HMS Royalist was a Dido-class light cruiser of the Bellona subgroup^{[Note 1]} of the Royal Navy. She was a modified Dido design with only four turrets but improved anti-aircraft armament. She was built by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Greenock with the keel being laid down on 21 March 1940. She was launched on 30 May 1942, and commissioned 10 September 1943.

Following her commissioning, Royalist spent several months working up, during which time she underwent repairs for trial defects and for alterations and additions. Amongst these were modifications for service as a carrier flagship. ^[1] In March 1944 Royalist joined the Home Fleet and served for a short period in the Arctic theatre. In this capacity she took part in Operation Tungsten, the carrier raid against the German battleship Tirpitz whilst the Tirpitz was in Norway. Royalist was then ordered to the Mediterranean to support the landings in the south of France (Operation Dragoon) in August 1944, as part of the escort carrier squadron TF88.1. On 15 September, accompanied by HMS Teazer, she sank the transports KT4 and KT26 off Cape Spatha. She was then stationed in the Aegean Sea until late 1944, when she was ordered to the East Indies. By April 1945 she was with the 21st Escort Carrier Squadron as Flagship, supporting the Rangoon landings (Operation Dracula), and the following month was part of a force that unsuccessfully attempted to intercept a Japanese cruiser and destroyer evacuating troops from the Andaman Islands. For the remainder of the war she covered the carrier raids against targets in the East Indies and Sumatra.

Scottish author Alistair MacLean served on Royalist during the Second World War, and used his experiences as background for his acclaimed first novel HMS Ulysses as well as for some of his subsequent works.

Royalist was withdrawn from the East Indies after the conclusion of hostilities, and returned home to Naval Reserve. In 1954 she began a major refit which was completed in April 1956. The modernisation of the Royalist was expected to be followed by similar upgrades to the other three improved Dido class cruisers. They where to be given upgraded 5.25 inch gunnery and radar systems to operate with the last RN Battleship HMS Vanguard which was equipped with similar radar and 5.25 guns as killer squadrons against Sverdlov class cruisers. Hoever after Churchill retired from the premiership, the Vanguards refit was cancelled and it was decided not to convert the other Dido's and instead give a much more limited refit to Colony class six inch cruisers Gambia and Bermuda purely for colonial patrols and flagflying with half manned crews and only a few turrets operational. Therefore The ship was handed over to the Royal New Zealand Navy on 9 July 1956.

When Captain Phipps went to take command of the Royalist in 1955, diplomat Frank Corner was shocked to find that Phipps agreed that the Royalist was a white elephant and completely unsuitable for the RNZN in the Pacific; she had limited range so could not get as far as Tahiti without refuelling. She was equipped with new equipment for her role as an anti-aircraft escort ship for carriers, and 5.25 inch rather than the usual 6 inch (or 4 inch) guns.However RN and British Mod documents recently released show the Royalists refit was to prepare it for all out hot wars and high level gun engagement of shadowers where the British colony class frigates and Belfast were modernised only for colonial visits and shore bombadment. The Royalists complement was 600 against the 550 of the Bellona, and with extra equipment the larger crew had to be accommodated in less space.This was because the all the Royalists turrets could be banned where the British Colony and Town class cruisers in the l950s usually operated with a crew of only 650 and only one of their three main turrets manable. The British Treasury had objected to the extra expense of renovating a ship that was to go into the reserve. "Then Whitehall thought of New Zealand!"^[2]

The New Zealand prime minister Sidney Holland in private correspondence with British PM Anthony Eden approved the Royalists use in Middle East Conflicts in 1956 (see Conreli Barnett), where her role could have been protecting the British fleet against Israeli Mystere jets if Britain was supporting Jordan against Israel (Cordage) rather than any use against Egypt (Musketeer).^[3] After working up in UK waters, the Royalist was operational with the British fleet in the Mediteranean as the fleet built up with the possibility of action against Nasser and the Soviet Equipped Egyptian airforce. The idea that would have been used against Israels AirForce may have been the information orginally supplied to the RNZN, but is unlikely. The Royalist was intended to be mainly a radar picket and aircraft direction ship for the RAF Canberra's and RN Carrier based Seahawks and SeaVenoms. The Royalist had the standard RN long range airwarning 960 radar carried by other British cruisers and carriers in the area but Royalist was somewhat better equipped for aircraft direction than the other cruisers and destroyers in the area. The Royalist had a rather more accurate and reliable MK 6 275 radar for the direction of its 5.25 guns than the older version used on other British cruiser or their secondary MRS1 4 inch directors. The British carrier Eagle did have a good earlier US sourced 275 and the backup long range and over land 982/983 radar combination also used by the other carriers but the 982 radar on the carriers was still somewhat experimental. After hostilities with Egypt commenced under the false pretext of the arranged Isreali invasion of Sinai and Egypt counter move. The international outrage called Holland to reverse his support for UK and in some eyes establish NZ indepedence by calling for Captain Peter Phipps to withdraw from operations against Egypt. It is unclear whether Phipps immediately complied completly or whether the Royalist continued to assist the RN fleet in a passive role with aircraft direction and airwarning as much of the Egyptian Soviet Sourced Badger and Mig airforce was still intact and a threat to the RN fleet. The RNZN radar operators on the ship insist it was heavily involved in the action, ( phone interviews 1990s with Royalist crew)and in the 2000s NZ PM Helen Clark and the RNZN saw those personel were adwarded battle honours for war service in the Mediteranean - on the return voyage to NZ via South Africa- Captain Phipps told the crew they deserved the recogntion given to RN personel for their involvement in the incident.The Royalists log for the crucial days of the Suez War was destroyed at the time- and the entire truth is not knowable.

In early 1957, Royalist was involved in exercises with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne.^[4] The RN Command and British CDS Earl Mountbatten was deeply unhappy about the independent initiative and comment made by Peter Phipps and made several trips to NZ to have Phipps removed from senior command in the RNZN and to stop Phipps becoming CDS for NZ. Mountbatten and the RN insisted from then on that the Royalist be commanded from then on by RAN or RN officers who would hold many of the senior positions on the ship. In 1962 the Royalist suffered serious damage proceeding at high speed in rough sea conditions thru the Tasman under the command of two high ranking RAN officers to get to a Rugby test on time.

In 1965 the Royalist was operation with the British carrier task forces during the Indonesian confrontation for several months even though the ships conditional was marginal and worn , because the RN had only one remaining other gun cruiser in commission at the Time HMS Tiger and the Royalist might still have had some useful airwarning and aircraft direction capability as well as that for heavy shore bombardment and deterence against the deployment of Indonesias Sverdlov cruiser supplied by the USSR.

In November 1965 she suffered a breakdown when her boilers became contaminated with salt water; she was towed for a short time, but after the ships' engineering made repairs she was able to return to Auckland under her own steam. ^[5]

Royalist was paid off on 4 June 1966. After eleven years in the RNZN, Royalist reverted to Royal Navy control in 1967. She was sold for scrap to the Nissho Co, Japan, in November 1967 and was towed from Auckland to Osaka on 31 December 1967.

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
• WWII cruisers
• HMS Royalist at naval-history.net
• HMS Royalist at Uboat.net