Originally Posted by
megan
The ship was on loan to New Zealand at the time of the battle and was known as HMS Achilles, it didn't receive the HMNZS designation until nearly two years later when the ship was transferred to the NZ Navy when the New Zealand Navy was formed. .At the time of the battle she served in the Royal Navy New Zealand Division, about 60% of the crew were New Zealanders.
Rather obscure fact is that ACHILLES's service was generally as detailed above by megan, but with a twist. The NZ Division of the RN was redesignated as HMNZS because of the authorised change of title in August 1941, when it was specifically stated that all that had changed was the title of the service - the NZ Division was renamed RNZN (plus appropriate cap tallies for sailors). There was no transfer of the ship between navies (although it APPEARED as though a transfer had occurred at this point, in fact this had taken place years earlier when it was first "loaned" to the Division). Also the use of the term "loaned" referring to the arrangements for meeting costs of the warship in NZ service is sometimes taken to mean that no charges were levied by British Govt for the "loaned" ship. Many New Zealanders also assumed this meaning, and even after World War Two, many uninformed citizens of NZ were keen to state that the RNZN consisted predominantly of ships "loaned, borrowed or stolen". This may have been slightly true (but not the theft bit!), but certainly not for the cruisers, all of which were hired at agreed rates, which were substantial, and included all fuel, stores, etc, plus all wages and costs of RN personnel employed, plus all maintenance. I imagine that many other warships in larger navies were "loaned" under similar arrangements to smaller ones, as were aircraft, or even squadrons of aircraft (the Canberras and Venoms loaned by RAF to RNZAF at Cyprus and Singapore in mid 1950s to early 1960s certainly were). The "Loan charges" all show up in the NZ Government's budgets for and expenses paid for defence.