew worked around the clock in subzero temperatures.

It was so cold, there are accounts of men whose hands stuck to the frozen metal rails of the ship, ripping off a layer of skin.

♪ ♪ In conditions like these, keeping up the men's morale was more important than ever.

For many of the men on board, this was the most important room on the ship.

Its official title is the provision issue room, and it's where the daily ration of rum, also known as a tot, was handed out.

Right up until the 1970s, every sailor in the Navy was entitled to a tot of rum each day.

But it's not the kind of stuff you'd enjoy in a cocktail, say.

This stuff is 95 proof.

Seeing as I'm here though, I guess I should respect an old Naval tradition.

Cheers.

Oh, that is powerful stuff.

Ooh!

You can certainly see how that would take the edge off of a bitter Arctic chill.

ROB (VOICEOVER): In appalling conditions, throughout 1943, Belfast did her duty, helping the Allied convoys deliver over 4 million tons of equipment to Russia.

But the Nazis were hatching a lethal counter plan.

In December, 1943, they let loose one of the terrors of the German Navy, the mighty battleship Scharnhorst.

She was sent north on a mission to destroy the Allied convoys.

[suspenseful music] ROB: The Scharnhorst was three times the weight of HMS Belfast, heavily armored, and carried a far more powerful arsenal.

But despite the superior of firepower, the Royal Navy still had the upper hand.

British intelligence had secretly intercepted the Scharnhorst's orders.

And with this information, a deadly trap could be laid.

[morse code] So help me understand the maneuvers here that play out.

What happened?

Well, the plan was to draw the Scharnhorst out of her base at Altenfjord onto a convoy sailing towards Murmansk in Russia.

ROB: Yeah.

ROBERT RUMBLE: The Belfast, Norfolk, and Sheffield were to intercept the Scharnhorst to the north.

And the British battleship, Duke of York, the cruiser Jamaica, and a destroyer group would intercept the Scharnhorst from the south.

That was the plan?

That was the plan, like a pincer maneuver.

ROB (VOICEOVER): It was a bold and risky strategy.

The trap was set.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ In the freezing waters of the North Cape, the Scharnhorst made her way towards what she thought was just an ordinary convoy.

The German battleship had taken the bait.

Of course, the fundamental advantage Belfast had was that they could make the night day by their use of radar.

Our radar superiority over the Germans was quite significant.

ROB (VOICEOVER): Able to effectively see in the dark, Belfast's radar picked up the Scharnhorst.

ROBERT RUMBLE: Well, the Scharnhorst was sailing north expecting to encounter a British convoy, but in fact encountered Belfast, Norfolk, and Sheffield.

ROB (VOICEOVER): The moment had come.

Belfast prepared to spring the trap.

A 16-year-old called John Crossman, who was manning one of these four-inch guns, was ordered to fire a star shell to light up the German ship.

And there is the German battleship with her gun still trained fore and aft, taken completely by surprise.

Once she was illuminated, the Norfolk unleashed a series of salvos at the Scharnhorst.

♪ ♪ There was an exchange of fire, then a decisive moment.

The radar in Scharnhorst is knocked out by the medium artillery of the Belfast and the cruisers.

[gunfire] The crew of HMS Belfast wouldn't necessarily have known that Scharnhorst lost her radar-guided weapons.

ROBERT RUMBLE: The crew of the Belfast described the fear of seeing the gun flashes from the Scharnhorst, only for the shells to go flying over.

It would have been a terrifying experience.

Absolutely.

Scharnhorst, she's now blind.

And that is going to be a terrible disadvantage.

ROB (VOICEOVER): But the unfortunate HMS Norfolk had suffered two direct hits, and Sheffield's engine had broken down.

In the chaos, the Scharnhorst slipped away.

[suspenseful music] ♪ ♪ This would prove to be the defining moment for Belfast.

Unaware that Scharnhorst's radar-guided guns were out of action, she took the heroic decision to follow the mighty battleship alone.

♪ ♪ Belfast then shadowed the Scharnhorst back south as Scharnhorst tried to return back to her base.

Had the Scharnhorst still had its radar-guided gunnery, it would have been able to make quick work of the Belfast by itself.

Yes.

♪ ♪ ROB: So there's a huge amount of bravery involved in the crew on Belfast to take-- take a chase on.

Very brave and daring, taking on a much larger ship.

ROB (VOICEOVER): The Scharnhorst plowed on south.

And all the while, Belfast shadowed her silently.

[morse code] Reporting her movements to the waiting Duke of York.

ROBERT RUMBLE: Admiral Burnett on board the Belfast, knew that they had to keep the Scharnhorst in contact.

The weather was so bad, and the darkness in the winter meant that if they lost Scharnhorst, she'd probably escape.

It was really key that they kept up with her and ensured that she was drawn to the guns of the other ships.

ROB (VOICEOVER): At 4:15, the Duke of York picked up the Scharnhorst on her radar.

As soon as the German ship was in range, the Duke let rip.

[gunfire] By 6 o'clock, the other British ships had joined the fight.

ROBERT RUMBLE: The Scharnhorst got surrounded by the other British ships.

And once the Scharnhorst engaged the Belfast and the Duke of York, Scharnhorst didn't last long at all.

ROB (VOICEOVER): The plucky Belfast had delivered Scharnhorst in a singular act of daring and bravery.

The great terror of the German Navy was outgunned, outmanned, and crucially, out planned.

♪ ♪ No one saw the moment the Scharnhorst went under.

