HMS Victorious 1937 - 1969
Edition: HB
Author: Neil McCart
ISBN: 1901225011
Publishers: Fan
Publications
Price: £21
Publication Date: 1998
Publisher’s Title
Information
Fifteen chapters of highly readable text tell the
story of the Royal Navy's most remarkable aircraft carrier, from the laying of
the first keel plates in 1937 to her controversial decommissioning in 1967 and
her departure to the shipbreaker's yard in the summer of 1969.
The in-depth research has allowed the author to cover the Victorious' long career through each year of her operational service with the Royal Navy, and the story is enlivened by memories from exmembers of her ship's company, from senior officers to junior seamen, as well as reminiscences from the late 1940s when the Victorious, after a distinguished wartime career, acted as a troop transport and passenger ship.
There are over 150 illustrations covering the
Victorious' career from launching to her departure for the breaker's yard.
Foreword
HMS
Victorious, in her 27 years of service in the Royal Navy, had a life of such
variety and distinction as few of HM ships could equal.
In
action shortly after she first commissioned, in the North Atlantic at the
sinking of the powerful German battleship Bismarck, and later against that
ship's sister Tirpitz in Arctic waters where she also provided help for the
grim Murmansk convoys attacking airfields and destroying aircraft threatening
them. She served in the Pacific with the US Fleet after Pearl Harbor and later,
in the Mediterranean, protected vital convoys relieving Malta and supported the
Allied landings in North Africa. In South-East Asia she struck crippling blows
against the Japanese with her attacks on oil refineries and storage tanks. In
the British Pacific Fleet she supported the US taking of Okinawa and in the
preparation for the final assault on the Japanese heartland. She survived hits
by kamikaze aircraft, operating her aircraft again within hours.
With the
end of what for her was a very active war, her peacetime duties were varied and
wideranging covering humanitarian and peacekeeping, and peace-enforcing,
activities across much of the world. Indeed in war and peace it can be said
that she was, in Richard Hakluyt's words, ‘compassing the vast globe of the
earth’.
The
reader of this admirably researched account which is both detailed and succinct
will be saddened to read of the loss of so many young aviators in peace as well
as in war. This does highlight the fact that flying from an aircraft carrier,
even in what always seemed to be rare favourable weather conditions, is a
dangerous business and this country is fortunate that in the Fleet Air Arm it
has young men of courage and outstanding skills to carry out the tasks which
contribute so much to the achievement and maintenance of peace. I should add
that I have never come across any aircrew who would wish to change - not even
to become one of their threedimensional colleagues, the submariners.
This is
a book not only for those who had the good fortune to serve in this great ship
or for those who have a particular interest in the history of the Royal Navy,
much pleasure and information though they will gain, but I commend it also to
that wider readership for whom the dedication and gallantry of men are counted
as qualities worthy of praise and emulation.
Ian
McIntosh KBE DSO DSC Vice-Admiral
Tiger, Lion & Blake 1942
– 1986, The Royal Navy’s last Cruisers
Edition: HB
Author: Neil McCart
ISBN: 1901225038
Publishers: Fan Publications
Price: £21.50
Publication Date: 1999
Publisher’s Title
Information
For 20 years between 1959 and 1979
the cruisers Tiger,
Lion and Blake took their place in the fleet as the last big-gun warships. This is the
first book to tell the full stories of all three ships in detail, In-depth
research has allowed the author to cover their careers through each year of
their operational service, and the story is enlivened by memories from
ex-members of their ships' companies from senior officers to junior seamen.
There are 125 photographs covering
the careers of the three cruisers from their early days at the shipbuilding
yards, to their departure for the breakers' yards, including seven in full
colour.
I served in Lion during the 1st Commission, I have a very large collection of photographs some of which are shown here, others will be on my Lion page on this website
HMS Lion taken at Gibraltar 1960 or 1961
Capt John E Scotland DSC, as he was then, Capt 1st Commission HMS Lion
Capt John E Scotland DSC, as he was then, Capt 1st Commission HMS Lion
Foreword
by Rear-Admiral M. L. Stacey CB
I
enjoyed immensely the privilege of commanding HMS Tiger from 1973-1975 and thus
was delighted to be invited to write the foreword to this story of the Royal
Navy's last cruisers, HM Ships Tiger, Lion and Blake.
