HMS Gambia (48)
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Gambia |
| Namesake: | Gambia Colony and Protectorate |
| Builder: | Swan Hunter, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom |
| Laid down: | 24 July 1939 |
| Launched: | 30 November 1940 |
| Commissioned: | 21 February 1942 |
| Out of service: | Transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 22 September 1943 |
| Identification: | Pennant number 48 |
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New Zealand
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| Name: | HMNZS Gambia |
| Commissioned: | 22 September 1943 |
| Out of service: | Returned to the Royal Navy on 27 March 1946 |
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United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Gambia |
| Recommissioned: | 1 July 1946 |
| Decommissioned: | December 1960 |
| In service: | Returned to the Royal Navy on 27 March 1946 |
| Fate: | Scrapped by Ward, Inverkeithing, arriving on 5 December 1968 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Crown Colony-class light cruiser |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 169.3 m (555 ft) |
| Beam: | 18.9 m (62 ft) |
| Draught: | 5 m (16 ft) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 33 kn (61 km/h) |
| Range: | 6,520 nmi (12,080 km) at 13 kn (24 km/h) |
| Complement: | 730 |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: |
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| Aircraft carried: | Two Supermarine Walrus aircraft |
HMS Gambia (pennant number 48, later C48) was a Crown Colony-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was in the service of the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) as HMNZS Gambia from 1943 to 1946. She was named after the then Crown colony of the Gambia, and has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name.
Gambia was conceived in the 1938 Naval Estimates and was laid down on 24 July 1939, at Swan Hunter's Yard at Wallsend. She was launched on 30 November 1940, by Lady Hilbery and commissioned on 21 February 1942.
The cruiser saw active service in the East Indies with the British Eastern Fleet, and was involved in the Battle of Madagascar in September 1942. She then carried out trade protection duties in the Indian Ocean, but returned to home waters, calling at the territory of the Gambia on the way, where West African Chiefs in full regalia led thousands of their subjects to visit the ship named after their colony.
She refitted at Liverpool between June and September, following which she operated anti-blockade runner patrols in the Bay of Biscay in December, as part of Operation Stonewall.
Because New Zealand's two other cruisers of the time, HMNZS Leander and HMNZS Achilles were damaged, it was decided in discussions with the Royal Navy Admiralty that Gambia would be recommissioned as HMNZS Gambia, for the use of the Royal New Zealand Navy. Gambia was transferred to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 22 September 1943.
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