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HMS
Diadem
the diary of signalman John Emrys Williams
Photo gallery
As
with many things in life, there's a story attached to the photos
on this page and how I've come to be able to share them with you.
My interest in my late grandfather's ship HMS Diadem means that
I keep an eye from time to time on ebay auctions related to the
ship. The first image below really caught my eye. It
was being sold by a seller called travtaff.
I didn't win the auction, but I got in touch with travtaff to ask
if he had any more photos of this ship, attaching a link to this
website in the message. He sent me his phone number and I called
him for a chat. His name is Richard Cox, he's a former Merchantman
and now makes his living buying and selling photos of ships at ship
fairs and online. Judging by his accent, Richard's a Londoner. He
now lives in Wales having met and fallen in love with his Welsh
wife. Richard has kindly taken the time to find, scan and send me
five really fantastic images of HMS Diadem - all photos I'd never
seen before. I'm really grateful to him for doing this. If you're
at all interested in photos of HMS Diadem, do yourself a favour
and add travtaff
to your ebay favourite sellers list.
Now
here are Richard's photos scans:
HMS DIADEM. Scan of original photo. Copyright on reverse R. Perkins.
HMS
DIADEM - Seen here,in the Solent, 12/1945
HMS
DIADEM off Plymouth, probably taken just after the end of WWII.
HMS
DIADEM, September 1948. The opening of manoevers and the largest
Home Fleet cruise out of home waters since the war.
Cruisers of the home fleet, headed by HMS DIADEM, leaving England
for the three-day exercise which preceeded the autum cruise to the
West Indies and South Africa.
HMS DIADEM AS BABUR - Seen here departing Portsmouth after sale
(and refit) to Pakistani Navy, 8/1957. HMS
DIADEM served as Flagship of 2nd Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet until
1950 when she was placed in Reserve. In 1956 she was sold to Pakistan
under the Mutual Defence Aid Programme agreement with the USA. Before
leaving UK HMS DIADEM was given an extensive refit and renamed BABUR
in July 1957.The ship was still in use as a Training Cruiser in
1975. - Futher info about history of ship at:
http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Diadem.htm
Thanks
again to Richard Cox for sharing these photos.
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