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HMS Belfast 60 Years On
By Rosemary Gibbs who has given her full permission to place her story on this site.

Inspired by the log sheets copied from the records office at Kew describing HMS Belfast’s action off Normandy on D-Day 1944 I had to record my own encounter with the ship in September 1945 a great deal further away in Shanghai. My family and I were interned by the Japanese along with hundreds of other civilians in camps around Shanghai. VE Day did not affect us as the war in the Far East raged on until it came to an end with the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th. and 12th. For a week or so there was great confusion in Shanghai over who was in charge until eventually the Americans swept in, took over the responsibility for feeding all the internees, and our Japanese guards slunk away to their barracks next to the camp. To our great joy we could see the masts of the allied ships proceeding along the Huangpu river which was not very far away.

Our departure from the camp came rapidly one evening when the message went round that anyone ready to go by 8 a.m. next morning could go on the first ship home. Many people had homes in Shanghai or businesses to attend to. My father had been a medical missionary in the north of China so we had nothing except the contents of our small room.

We arrived at the dock the next morning and were ferried over the river to HMS Glenearn, a merchant ship converted to an armed troop carrier for the duration of the war. We should have left almost at once but a typhoon in the East China Sea delayed us by several days, which enabled all the children on board to join the other children who had been swept up out of the camps for a lovely party on HMS Belfast. It was very exciting for us being treated so kindly by the crew and eating cakes, jellies and sweets that we hadn’t tasted for years.

All that was 60 years ago. On August 13th 2005 HMS Belfast, now moored in the Pool of London as part of the Imperial War Museum, hosted another party to commemorate the first one and invited as many of the ‘children’ from the Shanghai party as were able to come. A surprising number were there including my sisters from Boston, USA and Wales and myself and our husbands.

It was a great privilege and joy to be piped on board by a guard of honour of sailors and officers clad in tropical white and also Royal Marines who presented arms as we stepped aboard. The ship was decked out with large awning from the stern almost to the forward gun turret. We all signed in and were given a colour-coded badge to indicate which internment camp we were from. At least eight camps were represented there and it made it easier to identify people we might remember.

We were delighted to meet some members of the crew who were so kind to us at the actual party, and they had even set up an old fashioned diver’s suit to greet us as it had so long ago. I’m sure it was much smaller than the original one, or could I have been much smaller myself then?

The hospitality was as generous as ever and we were offered savouries, sandwiches and drinks throughout the afternoon. They even produced some jelly similar to the jelly we all remembered from 1945, and of course there was an enormous cake.

We had a speech of welcome from the director of HMS Belfast (Imperial War Museum) and a response from an official of the organisation representing the internees. Then it was a case of working our way round, trying to recognise some of those five to fifteen year olds we used to know 60 years ago. Although I didn’t recognise many without the help of the name badge I was delighted to meet quite a few including three very good friends of mine. I was even shown a group photograph which included me (aged about eight) by a man I didn’t know even if he seemed to know me well!

There was an archive film showing in one of the rooms and we also had a tour of the ship. Oh those steep steel ladders — I do remember those. It was a lovely occasion, and afterwards, Michael and I reflected on the astonishing versatility of a battle cruiser of the Royal Navy which had taken part in the battle of the North Cape and the sinking of the Scharnhorst, the Normandy landings and the Korean war, and had also hosted a hundred or so scruffy hungry children from the camps of Shanghai to a very generous tea party. In 1945 the crew gave up their chocolate ration for us and we ate the lot, so when we left HMS Belfast in 2005 we were each given a ‘goody bag’ containing among other things a DVD of the archive film and a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate.

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