HMS Tre Kronor was a cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

 of the Royal Swedish Navy built during the Second World War.

At the start of the war most of the ships of the Royal Swedish Navy were quite old and the navy was in need of new ships. In 1940 the government decided that three cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

s were to be built. A political debate broke out about the cruisers and works did not start until 1943. The ship was to be built in Götaverken

Götaverken

Götaverken was a shipbuilding company that was located on Hisingen, Gothenburg. It was founded in 1841, and went bankrupt in 1989.The company was founded in 1841 by a Scottish businessman called Alexander Keiller under the name Keillers Werkstad i Göteborg, and was aimed at industrial production...

 in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

. Eventually only two of the cruisers were built, and the third cruiser-squadron of the Swedish Home fleet ("Kustflottan") would be led by the modernised AA-cruiser HMS Gotland.

The turrets used on HMS Tre Kronor were built by Bofors

Bofors

The name Bofors has been associated with the iron industry for more than 350 years.Located in Karlskoga, Sweden, the company originates from the hammer mill "Boofors" founded 1646. The modern corporate structure was created in 1873 with the foundation of Aktiebolaget Bofors-Gullspång...

 and were originally ordered by the Dutch Navy

Royal Netherlands Navy

The Koninklijke Marine is the navy of the Netherlands. In the mid-17th century the Dutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world and it played an active role in the wars of the Dutch Republic and later those of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 to be fitted on the cruiser HNLMS Kijkduin, but after the German

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 occupation of the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

government was afraid they would be claimed by the Germans so they were confiscated.

Tre Kronor was launched 16 December 1944, commissioned on 25 October 1947, and served until 1 January 1964.