D-Day and Post War
As part of Force K, Ajax bombarded Gold Beach during the D-Day invasion (The battery at Longues gave some trouble but was silenced by 6-inch shells through the embrasures of two of the four casemates). She later supported the landings in southern France. Ajax also operated in the Aegean during the reoccupation of Athens and the communist uprising in Greece.
After the war, Ajax was used to repatriate German sailors from the crew of the "Admiral Graf Spee" from Uruguay back to Germany - a historic irony since "Ajax" had been a member of the squadron that battled the German ship in 1939 and ultimately caused her to scuttle herself. "Ajax" was then assigned to the Royal Navy Palestine Patrol and took part in the efforts to halt illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine. In July 1947 it took part in the Exodus 1947 incident, in which she formed part of the Royal Navy task force which subdued the illegal immigrant ship and later escorted it back to Germany.
Read more about this topic: HMS Ajax (22)
Famous quotes containing the words post and/or war:
“I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that have made me
Seeing that Fame has perished this long while,
Being but a part of ancient ceremony
Notorious, till all my priceless things
Are but a post the passing dogs defile.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep?
The world’s at war with tyrants—shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe—and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)