In 1936 she was used to evacuate refugees from Barcelona as Franco’s Fascists closed in on the city. The London class heavy cruiser HMS Shropshire as she appeared during the mid-1930s, when she was serving with the Mediterranean Fleet. While the way these ships looked and operated might have changed, their basic raison d’être remained the same for centuries. These cruiser roles were in turn a modern version of the similar missions assigned to the frigates of Britain’s sailing navy. Britain’s largest heavy cruisers – known collectively as the Town class – were purpose-built to carry out these important tasks. The role of the cruiser was to protect maritime trade by hunting down enemy raiders, to support the main battle fleet by scouting for the enemy, defending it against attack by smaller torpedo-armed warships, and to maintain a calming presence overseas, particularly in the further reaches of the British Empire. During World War II these imposing warships formed the backbone of the Royal Navy’s hard-pressed cruiser fleet. This led to the building of a new generation of British heavy cruisers, all equipped with these powerful weapons. In the case of cruisers, this meant there was an international demand for vessels displacing 10,000 tons and armed with 8-inch guns. In these circumstances it made sense to build new warships that met the upper limit of these international limitations. In naval affairs the inter-war years were dominated by a succession of naval treaties that set international limits on warship numbers, ship size and armament. The period from 1914 to 1918 was a heady time for naval designers, but during the two inter-war decades that followed few new warships were built and Britain eventually surrendered her maritime supremacy to the US Navy. Valuable lessons had been learned during the conflict and the Royal Navy’s most modern warships reflected this hard-won wartime experience. Many of these warships, and those still under construction, reflected the cutting edge of naval design and technology. When World War I ended Great Britain possessed the largest navy in the world. HEAVY CRUISER SPECIFICATIONS, SEPTEMBER 1939įURTHER READING BRITISH HEAVY CRUISERS 1939–45 INTRODUCTION
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