Читать книгу The British Carrier Strike Fleet - David Hobbs - Страница 11

3 Assistance for Commonwealth Navies

The Royal Navy had come to rely heavily on the Commonwealth for the manpower needed for the rapidly expanding number of new ships and naval air squadrons after 1941. By 1945 about 50 per cent of the Fleet Air Arm’s aircrew came from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the bulk of them serving, technically, in the reserve elements of the RAN, RCN and RNZN but spending all their mobilised time serving with the RN. It seemed logical, therefore, that the RCN and RAN should eventually operate their own carrier task forces, although it was accepted that the post-war RNZN would be too small to do so. Carriers could be lent by the RN at first to give experience but both the Australian and Canadian Governments saw that their navies would need to include carriers after the war if they were to be capable either of independent action or making a realistic contribution to a UN, Allied or Commonwealth task force. There was certainly some truth in the view that the Admiralty saw carriers operated by the RAN and RCN as a way of solving its manpower problems in 1944 but, to be fair, it also saw RAN and RCN carrier task forces as ‘safe pairs of hands’ that could contribute to an overall Commonwealth capability, effectively reducing the number of carriers and their air groups that the RN would need to maintain in commission itself.

Initially, the operation of escort carriers seemed to offer an attractive method of gaining experience but the terms of the Lend-Lease Agreement between the US and British Governments specifically stated that these US-built ships must remain a part of the RN and could not be handed on to a third party, even one that was part of the British Empire and also flew the White Ensign. In the longer term the new light fleet carriers provided an ideal option since they would be reasonably cheap to operate and contained many of the systems already in service in RAN and RCN cruisers and destroyers. By 1945 the RN realised that it had more of these ships under construction than it could man and operate after demobilisation without a drastic reduction in the number of other types of ship but it did plan to retain a number in service and would continue to be the design authority for the class, reducing still further the cost of ownership to the Commonwealth navies. Put simply, the large number of light fleet carriers being completed in 1945 represented too good an opportunity to miss.

The Royal Canadian Navy

After the Allied leaders’ Quebec Conference in 1943 a joint RCN/RCAF committee was established to study the future potential for naval aviation in Canada. In October it recommended that ‘aircraft carriers be acquired and operated by the Navy’,¹ as a vital component of the RCN’s ability to command the oceans adjacent to Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador. In co-operation with the RCAF it was also expected to contribute to the defence of Imperial sea communications, and to the joint defence of the oceans adjacent to North America as well as supporting national policies and interests generally. The Navy Board accepted the recommendation and factored it into its short-term plan to form a Canadian Pacific Fleet that would form a distinct national organisation but deployed operationally as a component of the BPF until the end of hostilities. In principle the Board hoped to acquire two light fleet carriers on loan during 1944 but when informed by the Admiralty that ships would not be available until 1945 an alternative scheme was considered and then adopted. The Admiralty agreed that two ‘Ruler’ class escort carriers would be made available to provide the RCN with carrier experience. To circumvent the Lend-Lease restriction both ships remained under RN control but their executive and seaman departments were provided by the RCN. The air department and embarked squadrons were provided by the RN, albeit with a number of New Zealand aircrew. Harmony was not helped by the differing scales of pay and daily victualling allowances paid by the RN, RCN and RNZN although this had not initially been recognised as a potential problem. The first of these ships, HMS Nabob, was taken over by the RN in September 1943 but spent some months in Burrard’s Yard in Vancouver undergoing modifications. Her RCN sailors joined her at Esquimalt in January 1944. She underwent further modifications in Liverpool after arriving in the UK but eventually worked up with 852 (Avengers) NAS embarked in June before joining the Home Fleet. With the squadron embarked, her ship’s company comprised 504 RCN, 327 RN and nine RNZN personnel.

She sailed in late August 1944 from Scapa Flow for Operation ‘Goodwood’, a strike by the Home Fleet’s carriers on Tirpitz in Kaa Fjord. Bad weather interfered with the attack but Nabob was hit aft by an acoustic torpedo fired by U-354 which blew a hole 50ft long by 40ft high below the waterline and bent the single propeller shaft. She was fortunate, however, in having Chief Shipwright J R Ball RCN in her complement, whose previous duty had been shoring up torpedo-damaged ships in St John’s, Newfoundland. His experience helped to shore up bulkheads around the damaged area and the ship was able to return to Scapa Flow on 27 August under her own steam. Despite being down by the stern, she had even managed to fly off Avengers on an anti-submarine patrol. Unfortunately, she was found to be so badly damaged that there was insufficient capacity in UK shipyards to repair her and so she was de-commissioned on 30 September 1944 and left, unrepaired, on a mud bank on the south bank of the Firth of Forth where she was stripped of equipment for use as spares by her sister-ships.²

