![]() Nabob returning home after being torpedoed in August 1944 | |
History | |
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Name | USS Edisto |
Builder | Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation |
Laid down | 20 October 1942 |
Launched | 22 March 1943 |
Identification |
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Fate | Transferred to Royal Navy |
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Name | HMS Nabob |
Commissioned | 7 September 1943 |
Decommissioned | 10 October 1944 |
Identification | Pennant number D77 |
Fate | Returned to US 1946, sold for scrap, but resold for conversion to mercantile use |
Name |
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Port of registry |
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In service | 1952 |
Out of service | 1977 |
Identification | IMO number: 5245045 |
Fate | Sold for scrap, 1977 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Ruler-class escort carrier (UK) |
Displacement |
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Length | 492 ft 3 in (150.0 m) |
Beam |
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Draught | 25 ft 5 in (7.7 m) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h) |
Range | 27,500 nmi (50,930 km) at 11 knots (20 km/h) max |
Endurance | 3,160 long tons (3,210 t) fuel oil |
Complement | 646 |
Sensors and processing systems |
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Armament |
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Aircraft carried | 18–24 |
Aviation facilities |
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HMS Nabob (D77) was a Ruler-class escort aircraft carrier which served in the Royal Navy during 1943 and 1944. The ship was built in the United States as the Bogue-class USS Edisto (CVE-41) (originally AVG-41 then later ACV-41) but did not serve with the United States Navy. In August 1944 the ship was torpedoed by the German submarine U-354 while participating in an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz. Nabob survived the attack, but upon returning to port, was considered too damaged to repair. The escort carrier remained in port for the rest of the war and was returned to the United States following it. Nabob is one of two Royal Navy escort carriers built in the United States which is listed as lost in action (both of which were damaged beyond repair, but returned) during World War II. The ship was sold for scrap by the United States but found a second life when purchased and converted for mercantile use under her British name, Nabob. Later renamed Glory, the ship was sold for scrapping in 1977.
The Bogue class were larger and had a greater aircraft capacity than all the preceding American-built escort carriers. They were also all laid down as escort carriers and not converted merchant ships. [1] The Ruler type vessels were essentially a repeat version of the Attackerclass. Based on the Type C3 design, the Ruler class were acquired by the Royal Navy as part of Lend-Lease after delays in the construction of the Casablancaclass, which the Royal Navy had intended to acquire. [2] All the vessels in the class had a complement of 646 officers and ratings and an overall length of 492 feet 3 inches (150.0 m), a beam of 69 feet 6 inches (21.2 m) at the waterline and 108 feet 6 inches (33.07 m) total with a mean draught of 25 ft 5 in (7.7 m). The escort carriers had a standard displacement of 11,400 long tons (11,600 t) and a deep load displacement of 15,390 long tons (15,640 t). Propulsion was provided by one shaft turned by an Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbine powered by two Foster Wheeler boilers, rated at 8,500 shaft horsepower (6,338 kW), which could propel the ship at maximum 18 knots (33 km/h). The escort carrier could carry 3,160 long tons (3,210 t) of fuel oil and had a maximum range of 27,500 nautical miles (50,930 km) at 11 knots (20 km/h) or 18,750 nautical miles (34,725 km) at maximum speed. [3] [4]
Aircraft operations were commanded from a small combined bridge–flight control on the starboard side of the ship. The flight deck was 450 feet (137 m) long and 80 feet (24 m) wide. The H4C hydraulic aircraft catapult was capable of launching 16,000-pound (7,257 kg) aircraft at 74 knots (137 km/h). To receive aircraft the ship was equipped with nine arrestor wires capable of taking 19,800-pound (9,000 kg) aircraft at 55 knots (102 km/h), backed up by three aircraft barriers. [4] Two aircraft elevators accessed the below-deck hangar, with the forward elevator being 42 feet (12.8 m) long by 34 feet (10.4 m) wide and the aft elevator being 34 feet wide and 42 feet long with both capable of taking 14,000-pound (6,350 kg) aircraft. Aircraft could be housed in the 260-by-62-by-18-foot (79.2 by 18.9 by 5.5 m) hangar below the flight deck. However, the sloping contour of the hangar combined with the elevator arrangement made handling and storage of aircraft difficult and time-consuming. The escort carriers could store 3,600 imperial gallons (16,366 l; 4,323 US gal) of avgas. [5] They had a maximum aircraft capacity of twenty-four aircraft which could be a mixture of fighter and anti-submarine (ASW) aircraft, though up to 90 could be ferried. [1] [4]