Lacking
the majesty of the battleship or the glamour of the destroyer, cruisers have
until recently traditionally provided the means whereby Britain's maritime
influence has been deployed throughout the oceans of the world to maintain the
naval presence required in support of our foreign policy, to protect our vital
trade routes and to defend our essential interests in war. To meet these
criteria the design requirement for these ships has generally produced a vessel
of about eight to ten thousand tons with high speed and endurance and capable
of operating worldwide. Surface and air defence gunnery was a prerequisite with
an operations and communication capability able to command and control
additional forces deployed in support. Overall there was a need for a large
ship's company ensuring maximum self-support with minimum dependence on
dockyard or external overseas support facilities.
The
service of these ships spanned nearly four decades, from 1942 to 1980, which
were particularly momentous years in the Navy's history, since it was during
this period that the current strategic roles and structures of the Navy as we
know them today were developed. These ships started their- lives in the days
when battleships still reigned supreme when they played their traditional role
of providing a presence in distant waters. Thereafter in a changing Navy they
became more integrated with the fleet providing seagoing flag officers with
accommodation and command facilities, heavy surface and air defence gunfire
support and in the case of Tiger and Blake the ability to deploy into deep water the increasingly potent Sea King
anti-submarine helicopter. This extremely important capability went some way to
filling the gap between the demise of the anti-submarine warfare capability of
the large fleet aircraft carriers and their replacement by the smaller
Invincible-class carriers of today.
This
book tells the story of these three ships in an accurate and highly readable
style, some of which now belongs to the Navy of yesterday, but much of which
has continuing application and relevance to today. Ship's programmes have
always been tight with exercises interwoven with foreign visits aimed at
maintaining readiness for war within our international treaty commitments and
sustaining our relationships with friendly and allied nations. And our sailors
have always been busy, flexible and slightly stretched with the ability quickly
to change from battle dress for action stations to pirate's rig for a
children's party.
It also
tells - with its many personal recollections - how much of the detail has
changed over the years, but how the greatest single factor - the sailor -
remains generally unchanged. He continues to stand as high as ever in terms of
his professionalism in the art of maritime warfare as well as his ability to
act overseas as a cheerful and diplomatic representative of our country. We owe
to him a great deal as well as to his wife and his family - who are so frequently
left for long periods on their own at home.
And
finally, to any readers who served with me in Tiger I send my best wishes and
join in happy memories of the old lady we loved - ugly though she undoubtedly
may have been in her later years.
Michael
L Stacey
Rear-Admiral
HMS Glory 1944-1961 Hardcover
HMS Hermes 1923-1959 Neil McCart, Brian Conroy (Illustrated)Hardcover For the first time in one volume, here are the comprehensive histories of the two aircraft carriers named HERMES. The stories take the reader from the 1920s into WW2, the late 1950s and 60s through the Falklands campaign and into the Indian Navy where the last HERMES still serves as INS VIRAAT.
The Colossus-Class Aircraft
Carriers 1944 - 1972 Edition: HB Author: Neil McCart ISBN: 1901225062 Publishers: Fan Publications Price: £24 Publication Date: 2002 Publisher’s Title
Information For the
first time in one book, here are the comprehensive histories of the Royal
Navy's eight Colossus class light fleet aircraft carriers: Colossus, Vengeance, Venerable, Glory,
Ocean, Theseus, Triumph and Warrior. The eight aircraft carriers, which were designed for the duration of the
Second World War only, went on to pioneer the use of jet aircraft at sea and,
between 1950 and 1953, four of them bore the brunt of the Royal Navy's
commitment to the Korean War. To those who served on the Far East Station in
the latter half of the 1960s, Triumph
became a familiar sight in
Singapore Naval Base and in Mombasa's Kilindini Harbour, but in a role which
was very different from that for which she had been designed. This is the story
of the eight aircraft carriers and their service with the Royal Navy. HMS
Colossus December 1944 - August 1946 HMS Vengeance December 1944 - August 1946 HMS Vengeance August 1946 - September 1952 HMS Venerable December 1944 - May 1948 HMS Glory February
1945 - January 1948 HMS Glory January
1948 - October 1951 HMS Glory November
1951 - August 1961 HMS Ocean May 1945 -July 1948 HMS Ocean July 1948 - November 1952 HMS Ocean December 1952 - December 1957 HMS Theseus January 1946 - January 1948 HMS Theseus February 1948 - May 1951 HMS Theseus June 1951 -January 1957 HMS Triumph April
1946 - November 1950 HMS Triumph December
1950 - April 1956 HMS Triumph May 1956
- February 1972 HMS Warrior October 1948 - February 1958 Author’s
Introduction When the
Second World War broke out on 3 September 1939, the Royal Navy had only seven
aircraft carriers and of those just one, HMS Ark Royal, could be said to be modern. Only she and the small, obsolete Hermes had been designed specifically as aircraft
carriers, with Argus and Eagle having been converted from a merchant ship hull and from the hull of what
was to have been a battleship for the Chilean Navy respectively. The other
three, Furious, Glorious and Courageous, had all been converted from light battlecruisers in the
1920s. During the pre-war years the Fleet Air Arm was controlled by the Royal
Air Force, and subsequently it had suffered a great deal of neglect as
resources were used to build up the RAF's fighter and bomber forces. In 1937,
when the Admiralty gained full control of the Fleet Air Arm, an expansion
programme was initiated, but it could not be completed before war came in 1939.
