The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier, also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slower type of aircraft carrier used by the Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, the United States Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force in World War II. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers, more-lightly armed and armored, and carried fewer planes. Escort carriers were most often built upon a commercial ship hull, so they were cheaper and could be built quickly. This was their principal advantage as they could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable, and several were sunk with great loss of life. The light carrier was a similar concept to the escort carrier in most respects, but was fast enough to operate alongside fleet carriers.
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade. In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively as merchant raiders to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany.
HMS Courageous was the lead ship of her class of three battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy in the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by First Sea Lord John Fisher, the ship was very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Courageous was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.
HMS Biter was a Royal Navy escort carrier during the Second World War. She was laid down as a merchant ship at the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company yard at Chester, Pennsylvania. Laid down on 28 December 1939, she was converted to an escort carrier and commissioned in the Royal Navy on 6 May 1942. She was returned to the United States in 1945 and subsequently lent to France.
HMS Audacity was a British escort carrier of the Second World War and the first of her kind to serve in the Royal Navy. She was originally the German merchant ship Hannover, which the British captured in the West Indies in March 1940 and renamed Sinbad, then Empire Audacity. She was converted and commissioned as HMS Empire Audacity, then as HMS Audacity. She was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in late 1941.
HMAS Kanimbla was a passenger ship converted for use as an armed merchant cruiser and landing ship infantry during World War II. Built during the mid-1930s as the passenger liner MV Kanimbla for McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co, the ship operated in Australian waters until 1939, when she was requisitioned for military service, converted into an armed merchant cruiser, and commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Kanimbla.
HMS Rawalpindi was a British armed merchant cruiser that was sunk in a surface action against the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the first months of the Second World War. Her captain was Edward Kennedy.
HMS Avenger was a Royal Navy escort aircraft carrier during the Second World War. In 1939 she was laid down as the merchant ship Rio-Hudson at the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company yard in Chester, Pennsylvania. Launched on 27 November 1940, she was converted to an escort carrier and transferred under the lend lease agreement to the Royal Navy. She was commissioned on 2 March 1942.
HMAS Westralia (F95/C61) was an auxiliary cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built by Scottish shipbuilder Harland and Wolff and completed in 1929, Westralia was operated by the Huddart Parker company until 1939, when she was requisitioned for service with the RAN as an Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC). Fitted with guns and commissioned in early 1940, Westralia was initially used to escort convoys in the Pacific and Indian oceans. In November 1940, the largest mutiny in RAN history occurred aboard the ship, with 104 men charged.
SS Rajputana was a British passenger and cargo carrying ocean liner. She was built for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company at the Harland and Wolff shipyard at Greenock on the lower River Clyde, Scotland in 1925. She was one of the P&O R-class liners from 1925 that had much of their interiors designed by Lord Inchcape's daughter Elsie Mackay. Named after the Rajputana region of western India, she sailed on a regular route between England and British India.
HMS Montclare (F85) was a British ocean liner that was commissioned into the Royal Navy as an armed merchant cruiser in 1939, converted into a destroyer depot ship in 1944 and a submarine depot ship in 1946. She was decommissioned in 1954 and scrapped in 1958.
The Nairana-class escort carrier was a British-built class of three escort carriers. They were constructed one each in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to the same basic design during the Second World War for service with the Royal Navy.
Pretoria Castle may refer to one of the following ships:
HMS Forfar (F30) was a British ocean liner that was commissioned into the Royal Navy as an armed merchant cruiser in 1939 and sunk by enemy action in 1940. She was launched in Scotland in 1920 as a transatlantic liner for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company as Montrose. She was one of three sister ships. The others were Montcalm, also launched in 1920, and Montclare, launched in 1921.
HMS Artifex was a repair ship of the Royal Navy from late in the Second World War and into the Cold War. Launched as the Cunard liner RMS Aurania she was requisitioned on the outbreak of war to serve as an armed merchant cruiser. Damaged by a U-boat while sailing with an Atlantic convoy, she was purchased outright and converted to a floating workshop, spending the rest of her life as a support ship for the navy.
MV Carnarvon Castle was an ocean liner of the Union-Castle Line. She was requisitioned for service as an auxiliary cruiser by the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
RMS Andes was a 26,689 GRT steam turbine Royal Mail Ship, ocean liner, cruise ship, and the flagship of the Royal Mail Lines fleet. She was the second Royal Mail ship to be named after the South American Andes mountain range. The first RMS Andes was an A-class liner launched in 1913. In 1929 that RMS Andes was converted into a cruise ship and renamed Atlantis.
RMS Asturias was a Royal Mail Lines ocean liner that was built in Belfast in 1925. She served in the Second World War as an armed merchant cruiser until she was crippled by a torpedo in 1943. She was out of action until 1948 when she returned to civilian service as an emigrant ship. She became a troop ship in 1954 and was scrapped in 1957.
HMS Dunvegan Castle was a UK ocean liner that was converted into an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) in the Second World War. Harland and Wolff built her and her sister ship Dunnottar Castle in Belfast in 1936.
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