Armament comprised two Mark 9 5-inch (127 mm)/51 calibre guns, eight twin-mounted 40 mm Bofors guns, fourteen twin-mounted 20 mm Oerlikon cannon and seven single-mounted 20 mm Oerlikon cannon. Since the escort carriers came as part of Lend-Lease, they retained their American radar systems, with the SG 10-inch (254 mm) surface radar and the SK 1.5 cm (1 in) air search radar. [2]
Edisto was laid down on 20 October 1942 at the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp yard in Tacoma, Washington. [6] The ship was launched on 9 March 1943. [7] [8] Edisto was completed and transferred under Lend-Lease to the United Kingdom on 7 September 1943 prior to her commissioning as HMS Nabob with the pennant number D77 into the Royal Navy at Tacoma. [9] [6] The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) wanted to obtain experience with aircraft carriers before their acquisition of their own carriers and sought Admiralty permission to take over Nabob. However, due to Lend-Lease stipulations, the escort carrier could not be commissioned in any force but the Royal Navy. In the end a compromise was made whereby the crew would be Canadian while the vessel remained under Royal Navy control. [9]
Following her commissioning, the ship travelled to Vancouver, to undergo modification to Royal Navy standards beginning on 1 November at Burrard Dry Dock. The conversion completed on 12 January and an arrangement was agreed upon where the crew of the ship would be drawn primarily from the RCN with the exception of the air component, which would be provided by the Fleet Air Arm. [6] [10] Nabob sailed to San Francisco in February under the command of Captain Nelson Lay of the RCN, where the escort carrier embarked 852 Naval Air Squadron equipped with Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers. [6]
Intended for service as an ASW carrier, Nabob was assigned to the British Home Fleet. [11] The ship sailed for New York City to collect a deck load of P-51 Mustangs for the United Kingdom. The mixed crew of British aircrew and engine room personnel with the rest Canadian, led to personnel issues. The entire crew received the lesser British rate of pay and used British food and disciplinary standards. This led to a near revolt among the Canadians and to desertions at a stopover at Norfolk, Virginia. [10] This led Captain Lay to fly to Ottawa to demand Canadian standards of pay for the entire crew before the ship set sail again. He received this boon. [12] The escort carrier arrived in British waters in April and after disembarking the aircraft, sailed to the River Clyde to undergo a refit to repair builder's defects. [9]
Nabob returned to service on 29 June, beginning work ups with 852 Squadron and joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow on 1 August. [6] [9] 856 Naval Air Squadron joined the ship that month. In August, Nabob participated in two operations off the Norwegian coast. The first, beginning on 10 August named Operation Offspring, saw the escort carrier paired with HMS Trumpeter and HMS Indefatigable. This became the largest mining operation by the Home Fleet during the war and 47 mines were dropped between Haarhamsfjord and Lepsorev by 852 and 842 Naval Air Squadrons. One of the Avenger aircraft was shot down. [9] The second operation was air strikes against the German battleship Tirpitz (Operation Goodwood). Nabob was a member of Force 2 during Operation Goodwood, where her Grumman Wildcats of 852 Squadron flew combat air patrol over the carrier and her Avengers of 852 and 856 Naval Air Squadrons flew anti-submarine patrols. On 22 August, while the main force attacking Tirpitz prepared for another strike, the escort carriers went to refuel the destroyers. During these operations, Nabob was torpedoed by the German submarine U-354 in the Barents Sea. The torpedo impact made a hole 32 sq ft (3.0 m2), below the waterline on the starboard side aft. The stern sank 15 feet (4.6 m) before flooding could be controlled. Eventually the damage control parties effected enough repairs that the ship could make 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). Five days later she steamed into Scapa Flow under her own power but had lost 21 men. [12]
At Scapa Flow, emergency work was done to keep the ship afloat, but Nabob was eventually judged not worth repairing due to a lack of shipyard capacity. The escort carrier was beached and abandoned on 30 September 1944 on the south shore of the Firth of Forth, then cannibalized for other ships but retained as part of the Reserve Fleet of Rosyth Command. [13] On 10 October 1944, Nabob was paid off at Rosyth. [6] She was returned to United States Navy at Rosyth on 16 March 1946. [13] Never entering US service, the ship was sold on 26 October 1946. [14]
Nabob was sold for scrapping in the Netherlands in September 1947. [8] However, the vessel was resold and converted as the merchant Nabob of Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1951, entering service in 1952. [6] [8] In 1967 the ship's registry changed to Panama and was the ship was renamed Glory. [6] She was sold for scrap in Taiwan on 6 December 1977. [8]
HMCS Magnificent was a Majestic-class light aircraft carrier that served the Royal Canadian Navy from 1948–1957. Initially ordered by the Royal Navy during World War II, the Royal Canadian Navy acquired the Magnificent while waiting for another aircraft carrier to be completed to their needs and it entered service in 1948 replacing in service HMCS Warrior which had been loaned for two years by the RN.