[gunfire] Belfast ran in for a final attack.

But instead of a ship, she was met with a patch of oil and a few survivors.

[calm music] ♪ ♪ Ordinary seaman Richard Wilson wrote that he was sorry for those poor devils swimming around in ice cold water with oil all over them and sleet beating down on them.

♪ ♪ Any joy the crew of the Belfast may have felt soon evaporated as they looked down on the men desperately trying to swim in the freezing water.

Of the Scharnhorst's 2,000 strong crew, only 36 were rescued.

That night, Belfast's crew raised a toast.

We fought the ship, not the men.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): The sinking of the Scharnhorst was a critical victory for the Allies.

But Belfast's conflict was far from over.

She would soon be called upon to help lead one of the most ambitious naval assaults the world has ever known-- D-Day.

♪ ♪ HMS Belfast was built to protect Britain and her empire from invasion.

ROB (VOICEOVER): But now, she would be called upon to take the fight to mainland Europe.

And she'd have to do it against overwhelming odds.

Nazi Germany had assembled a massive battery of guns and fortifications along the Normandy coast in anticipation of an allied invasion.

But a few days before the D-Day landings, Winston Churchill dropped a bombshell.

Churchill always liked being close to the action.

And with the invasion about to occur on D-Day, he said, I want to be there.

And Belfast was the obvious place to be.

She had admiral's accommodation and so on.

ROB (VOICEOVER): The Navy went into meltdown.

It was unheard of for a prime minister to take that kind of risk.

But a stubborn Churchill refused to budge until King George intervened.

[tense music] However, the king said, if you're going, I'm going too.

And Churchill said, uh, no, I don't think so.

So he was kept away, at least for the time being.

ROB (VOICEOVER): To the great relief of everyone, Churchill agreed to postpone his trip until the beaches had been secured.

♪ ♪ The plan for the seaborne assault on Nazi-occupied France was complex and extremely ambitious.

Codename Operation Neptune-- under cover of darkness, a secret fleet of 7,000 Allied ships made their way across the English Channel to Normandy.

This first wave would land 132,000 troops on five beaches.

♪ ♪ Chosen to lead the naval bombardment of enemy positions behind two of the beaches was HMS Belfast.

♪ ♪ The night before D-Day, HMS Belfast crossed the channel and took up a position six miles off the Normandy beaches.

Her job was vital-- use these guns to soften the German defenses and suppress any counter-attacks while Allied troops storm the shore.

♪ ♪ [cannon fire] Shore bombardment is a key component of amphibious operations.

A ship like Belfast is the equivalent to a very heavy artillery battery ashore.

Therefore, giving support to the troops is a key advantage for the invaders, and it's something that was exploited thoroughly in Operation Neptune.

♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): Over the next six days, HMS Belfast fired close to 2,000 rounds at the enemy positions along the coast While troops from Britain, America, and Canada made the terrifying journey to shore all under heavy fire.

[gunfire] BRIAN: The horrors of war were never very far away.

And sometimes, the crew of the Belfast could see bodies in the sea drifting past them.

[eerie music] ROB (VOICEOVER): Some of the fiercest fighting of the war took place during the D-Day landings.

And Belfast's sickbay worked around the clock to save the injured soldiers.

♪ ♪ Casualties on both sides were high.

By the end of the Normandy campaign, a total of 609,000 Allied and German troops had been killed or wounded.

But the Normandy landings proved decisive, opening the way for the eventual defeat of the Nazi regime.

BRIAN: Without ships like the Belfast to carry out shore bombardment, Normandy landings might well have been impossible.

And without the Normandy landings, we might not have won the Second World War.

This was one of the turning points in history.

The Belfast was right in the center of it.

[inspiring music] ♪ ♪ JOHN: Yes, it was a good ship.

It sounds a bit romantic.

I suppose it is.

Because that's the only reason you're on a ship with guns is to save the people on the land.

[tense music] ♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): After 23 years of active duty, Belfast's guns fell silent in 1962.

And since she opened to the public in 1971, she's welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

Ron Yardley, who fought on board Belfast during the Korean War, witnessed the ship's last voyage up the River Thames.

Tell me about what you remember from the day when Belfast came to her final resting place here.

RON: I used to work in the city.

And the building I worked in is dead opposite the ship across the other side of the river.

And somebody said to me one day, do you know HMS Belfast is coming in?

And I didn't.

I left my office and I went down and stood on the cobblestones alongside Tower Hill.

There were quite a number of other people there.

And Tower Bridge went up.

And then, the grand old lady came through.

And I make no bones about it.

I just stood there and wept.

And a lady turned around.

She said, are you all right, sir?

I said, yes.

I said, my old home's just come back again.

[calm music] ♪ ♪ [bright music] ♪ ♪ ROB (VOICEOVER): This grand old lady is now a much loved part of the London skyline.

She's the last of her kind, the sole survivor of the British ships that bombarded the Normandy Coast.

♪ ♪ Today, the HMS Belfast is a reminder of Britain's once great naval power.

She was built at a time when Rule Britannia wasn't just a song but a statement.

She's also a monument to Britain's dogged, standalone survival at the beginning of World War II.

Almost destroyed by a magnetic mine, she came back, phoenix-like, to take part in one of the greatest battles of the Second World War, and to play a crucial role in the D-Day landings.

Some thought she was finished.

But she still stands proud today.

[inspiring music] ♪ ♪ [gunfire] [theme music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