HMS Diadem was a light cruiser of the Bellona subgroup of the Royal Navy. She was a modified Dido design with only four turrets but improved anti-aircraft armament – also known as Dido Group 2. She was built by R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Co., Ltd. at Hebburn-on-Tyne, UK, with the keel being laid down on 15 December 1939. She was launched on 26 August 1942, and completed on 6 January 1944.
Service history
Royal Navy service
Diadem served on the Arctic convoys and covered carrier raids against the in the early months of 1944, then became part of Force G off Juno Beach during the invasion of Normandy in June. After the landings she carried out offensive patrols against German shipping around the Brittany coast, sinking, with destroyers, Sperrbrecher 7 off La Rochelle on 12 August. She returned to northern waters in September, where she covered Russian convoys and carrier raids against German shipping routes along the Norwegian coast, as well as making offensive sweeps herself. In the course of one such sweep, accompanied by on 28 January 1945, the cruiser engaged three German destroyers, damaging. Diadem remained with the 10th Cruiser Squadron until after the war, and served in the Home Fleet until 1950. She was placed in reserve between 1950 to 1956. She was sold to the Pakistan Navy29 February 1956 and refitted at Portsmouth Dockyard before being handed over to the Pakistan Navy as Babur on 5 July 1957.
Pakistan service
The refit was substantial, the light armament was standardised as fourteen 40 mm guns in three twin mounts and eight single mounts. Radar was substantially updated to Type 974 navigation, Type 293 target indicator and air warning 281B at near 960 capability similar to HMS Euralyus in 1954. She was renamed Babur, after the founder of the Mogul empire. The cost of the refit far exceeded the £400,000 allocated by the Pakistan Government even with considerable US MAP aid and with the work done by the Royal Navy dockyard below cost. I had been known from the start of 1956 that the refit cost would exceed Pakistan's budget, but the new First Sea Lord, Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, was determined Pakistan would have a cruiser, as was head of Pakistan's navy Choudri. Despite his government's attempt to first cancel the deal in mid-1957, then demand the cruiser be decommissioned as an extravagance when it arrived in 1958, the British Government demanded a payment, which even the British Far East Command considered outrageous and likely to promote a political crisis. Defence cuts saw it temporarily laid up as a fully manned static training ship for cadets in 1961. However the cruiser was back in full operational service by 1963 and deployed in a clash with India in 1965. Babur carried out a shore bombardment of Dwarka in September 1965. Fitting the cruiser with Styx missiles was considered in 1968 to counter the Soviet missiles provided to India, but Russia was only prepared to offer the missile for fast attack craft, not larger warships. The outbreak of war with India in December 1971 saw Babur deployed as one of Pakistan's few available large warships, taking station 70 miles west of Karachi in an outer patrol zone, intending to protect the major ports of West Pakistan and oil tankers from the Gulf. Light AA at Karachi and other ports and on Babur discouraged low levelIndian Air Force bombing which would have been more effective than the Canberra raids that occurred on Karachi. This led India to use its Styx-equipped Osa missile boats for its major strike against the Pakistan Navy and the Karachi port installations and tank farm; one Pakistan destroyers was sunk by a Styx and during the night oil refineries were hit by Styx missiles causing a firestorm. Babur lacking anti-missile protection and ability to identify air and surface unit attacks was recalled to the naval base as a static flag ship.