HMS Warrior was a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier which was ordered in 1942 by the British Royal Navy during World War II. Construction was finished in 1945 and upon completion, the aircraft carrier was loaned to the Royal Canadian Navy from 1946 to 1948 as HMCS Warrior. Warrior was returned to the Royal Navy in 1948 and entered service with the British. While in service with the Royal Navy, Warrior was modernised twice, including the installation of an angled flight deck in 1956. In 1948–1949, the ship was used in aircraft landing experiments and fitted with a rubber flight deck and in 1957, was used as the headquarters ship during nuclear testing at Christmas Island. In 1958, the vessel was sold to the Argentine Navy and entered Argentine service in 1959 as ARA Independencia. The aircraft carrier remained in service until 1970 when Independencia was placed in reserve. The following year, the ship was sold for scrap.
HMS Victorious was the third Illustrious-class aircraft carrier after Illustrious and Formidable. Ordered under the 1936 Naval Programme, she was laid down at the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard at Newcastle upon Tyne in 1937 and launched two years later in 1939. Her commissioning was delayed until 1941 due to the greater need for escort vessels for service in the Battle of the Atlantic.
HMS Chaser (D32/R306/A727) was an American-built Attacker-class escort carrier that served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
USS Pybus (CVE-34) was initially a United States Navy Bogue-class escort carrier. The ship was transferred to the United Kingdom for service in the Royal Navy as the Ruler-class escort carrier HMS Emperor (D98) as part of the Lend-Lease program of World War II. Entering service in 1943, the ship took part in operations against the German battleship Tirpitz and the invasions of Normandy and southern France. Returned to the United States following the war, the carrier was sold for scrap in 1946.
HMS Formidable was an Illustrious-class aircraft carrier ordered for the Royal Navy before the Second World War. After being completed in late 1940, she was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet as a replacement for her crippled sister ship Illustrious. Formidable's aircraft played a key role in the Battle of Cape Matapan in early 1941, and they subsequently provided cover for Allied ships and attacked Axis forces until their carrier was badly damaged by German dive bombers in May.
HMS Indefatigable was one of two Implacable-class aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy (RN) during World War II. Completed in 1944, her aircraft made several attacks that year against the German battleship Tirpitz, inflicting only light damage; they also raided targets in Norway. The ship was transferred to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) at the end of the year and attacked Japanese-controlled oil refineries in Sumatra in January 1945 before joining the American forces in March as they prepared to invade the island of Okinawa in Operation Iceberg. Indefatigable and the BPF joined the Americans in attacking the Japanese Home Islands in July and August. Following the end of hostilities she visited ports in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The Implacable-class aircraft carrier consisted of two aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Derived from the design of the Illustrious class, they were faster and carried more aircraft than the older ships. They were initially assigned to the Home Fleet when completed in 1944 and attacked targets in Norway as well as the German battleship Tirpitz. Subsequently, they were assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF).
HMS Implacable was the name ship of her class of two aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Upon completion in 1944, she was initially assigned to the Home Fleet and attacked targets in Norway for the rest of the year. She was subsequently assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) where she attacked the Japanese naval base at Truk and targets in the Japanese Home Islands in 1945. The ship was used to repatriate liberated Allied prisoners of war (PoWs) and soldiers after the Japanese surrender, for the rest of the year. Implacable returned home in 1946 and became the Home Fleet's deck-landing training carrier, a role that lasted until 1950. She briefly served as flagship of the Home Fleet in 1950. During this time she participated in many exercises and made a number of port visits in Western Europe. She was placed in reserve in 1950 and converted into a training ship in 1952, and served as flagship of the Home Fleet Training Squadron. The ship was considered for a major modernisation in 1951–1952, but this was rejected as too expensive and time-consuming. Implacable was decommissioned in 1954 and sold for scrap the following year.