Puncher was commissioned in February 1944 and on 10 May 1944 Captain R E S Bidwell RCN assumed command. She was used initially as an aircraft ferry carrier and made several passages in convoy from New York to the UK before suffering a main gearing failure in November 1944. She was refitted and repaired on the Clyde with items removed from Nabob. Once repairs were complete she joined the Home Fleet in February 1945 and embarked 881 (Wildcats) and 821 (Barracudas) NAS for strike operations off the Norwegian coast. The war in Europe ended while she was refitting in the Clyde but in May and June she operated as a deck landing training carrier for 1790 and 1791 (Fireflies) NAS before having bunks and extra bathrooms fitted into the hangar for duty as a troopship. From August she carried out a number of runs between the UK, Halifax and New York with a reduced ship’s company. On the first of these she carried 491 RCN and fifty WRCNS personnel home from the UK. On the last runs eastwards, she carried men and stores to man the new light fleet carrier Warrior which was being completed by Harland & Wolff in Belfast for loan to the RCN.

It had been intended to transfer Ocean and Warrior to the RCN on loan in 1945 but the RCN had its own manpower problems and proved unable to accept a light fleet carrier before September 1945, ruling out Ocean which was, therefore, manned by the RN.³ Instead it was decided that Warrior and Magnificent, both being built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, would be lent with Warrior first in 1946. Magnificent was a more capable ship, able to operate larger and heavier aircraft and in the event she replaced rather than augmented Warrior in 1948 and remained on loan to the RCN until 1957 when she was in turn replaced by her modernised sister-ship Bonaventure (formerly Powerful) which had been purchased outright by the Canadian Government. The creation of a Canadian Fleet Air Arm was helped in the Spring of 1945 by the transfer of 550 surplus RCAF pilots to the RN for service in the BPF. They travelled to the UK for training and, with the unexpectedly early end of the Pacific War, were ideally placed to join other Canadians in the formation of the RCN’s first naval air squadrons. These were formed in the UK in exactly the same way as RN air squadrons, taking up the numbers of units that had been temporarily disbanded. The first of these was 803 (Seafire LIIIs) NAS which re-commissioned at RNAS Arbroath on 15 June 1945. Its aircraft flew in standard RN markings but the words ‘ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY’ rather than ‘ROYAL NAVY’ were painted on the after fuselage above the airframe number. The squadron became officially part of the RCN on 24 January 1946, the day on which HMCS Warrior was commissioned.⁴ Another early unit was 825 NAS which re-commissioned for the RCN with Barracudas at RNAS Rattray on 1 July 1945. Fireflies replaced the Barracudas in November and the unit transferred formally to the RCN on the same day as 803 NAS.

HMCS Magnificent in Grand Harbour, Malta during 1952. The aircraft on deck are Sea Furies and Avengers. (Author’s collection)

By the time Warrior arrived in Canada a shore base would be required for disembarked naval air squadrons and a committee of RCAF and RCN senior officers was tasked make a joint plan. In October 1945 an agreement was reached which was surprising in the light of the RN’s own bad experience with the joint control of air matters prior to 1937. The RCAF was to be responsible for the management of all naval shore-based aviation, including major aircraft repair, maintenance and the provision of air stores. The RCN had jurisdiction over all carrier-based activities and shore-based minor repairs and aircraft inspections. Permanent shore facilities were to be at RCAF Dartmouth in Nova Scotia where RN telegraphist air gunners had been trained during the war. By 31 March 1946 when 803 and 825 NAS disembarked from HMCS Warrior, an RCN Air Section had been established at the base which was shared with aircraft of the RCAF, Maritime Airways and Trans-Canada Airlines. As in the UK, however, the shortcomings and, ultimately, failure of joint control rapidly became apparent and unacceptable. Effectively the RCAF held the ‘purse-strings’ for the logistical support of the Fleet Air Arm but put its own priorities first, confronting the Navy with shortages in such vital items as flying clothing and general air stores. The senior naval officer described his status to higher authority as that of a ‘beggar tenant’ in an establishment that was in desperate need of repair.⁵ For example, in January 1947 faulty heating systems in hangars 108 and 109 forced their temporary evacuation. The Government considered moving the air facility but Dartmouth had such clear advantage as a naval base that control of both the airfield and all shore-based maintenance activity was transferred to the RCN and the base commissioned as HMCS Shearwater, RCNAS Dartmouth on 1 December 1948.

