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His Majesty's Ships - H.M.S. Argonaut

The War Illustrated, Volume 10, No. 238, Page 234, August 2, 1946.

Motto: “Daring to Endure Everything.”

H.M.S. Argonaut is a cruiser of the Dido class, with a displacement of 5,450 tons and a main armament of ten 5.25-inch guns. She was launched at Birkenhead in 1941 and completed in the following year, when she was commissioned for service in the Mediterranean. After receiving credit for the sinking of two Italian destroyers and four supply ships, she was torpedoed and badly damaged by an enemy submarine in the spring of 1943. Bow and stern were practically blow to pieces, and it was with difficulty that she was patched up sufficiently to make the passage across the Atlantic to Philadelphia. There she was one-third rebuilt in the United States Navy Yard, the work involving the removal and replacement of guns and turrets.

She was included in the covering force during the Normandy landings, her bombardment of enemy positions being described as “particularly effective”. Later in the year she took part in the invasion of the south of France, and in driving the Germans out of Greece and the Aegean islands. Off Lemnos she destroyed a number of enemy landing craft. Next she proceeded to the Far East, being one of the squadron that attacked the oil refineries at Palembang, in Sumatra, on January 24 and 29, 1945. At the close of the war she was serving in the Pacific Fleet.

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