HMS Perseus was a Colossus-class light fleet aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy during World War II. The ship was initially named HMS Edgar, but she was renamed in 1944 when the Admiralty decided to convert her into an aircraft maintenance carrier. She was completed in 1945, after the end of World War II, and she made a trip to Australia late in the year. Upon her return to the UK in early 1946, Perseus was placed in reserve. The ship was recommissioned in 1950 to serve as the trials ship for the steam catapult then under development. Over 1,600 test launches were conducted before the catapult was removed in 1952 and she was converted for use as a ferry carrier to transport aircraft, troops and equipment overseas. She was reduced to reserve again in 1954 and sold for scrap in 1958.
USS St. Simon (CVE-51), an escort aircraft carrier originally classified as an auxiliary aircraft carrier, was laid down on 26 April 1943 at Tacoma, Washington, by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, under a Maritime Commission contract ; reclassified as an escort aircraft carrier, CVE-51, on 15 July 1943; launched on 9 September 1943; sponsored by Mrs. R. H. Lewis, the wife of Major General R. H. Lewis, Commanding General, Northwestern Sector, Fort Lewis, Washington; assigned to the Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon, for the completion of construction; and delivered to the Royal Navy, under lend-lease, on 31 December 1943.
USS Willapa (AVG-53/ACV-53/CVE-53) was a Bogue-class escort carrier built during World War II for the United States Navy. Never seeing American service, the ship was transferred to the United Kingdom as part of Lend-Lease. The escort carrier was renamed HMS Puncher (D79) of the British Ruler class and crewed by the Royal Canadian Navy with aircrew from the Fleet Air Arm. Primarily used as an aircraft transport, Puncher took part in operations along the Norwegian coast towards the end of the war. Following the war the ship was converted for mercantile service and renamed Muncaster Castle, Bardic and Ben Nevis, before being broken up in 1973.
HMS Furious was a modified Courageous-class battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and designed with a main battery of only two 18-inch (460 mm) guns. Furious was modified as an aircraft carrier while under construction. Her forward turret was removed and a flight deck was added in its place, such that aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure to land. Later in the war, the ship had her rear turret removed and a second flight deck installed aft of the superstructure, but this was less than satisfactory due to air turbulence. Furious was briefly laid up after the war before she was reconstructed with a full-length flight deck in the early 1920s.
HMCS Algonquin was a V-class destroyer, laid down for the Royal Navy as HMS Valentine (R17) and transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy on completion during the Second World War. She saw service in the Second World War escorting the aircraft carriers that bombed the Tirpitz in March 1944 and providing naval gunfire support to the Normandy landings. The destroyer was to participate in the Pacific Campaign but the war ended before her arrival in that theatre. Algonquin was converted in 1953 to a frigate and spent the majority of her remaining career in the Atlantic, being paid off in 1970.
HMS Unicorn was an aircraft repair ship and light aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy in the late 1930s. She was completed during World War II and provided air cover over the amphibious landing at Salerno, Italy, in September 1943. The ship was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean at the end of the year. Unicorn supported the aircraft carriers of the fleet on their operations until the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was formed in November 1944. She was transferred to Australia in early 1945 to support the BPF's operations during Operation Iceberg, the Allied invasion of Okinawa in May. To shorten the time required to replenish the BPF's carriers, the ship was based in the Admiralty Islands and in the Philippine Islands until the Japanese surrender in August. Unicorn was decommissioned and placed in reserve when she returned to the UK in January 1946.
The Ruler class of escort aircraft carriers served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War. All twenty-three ships were built by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation in the United States as Bogue-class escort carriers, supplied under Lend-Lease to the United Kingdom. They were the most numerous single class of aircraft carriers in service with the Royal Navy.
The Attacker class were a class of escort aircraft carriers in service with the British Royal Navy during the Second World War.
Operation Tungsten was a Second World War Royal Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz. The operation sought to damage or destroy Tirpitz at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway before she could become fully operational again following a period of repairs.
Operation Mascot was an unsuccessful British carrier air raid conducted against the German battleship Tirpitz at her anchorage in Kaafjord, Norway, on 17 July 1944. The attack was one of a series of strikes against the battleship launched from aircraft carriers between April and August 1944, and was initiated after Allied intelligence determined that the damage inflicted during the Operation Tungsten raid on 3 April had been repaired.
Operation Goodwood was a series of British carrier air raids conducted against the German battleship Tirpitz at her anchorage in Kaafjord in occupied Norway during late August 1944. It was the last of several attacks made by the Home Fleet during 1944 which sought to damage or sink Tirpitz and thereby eliminate the threat it posed to Allied shipping. Previous raids on Kaafjord conducted by Fleet Air Arm aircraft had involved only one air attack; in Operation Goodwood several attacks were made in a single week. The Royal Navy hoped that these raids would wear down the formidable German defences.
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