Service
The County class saw much service during the Second World War. HMS Norfolk and Suffolk were equipped with radar which was used to good advantage when they shadowed the Bismarck during the RN's attempts to hunt her down after the sinking of HMS Hood.
The class saw service in nearly every theatre of the war. Norfolk, Dorsetshire, and Berwick fought gunnery actions (and received shell damage) from German Navy surface units, while Suffolk, and Sussex suffered bomb damage from Luftwaffe aircraft. A number of losses were suffered by the class; with Canberra being hit by naval gunfire at the Battle of Savo Island then scuttled by an American destroyer, and Cornwall and Dorsetshire both bombed and sunk by Japanese carrier borne aircraft during the Indian Ocean raid (1942).
The survivors were all decommissioned by the 1950s, except Cumberland which was an armaments trials ship testing the automatic 6 inch and 3 inch guns that would be fitted to the Tiger class. She was scrapped in 1959.
Read more about this topic: County Class Cruiser
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?”
—Public Service Announcement.
“You had to face your ends when young
‘Twas wine or women, or some curse
But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)