HMS Devonshire, a 9850-ton London class light cruiser built at Devonport, England, was launched in October 1927 and completed in March 1929. After the adoption of a new naval limitations treaty in 1930 this ship, like others of her type armed with eight-inch guns, was reclassified as a heavy cruiser. Soon after entering service, Devonshire went to the Mediterranean Sea where, in late July 1929, she suffered a gun turret explosion that killed or mortally injured nearly twenty of her crew. Following repairs the ship again took station with the Mediterranean Fleet, an assignment that, except for a Far Eastern deployment in 1932-1933, occupied her for nearly all of the 1930s.
With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Devonshire was based at Scapa Flow. She participated in the Norway Campaign during the spring of 1940, notably evacuating Norwegian King Haakon VII and his party in June, shortly before the Germans completed their conquest of his embattled nation. Devonshire continued her service in northern waters until October 1941, when she was shifted to the south Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In November 1941 she sank the famed German raider Atlantis and in May 1942 took part in the Madagascar operation. Returning to colder parts of the Atlantic, in 1944 she escorted British aircraft carriers during attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz.
In May 1945, immediately after Germany's surrender ended the European war, Devonshire visited Norway and Denmark. She spent the last half of that year and the first months of 1946 on transport service, then was converted to a training ship. In that role from 1947 into 1953 the old cruiser visited ports in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. She was present during Queen Elizabeth II's coronation naval review in June 1953, about two months before she was decommissioned. HMS Devonshire was sold for scrapping in 1954.
This page features all the views we have concerning the British heavy cruiser Devonshire.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
Related image (if only through misadventure): Photo # NH 60902, a view of a British cruiser fitting out during the 1920s, was originally identified as representing HMS Devonshire. However it definitely is of a ship of the slightly earlier Kent class.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 27 May 2005