Museums & Attractions

Despite being surrounded by a historical hotchpotch of structures as diverse and extraordinary as Tower Bridge, the Tower of London and City Hall, HMS Belfast still stands out, with both a lived-in feel and a historical significance that is unique. But, nearly 35 years after being moored on the South Bank, can the battlecruiser extend its appeal beyond the core audience of foreign tourists, teenage boys and military enthusiasts?

The emphasis of this floating museum, inevitably, is on war, although its newest exhibition, ‘Ghosts of Jutland’, details a conflict in which the Belfast played no part. The Battle of Jutland took place in the North Sea on May 31 1916, more than 22 years before the Belfast was launched. It remains the only major clash of big gun dreadnoughts (warships with an emphasis on heavy guns and light armour) in history. Despite suffering heavier losses, the British fleet emerged from it far stronger in proportion to the crippled German navy.

The exhibition is small, but does a fine job of making the chaos of naval warfare comprehensible for people 90 years on. Even the fleet commanders were sometimes baffled: British Admiral Jellicoe at one stage pleaded ‘I wish someone would tell me who is firing and what they are firing at.’ His German counterpart Scheer admitted to having ‘but the foggiest idea of what was happening.’

‘Ghosts of Jutland’ also brings human elements to the wider conflict, consistently interspersing the tactical machinations with recollections of extraordinary valour from British and German veterans. One British sailor had his legs blown off yet still managed to alert the captain of a fire in a gun turret, effectively guaranteeing his own death by calling for it to be flooded to avoid an explosion. Another recalls a fellow crewman, guts hanging out of his belly, matter of factly asking: ‘Is the ship all right? Right, I’ll have a little sleep, then,’ before dying. These men were among 8,648 ‘Ghosts of Jutland’ on either side, yet there remains one living survivor of the conflict, 109-year-old Henry Allingham, who served as a pilot on a reconnaissance seaplane (the only air involvement in the entire battle) and later on the Western Front: his WWI CV a condensed example of how the way in which wars were waged would change dramatically by the time Belfast was launched.

The rest of the cruiser is great fun to explore, and the occasionally wayward signposting gives me a real sense of discovery as I clamber through hatches and into gun turrets. The whole thing is enormous and little seems out of bounds. The engine rooms are unimaginably huge, and have been brilliantly restored (HMS Belfast costs £1,000 a day to maintain). The wealth of information about weights, measures, firepower and so on can seem a little overwhelming, but can be made sense of: the fact that the anchor weighs 5.5 tons was given more immediate meaning for me on discovering that the anchor chains were as thick as my calf. And it’s oddly empowering to occupy the admiral’s chair, while passing cruise ships obligingly parp out ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, dreaming of ordering the destruction of Scratchwood Services (on which the forward gun turret sights are trained). Staunch traditionalist Admiral Jellicoe would surely have approved.

Any danger posed by the ship now is on a smaller scale (the day they start selling ‘I broke a toenail on HMS Belfast’ T-shirts, I’ll be first in line), although with a little imagination and the help of the excellent audio reconstructions, it’s possible to conceive some of the genuine peril that those on board experienced. The dark, claustrophobic Operations Room in particular is terrifically atmospheric, as the 1943 sinking of German cruiser Scharnhorst is re-enacted over the speakers.

The crew now running HMS Belfast is working hard to engage new generations, including regular special events and the popular ‘Kip in a Ship’ sleepovers for schools and youth groups. There is also evidence of a real sense of humour at work: the model of the ship’s dentist bears an uncanny resemblance to Laurence Olivier in ‘Marathon Man’, while the naval canteen sells liquorice torpedoes. Perhaps the most significant, if unfashionable, element is a level of pride in the armed forces that, with Basra in tumult, is at a premium these days. It’s a patriotism that, although occasionally teetering into parochialism, can hardly fail to move when one remembers Jutland and those who died there.