The British Carrier Strike Fleet. David Hobbs
and continuation flying, meeting the normal requirements for training. Both reserve schemes provided a valuable means by which the front-line naval air squadrons could be reinforced in an emergency and both were to be tested sooner than had been envisaged.
As a means of making the most use of the manpower that was available, another 1949 decision led to the civilianisation of several tasks previously undertaken within the Home Air Command training establishment. The main object of this was to enable the release of large numbers of maintenance personnel and a proportion of aircrew for duties more closely connected to front-line operations.13 These included the twin-engined aircraft conversion unit and the provision of targets for the aircraft direction school taken over by Airwork Services at RNAS Brawdy, flying in support of the naval air signal school by Air Service Training at Hamble and the provision of an instrument flying school and practice flying facilities for pilots in Admiralty appointments by Short Brothers & Harland at Rochester. Introduced for an initial trial period until 1950, civilianisation worked well and other tasks were considered.
Ships
In 1945 all six operational fleet carriers had served in the 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron (ACS) as part of the BPF. By 1947 all of them had returned to the UK, some having been used for trooping duties to the Far East before being reduced to reserve status. Illustrious was modernised and re-commissioned but with accommodation that was far below acceptable peacetime standards she was used with a reduced ship’s company as a trials and training carrier. Even then it proved impossible to keep her running during the manpower crises during demobilisation and she spent periods in reserve. It had to be accepted between 1945 and 1948 that these big ships were manpower-intensive and expensive to operate. Implacable and Indomitable underwent refits to allow them to return to operational service but their low hangar heights and small lifts limited the type of aircraft they could operate. Indefatigable and Victorious were brought out of reserve for service with reduced ships’ companies to act as training ships in the Home Fleet Training Squadron based at Portland, replacing battleships that were placed in reserve or scrapped. Formidable was found to be in such a poor material state after her wartime damage and the years laid up without maintenance that she was never returned to service.
Although they were relatively young, these six ships suffered from the fact that they had been designed before the 1942 Joint Technical Committee decision that aircraft must be embarked in greater numbers with larger dimensions than had previously been allowed and maximum launch weights up to 30,000lbs. None of the existing fleet carriers were capable of operating such aircraft without major reconstruction and their accommodation, designed in the late 1930s was totally inadequate for the increased number of sailors required for their enlarged air groups, radar and other technical advances including the big increases in the size of their close-range armament. In mid-1945 the Admiralty had authority from the Government to build seven new fleet carriers, three of the Audacious class and four of the later and bigger Malta class. The latter could never have been completed during the war and were designed with the post-war fleet in mind but with the nation on the verge of bankruptcy, the Admiralty was unable to persuade the new Labour Government that it needed at least two Malta class and they were all cancelled by December before construction had begun. One of the Audacious class was scrapped on the slipway when 27 per cent complete. The two others were eventually completed as Eagle and Ark Royal, both modified to operate new generations of aircraft and both had a major role to play in the RN strike fleet for two decades.
The light fleet carriers proved to be valuable ships in the immediate post-war years. Four of them, Colossus, Venerable, Vengeance and Glory, had joined the BPF in 1945 just too late for active operations against the Japanese but in time to play an important role in the stabilisation of the Far East when limited force had to be applied in several local conflicts that followed the removal of Japanese occupation forces. By the end of 1946 only two light fleet carriers remained with the BPF and they returned to the UK to be reduced to reserve in 1947 as the manpower crisis reached its height. Other ships of this class were completed after 1945 and were brought into service when manpower and worked-up squadrons were available. None of the improved Majestic class were completed for the RN but Magnificent was completed for loan to the RCN and Terrible was sold to the RAN as HMAS Sydney III. Both navies adopted RN squadron numbers and procedures for their embryonic Fleet Air Arms and the provision of manpower to fill gaps in their establishments and training their air groups absorbed a significant amount of RN effort. 1948 found nearly all RN carriers immobilised in UK ports because of manpower shortages,14 but by the end of the year the position had improved and it proved possible to re-commission one fleet and four light fleet carriers for operational service with full air groups with one fleet and one light fleet carrier engaged in trials and training duties.
During the Second World War the RN had operated thirty-eight escort carriers built in the USA and made available under Lend-Lease arrangements; a further six were converted from merchant ships in the UK together with nineteen small Merchant Navy-manned escort carriers known as MAC-Ships. By 1947 the surviving American ships had all been returned, the MAC-Ships returned to mercantile use and all but one of the British conversions returned to their former owners. The exception was Campania which was to be converted into an aircraft ferry but that plan failed to materialise and she was converted into an exhibition ship to support the Festival of Britain in 1951. Her naval career subsequently resumed and in 1952 she was refitted to become the flagship of the task force that carried out the first British atomic bomb test at Monte Bello Island off north-west Australia. She operated helicopters and seaplanes on a variety of administrative tasks. Three maintenance carriers, a type unique to the RN, were reduced to reserve by 1946 but Unicorn was subsequently to give valuable service during the Korean War and Perseus as a trials ship and prototype helicopter carrier.
Beyond the short term, once manpower stability had been achieved, the Admiralty still faced major problems. To keep the RN effective, a new generation of aircraft would have to be introduced but the existing large carriers were clearly handicapped by their low hangar height, small lifts and cramped workshops and accommodation. They would need radical reconstruction to make them effective and that would be expensive; just how expensive was not appreciated until work started on the first ship, Victorious in 1950. Reconstruction on this scale had never been attempted in a Royal Dockyard before but in 1949 Admiralty approval in principle, with Treasury acceptance, was given to modernise three of the existing fleet carriers.15 The flight deck and hangars were to be strengthened to operate aircraft at maximum weights up to 30,000lbs. The hangars were to retain their armoured protection but their height was to be increased to 17ft 6in and a complete gallery deck was to be built in over the hangars, beneath their flight decks. The ships were to be fitted with new, larger lifts including a side-lift, together with steam catapults, improved arrester gear and barriers. Even in 1949, however, it was admitted that ‘owing to the small size of these ships, the full possibilities which should result from fitting all the latest aircraft operating equipment will not be attainable’.16 There was no immediate intention of modernising any light fleet carriers despite their current usefulness.
Aircraft
In many ways the Royal Navy’s problems with aircraft mirrored those with its ships; it had a lot of them in 1945, some of which remained in production but new technological developments and the requirement for long-range strike warfare meant that most of these were already obsolescent. A considerable number, roughly half the total, had been provided by the United States under Lend-Lease arrangements and after the end of hostilities these had to be paid for in dollars, returned to the USA or destroyed. Unsurprisingly the last option was the cheapest and thousands of aircraft were dumped into the sea off Australia, India, Ceylon, South Africa and in the waters around the United Kingdom. To add to the problem, the British aircraft industry was going through its own post-war convulsions with the shutting-down of the shadow factory scheme and the financial difficulties that followed the cancellation of large numbers of aircraft under contract.
Two aircraft types were under development for the RN in 1945 which were intended specifically for use in the Malta, Audacious and Hermes class carriers. Both were too big and heavy to operate