Only 14 days after the declaration of war the fleet carrier HMS Courageous,
which was carrying out an antisubmarine patrol in the South West Approaches, a
role for which she was totally unsuited, was sunk by a U-boat. Nine months
later, in June 1940, her sister ship HMS Glorious was sunk by gunfire from the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the Allied withdrawal from Norway. At this early stage of the war
the battleship still reigned supreme as the Navy's capital ship. Fortunately,
it had been recognized that air power at sea was vital to the fleet, and in
April 1937 the keel had been laid for the first of six large 23,000-ton fleet
aircraft carriers. However, with their heavily armoured flight decks and
hangars, and their 4-inch defensive armament, each ship would take over three
years to build and it would be 1944 before the final two, Implacable and Indefatigable, were commissioned. As the Second World War progressed the vital
importance of air power at sea became even more apparent. In November 1940, 20
Swordfish aircraft from HMS Illustrious attacked the Italian naval base at Taranto, and for the loss of only two
of the outdated biplanes, three enemy battleships were crippled, keeping them
out of action for most of the war. Six months later it was aircraft from Victorious and Ark Royal that disabled the German battleship Bismarck, allowing units of the Home Fleet to then catch and sink her. Without the
Fleet Air Arm it is likely that this mighty battleship would have reached the
safety of north-western France. Later that year, on 7 December 1941,
carrier-borne aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy delivered a devastating
blow to the US Navy's Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, when they sank four battleships
and seriously damaged four others. Just three days later, on a calm and sunny
day in the South China Sea, one hundred torpedo bombers of the Japanese Navy's
First Air Force, based at Saigon, settled the `battleship v aircraft' argument
once and for all when they sank the elderly battlecruiser Repulse and the modern battleship Prince of Wales. In 90 minutes the Japanese had delivered a stunning
blow to British power and prestige in the Far East, and the action marked the
first time in the history of naval warfare that capital ships under way were
sunk by an attack carried out exclusively by aircraft. It convinced even the
most sceptical, who had scoffed that the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor had
been `sitting ducks' for aerial attack. Without doubt it signalled the end of
the battleship as the Navy's capital ship, and aircraft carriers took over this
role. For the
Royal Navy the answer came in early 1942 when it was decided to design a small,
unprotected, class of aircraft carrier, which was capable of a speed of 25
knots and which could carry at least 35 to 40 fighter aircraft. The basic
design work was entrusted to Vickers Armstrong Shipbuilders, who had experience
of both merchant ship and warship construction, for it had been decided that
the new carriers would be built largely to merchant ship standards. This would
allow the vessels to be constructed quickly and it would enable more
shipbuilding companies to tender for contracts. In the event, to expedite the
completion of the ships it had been decided to limit the defensive armament to
anti-aircraft weapons and, apart from splinter protection for exposed
personnel, they were to have no conventional side armour. Instead there would
be a complete sub-division of the main machinery compartments and the steering
gear. It was also decided that the operational life of these new carriers would
be limited to just three years, or until the end of the war which, at that
time, could not be foreseen. With a displacement tonnage of just over 13,000,
an overall length of 695 feet and a beam of 112 feet, the vessels would give
the appearance of being smaller versions of the Illustrious class fleet
aircraft carriers. Altogether there were to be 16 light fleet carriers, but
only the first eight, the Colossus class, would serve with the Royal Navy. The
fact that two of these carriers served with foreign navies until the last
decade of the 20th century, one of them opposing the Royal Navy in the South
Atlantic in 1982, is a tribute to the fact that they were one of the most