By then there were two carrier air groups, the 18th and 19th. The latter composed the first two squadrons that had formed in the UK and the latter two new squadrons, 883 (Seafires) and 826 (Fireflies) which had commissioned in Canada. A third air group had been formed for training in May 1947 and included a fleet requirements unit, 743 NAS, with a variety of aircraft and an operational flying school. Operational flying training after the award of ‘wings’ was carried out at RN operational schools in the UK until the mid-1950s when the RCN moved away from using aircraft that were standardised RN types. The RCN maintained an Observer School which trained a number of RN observers during the period while the RN tried to unite pilot and observer training. From 1948 Hawker Sea Furies began to replace Seafires in the fighter squadrons and from 1951 modified Grumman Avengers specialising in anti-submarine warfare replaced the Fireflies. No Canadian carrier took part in the Korean War and, although consideration was given to embarking a Canadian Sea Fury squadron in an RN carrier, the plan came to nothing.

When Bonaventure came into service in 1957 she operated an air group comprising McDonnell Banshee fighters of 870 NAS and the Grumman Tracker anti-submarine aircraft of 880 NAS. The air group later included Sikorsky Whirlwind anti-submarine helicopters. It was still run very much on the lines inherited from the RN but now had a distinctly Canadian flavour and earned a high reputation for anti-submarine operations within NATO. The Banshees always operated at the margin of capability and were withdrawn in 1962 without replacement. Consideration had been given to replacing them with Douglas A-4 Skyhawks procured from the USN and deck landing trials were carried out but the Government would not agree to meet the modest cost.

In 1968 the RCN was subsumed into the joint Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), which failed to comprehend her value and despite the fact that she had only completed a ‘half-life’ refit in 1967, she was listed for disposal in 1969 and scrapped in 1970. Sikorsky Sea King helicopters, which had replaced the Whirlwinds in 1963, continued to be used in single-aircraft flights embarked in destroyers, flown by CAF aircrew. By 2014 the CAF had been recognised as a failure and the proud name of the RCN restored. However, the CAF legacy is that the restored RCAF still operates ship-borne helicopters which are shore-based at a heliport on the site of the former RCNAS. Government attempts to replace the Sea King have proved a costly failure since 1992 with two different types selected, millions of dollars spent and no operational aircraft to show for the effort. Part of the problem is the specification which states that the aircraft must float if they come down in Arctic seas and, beside their anti-submarine capability, must have cargo-handling equipment to suit them for a variety of tasks. None of the three major anti-submarine types in service with Western navies can meet this criteria and it is, perhaps, not being unfair to say that Canadian naval aviation lost its way after 1968 and has yet to recover.

The Royal Australian Navy

By 1945 the RAN was, arguably, a significantly less potent force than it been in 1914 or 1939. In 1914 the battlecruiser Australia and its supporting fleet unit constituted a balanced and powerful force and in 1939 it deployed a significant force of five modern cruisers and a number of destroyers. As the war progressed, however, naval aviation became the dominant factor in naval warfare and the RAN ‘fell out of step’ with modern navies⁶ in that it had no tactical aircraft embarked and could not, therefore, form a viable task force on its own. Moral was high, however, and both officers and men were proud of their wartime achievements. From a professional point of view they wanted a chance to display their worth and efficiency in future and ‘it was obvious throughout the fleet that this would entail the introduction of naval aviation’.⁷

The acquisition of aircraft carriers for the RAN was not without controversy, however. Early in 1944 it had already become clear to the Australian Commonwealth Naval Board (ACNB), that a carrier task group manned by the RAN would be the most effective method of contributing to the Allied offensive against Japan as well as being the logical focus of a post-war fleet.⁸ Negotiations for the transfer of a new light fleet carrier and two cruisers from the RN to the RAN at no cost to the Australian Government began in a ‘quiet and unofficial way’⁹ and Admiral Sir Guy Royle, an RN Admiral serving as First Naval Member of the ACNB and Chief of the Naval Staff, announced the scheme at a meeting of the Advisory War Council on 21 March 1944. Unfortunately he had not discussed the matter beforehand with the other Chiefs of Staff or with Sir Frederick Sheddon, secretary of the Defence Committee. All feigned shock and the latter took his disquiet to John Curtin, the Prime Minister, who sent for Royle and reminded him that communication with the Admiralty on such matters should be through Government channels.

Sir Guy Royle continued to argue for this scheme when Curtin visited the United Kingdom for talks with the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. While Churchill’s arguments had considerable merit, which Curtin recognised, he gave the impression that the British were merely trying to solve their own manpower crisis by obtaining Australian sailors to commission new ships which could not otherwise be deployed in 1945.¹⁰ The British offered two light fleet carriers on free loan, possibly Venerable and Ocean, although the exact choice of ships would have depended on completion dates and manpower availability but John Curtin continued to hold the line that the need for Australian carriers must be examined as part of a study of post-war force structures. He did eventually accept the offer in February 1945, however, four days after the BPF arrived in Sydney to an enthusiastic welcome but the war ended before the scheme could be implemented. Had it been taken forward, the ships would have been ‘mix-manned’ with the RAN providing the executive department and the RN the squadrons and the bulk of the air departments like the arrangement that had proved successful in the RCN-manned escort carriers. During 1945 a number of RAAF Spitfire pilots transferred to the RANVR to fly Seafires in the BPF. The scheme was cut short by the unexpectedly early end to the war on 15 August but there were many more volunteers than could be trained. Many of these would, no doubt, have found their way into the squadrons embarked in an Australian light fleet carrier. Also, judging by the experience of the BPF, there would have been many volunteers among the sailors in their air departments to transfer permanently into the RAN.

