HMS Royalist was a Bellona-class (improved ) light cruiser of the Royal Navy (RN) during the Second World War. After commissioning in 1943, Royalist was modified with extra facilities and crew for operating as a flagship for aircraft carrier operations. Initially it operated in the North Sea before transferring to the Mediterranean for the invasion of southern France. Royalist remained in the Mediterranean for actions against German forces in the Aegean to the end of 1944. Then it moved to the Far East in February 1945 where it served until the end of the war. The Royalist was then put into reserve until 1953, when the RN decided to proceed with plans to refit the ship for a new intended operational role as a fast radar picket. The cost of reconstruction and reactivation of the ship led the RN to transfer the vessel to the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) in 1956 as a replacement for its sister ship HMS Bellona, which had been in New Zealand service since 1947. In return, New Zealand covered the reconstruction costs of the Royalist. After ten years service with the RNZN, which included involvement in the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation from 1963 to 1965, the ship returned to the United Kingdom where it was scrapped. Development The Royal Navy (RN) intended in late 1943 to use the Bellona class as flagships for escort carrier and cruiser groups for the projected invasion of Normandy and of southern France and for operations with the United States Navy and with the RN fleet in the Pacific. Royalist quickly diverged from the rest of the class from the start being fitted out - within months of commissioning - with further modifications. These modifications gave it two extra rooms for additional communications with aircraft carriers and Fleet Air Arm aircraft and one of the first implementations of an "Action Information Office" (AIO) – an early operations room for plotting and display of the tactical position and associated mechanical computers to make it more effective. Intended to enhance the vessel's role as a command ship in northern Atlantic waters for operations against the German capital ships and , the extra equipment took the ship to the limit leaving minimal comfort and sleeping provision for crew. The wartime development of radar and the requirement to equip Royalist as a "Carrier Flagship" fitted with AIO increased the