successful classes of warship ever built for the Royal Navy. Fearless & Intrepid 1965-2002: The Royal Navy's First Purpose - Built Assault Ships 1965-2002(Illustrated)Hardcover
SS Canberra 1957 - 1997 Edition: HB Author: Neil McCart ISBN: 1901225003 Publishers: Fan Publications Price: £21 Publication Date: 1998 Publisher's Title Information Twelve chapters of highly readable
text in this first complete history of P&O's most famous passenger ship
tell the story of Canberra from the laying of
the first keel plates in 1957, to her withdrawal from service and her final
voyage and arrival at the shipbreaker's yard in the autumn of 1997. The in-depth research has allowed
the author to cover the Canberra's long career through
each year of her service and the story is enlivened by memories from passengers
and ex-crew members. There are over 120 illustrations,
covering the Canberra's career from the
builder's yard to the breaker's yard, including a magnificent profile scale
drawing, and a selection of colour photographs depicting Canberra at various stages of her long career. Also included is a fold-out section
containing full deck plans of the ship. Introduction by the Author For 37
years the Canberra
has been a very familiar sight
in Southampton's Western Docks and in ports the world over, particularly Sydney
which, it could be said, has been her second home. In April 1982 the
unthinkable happened when Britain went to war in hopefully the last colonial
campaign in her history and for the first time in 42 years a P&O liner was
requisitioned for service as a troop transport. During the three months of the
Falklands campaign she made headlines the world over, and she became a
household name as she continued her peacetime role. However, her career had not
always been so secure and for a few months in 1972 it seemed she was destined
prematurely for the scrapyard. Had that come about she would probably be
remembered today as P&O's `great white elephant', the liner which it had
been thought would shape the future but, instead, had fallen victim to the age
of the jet airliner and steeply rising oil prices. Fortunately she was
reprieved and over the next 25 years she weathered the difficult transition from
mail liner to cruise ship. She became the country's favourite, with a faithful
clientele who would not sail in any other vessel. More importantly, as
Australia sheds her ties with Britain, the Canberra represents
the last in a long line of P&O passenger ships which were built to serve
that continent. Not only does her passing represent the end of an important
chapter for the P&O Company, but it brings down the final curtain on 145
years of British maritime history. Neil
McCart Cheltenham April 1998 Three Ark Royals 1938 - 1999 by Neil McCart Hardcover HMS Albion The Old Grey Ghost HMS Centaur 1943 - 1972(Illustrated)Hardcover Nine chapters of highly readable text tell the story of one of the Royal Navy's major post-war warships form the date that the Admiralty ordered the ship in the summer of 1943 to the last weeks of 1972, when she lay at the shipbreaker's yard in Scotland. Titles coming soon County-Class Destroyers 1962-1985 Daring-Class Destroyers 1952-1969 Neil McCart developed his interest in shipping whilst living in Singapore as a boy. After leaving school at 15 he joined the Royal Navy and served for eleven years, his last ship being the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. Since leaving the Navy he has written extensively for maritime magazines and is the author of over 30 books on British passenger liners and warships of the Royal Navy.
This is the first, and only book to tell the full stories of the last three ARK ROYALS in detail; the wartime ARK which saw so much action in the first 2 years of WW2; the ARK of the 1950s, 60s and 70s which, during the years of intense antagonism between the superpowers, projected British maritime air power all over the world; and the present ARK ROYAL which will take the Fleet Air Arm into the 21st century.
Now out of Print
ISBN 1 901225 09 7
The careers of the eight County-Class destroyers of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, Devonshire, Hampshire, Kent, London, Fife, Glamorgan, Antrim and Norfolk, described in detail.
The careers of the eight Daring-Class destroyers of the 1950s and 1960s: Daring, Decoy, Diamond, Defender, Dainty, Delight, Duchess and Diana, described in detail.
LINKS
"Royal Navy & Maritime Book Reviews" Copyright Rob Jerrard 2008