a 20mm Oerlikon AA gun salvaged from the Newport scrapyard, and a scale model of the ship. She did not become fully operational again until early June 1944, when she sailed for the invasion of Normandy, forming part of Force "D" off Sword Beach. She had the honor of carrying King George VI across the channel to Normandy, when he toured the beaches and visited the Allied command headquarters. On 24 June she came under air attack in Seine Bay and sustained some damage. On 25 June a magnetic mine detonated in her wake. The shock damage was fairly extensive, the cruiser went to Portsmouth for repairs then to a commercial yard for yet another refit and did not return to service until September. By January 1945, she was part of the 15th Cruiser Squadron with the Mediterranean Fleet and stayed there until October 1945 when she returned to the United Kingdom and was immediately placed in the reserve (at the Nore). There was a tentative plan to sell her to the Royal Norwegian Navy in 1946 but this came to nothing and she was placed in category 'B' reserve. Because the Navy considered her class of ships too small to be worth modernising, the Navy used Arethusa for trials and experiments in 1949 before allocating her to BISCO for disposal. On 9 May 1950, she arrived at Cashmore's, Newport, for breaking up. Notes Footnotes References Further reading S.V. Patyanin (С.В.Патянин), Kreysera tipa Arethusa (Крейсера типа «Аретьюза»), series Morskaya Kollektsya 6/2002 (in Russian) External links HMS Arethusa at Uboat.net Arethusa-class cruisers (1934) Ships built in Chatham 1934 ships World War II cruisers of the United Kingdom