HMS Dido (37)

	Dido at anchor
History
United Kingdom
Name	Dido
Namesake	Dido
Builder	Cammell Laird Shipyard (Birkenhead, UK)
Laid down	26 October 1937
Launched	18 July 1939
Commissioned	30 September 1940
Out of service	October 1947
Reclassified	In reserve at Gareloch (between 1947 and 1951) and at Portsmouth between 1951 and 1958
Identification	Pennant number 37
Fate	Scrapped, 18 July 1957
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Dido-class anti-aircraft cruiser
Displacement	5,600 long tons (5,700 t) (standard); 6,850 long tons (6,960 t) ( full load);
Length	485 ft (148 m) p.p.; 512 ft (156 m) o/a;
Beam	50 ft 6 in (15.39 m)
Draught	14 ft (4.3 m)
Installed power	62,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × geared steam turbines; 4 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers; 4 × shafts;
Speed	32.25 knots (59.73 km/h; 37.11 mph)
Range	1,500 nmi (2,800 km; 1,700 mi) at 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph); 4,240 nmi (7,850 km; 4,880 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph);
Complement	480
Sensors and ; processing systems	Type 281 RADAR from September 1940
Armament	8 × dual purpose guns (4 × 2); 1 × 4 in (100 mm) anti-aircraft gun; 12 × 2-pounder pom-pom guns (3 × 4); 8 × .50 cal machine guns (2 × 4); 6 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2 × 3);
Armour	Belt: 3 in (7.6 cm); Deck: 1 in (2.5 cm); Magazines: 2 in (5.1 cm); Bulkheads: 1 in (2.5 cm);

HMS Dido was the name ship of her class of light cruisers for the Royal Navy. Constructed by Cammell Laird Shipyard of Birkenhead, United Kingdom, she entered service in 1940 during World War II. The cruiser took part in several battles in the Mediterranean and Arctic theatres of war. Following the war, the ship performed ceremonial functions before being sold for scrapping in 1957.

Construction and career

Dido's

launched on 18 July 1939 and commissioned on 30 September 1940 at Birkenhead. Following her commissioning, Dido was sent to Scapa Flow for working up in September 1940. Part of this included high-speed sweeps off Fair Isle and Greenland. Immediately after this, Dido's first mission, in November 1940, was to escort the aircraft carrier Furious to West Africa, ferrying aircraft.^[2]

Mediterranean

Dido then spent four months on convoy duty in the Atlantic before running supplies to Malta where she joined the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet in April 1941. In May of that year Dido was sent to Crete and assisted in the evacuation of the British forces. As part of a convoy from Souda Bay to Egypt on 14 May, she carried bullion from Greece worth $7,000,000.^[3] On 29 May 1941 Dido was badly damaged by bombs whilst taking troops from Crete to Alexandria.^[2] On 8 June 1941, Marines from Dido accepted the surrender of Assab in Eritrea.^[2] From July to November 1941, Dido was sent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City for a refit, rejoining the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet in December 1941.^[2] The first three months of 1942 were spent on convoy escort duty between Alexandria and Malta but in March that year, Dido took part in a bombardment of Rhodes. A week later Dido joined the cruisers Cleopatra, Penelope, Carlisle, and Euryalus under the command of Rear Admiral Philip Vian at the Second Battle of Sirte.^[2]

On 18 August 1942 Captain H. W. U. McCall brought Dido to

Bone and Algiers until March 1943.^[2]

In April 1943, Dido returned to

Anzio landings. August 1944 saw Dido supporting the Allied Operation Dragoon the landing in southern France. In September 1944, Dido returned to the UK.^[2]

Arctic

In October 1944, Dido escorted a convoy to Russia before supporting carrier strikes off Norway. In April 1945, Dido escorted

Kola Inlet to lay mines.^[2] Dido's last mission in the war was to go to Copenhagen, firing the last naval shot in the war in Europe on the way for the surrender of the German Kriegsmarine which was signed aboard Dido.^[5] Dido escorted the German cruisers Prinz Eugen and Nürnberg to Wilhelmshaven.^[2]

Postwar

In July 1945, Dido took King

decommissioned and sold for scrap to Thos. W. Ward and scrapped at Barrow-in-Furness

in 1957.

Notes

^ Macintyre, Donald, CAPT RN "Shipborne Radar" United States Naval Institute Proceedings September 1967 p.75
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k Jeffs, p. ^{[page needed]}
^ Thomas 1972 p. 127
^ Commander Edward Ellsberg, O.B.E. Under the Red Sea Sun, (1946). Dodd, Mead and Co., New York
^ "BBC - WW2 People's War - They Fired the Last Shot".
^ Souvenir Programme, Coronation Review of the Fleet, Spithead, 15th June 1953, HMSO, Gale and Polden