Admiral Sir Louis Hamilton relieved Sir Guy Royle in 1945. He was to be the last RN admiral seconded to Australia to act as the Chief of the Naval Staff and was determined to settle the issue of aircraft carriers for the RAN. He commissioned a study into the need for Australian naval aviation and entrusted Lieutenant Commander V A T Smith DSC RAN,¹¹ who had served with the RN Fleet Air Arm as an observer for much of the war, with the task. Unlike his predecessor, Sir Louis Hamilton ‘cultivated’ Sheddon and worked on Mr Chifley the new Prime Minister. He had to inform them that in Great Britain’s difficult post-war economic circumstances it could no longer offer light fleet carriers free of charge and Australia would be expected to bear some of the burden of defending Commonwealth interests in the Pacific. Mr Chifley accepted this and agreed with Smith’s recommendation that the post-war RAN should be centred on two carriers, at least one of which would always be available and capable of both defensive and offensive action in an independent task force or as part of a coalition fleet. Despite hostile opposition from the RAAF which argued that all forms of aviation should be land-based and operated only under its own control, the Australian Government finally agreed to purchase two light fleet carriers from the Admiralty as part of a five-year defence plan. After some negotiation, the Admiralty agreed to sell two ships of the Majestic class to Australia for the estimated build cost of one.¹² The programme cost was, therefore, £2,750,000 for the two ships plus £450,000 each for their initial outfits of stores, a total of £3,650,000 but against this could be set £427,000 raised by public subscription in Australia for a replacement after the loss of the cruiser Sydney in 1941. Legislation could easily apply this sum against the cost of the first of the new ships after it was decided to name it after the cruiser. Many Australian citizens were therefore able to feel that they had contributed directly to the procurement of the nation’s most powerful warship and the fact that it was an aircraft carrier showed that the RAN was moving into a new era.

Despite Hamilton’s hard work mistakes were made and, unfortunately, the Admiralty made no allowance in the quoted price for the improvements that would be necessary to support new generations of aircraft at a time of rapid change in both aircraft and their supporting systems. Considering the far-reaching and expensive work being undertaken in the UK at the time on projects such as the rubber landing deck¹³ and steam catapult this oversight is surprising. In the early post-war years the Australian Government was suspicious of every penny spent on what some critics viewed as a large aviation component within a small navy and what appeared to be cost over-runs did not help.¹⁴ As the Fleet Air Arm became ‘Australianised’ and RN influence diminished, the Five Year Defence Plan made good progress and these fears abated but they were to surface again in the Australian carrier replacement debate during the late 1970s. Arguments about procurement and cost were not simple to resolve but the concept that embarked aircraft formed a critical element in naval warfare was not, at first, obvious to the RAAF and it sought to block the procurement of the two carriers. Even after they were accepted as part of the Five Year Defence Plan in 1947, the Minister for Air insisted that the RAAF must provide the aircraft, aircrew and infrastructure. His intransigent view was all the more difficult to understand, given the success of the obvious ‘role models’ in Great Britain and the USA and the outcome of Commander Smith’s Study which had been accepted by Government. Despite further objections from the Minister for Air that the establishment of a Fleet Air Arm in the RAN was ‘not in the best interests of defence’,¹⁵ the Prime Minister accepted that the RAN’s air component would wear naval uniform, be under naval operational control and backed by naval shore stations and facilities.¹⁶ If the RAAF had had its way, Sydney might have started life with a nominal air group that was institutionally averse to the concept of carrier aviation and could not have done as well as she did in Korea and, perhaps, could not have deployed at all. The failure of the RAAF to recognise that aviation forms an important and legitimate part of its sister-service’s operational capability left a political legacy that proved difficult to eradicate. It was particularly unfortunate that men who believed themselves to be proponents of ‘air power’ actively sought to eradicate the RAN’s Fleet Air Arm and its ability to provide an important tactical capability in the national interest.

20 Carrier Air Group was formed for the RAN at RNAS Eglinton in Northern Ireland on 28 August 1948;¹⁷ it comprised 805 (Sea Fury FB 11s) and 816 (Firefly FR 4s) NAS. A second air group, 21 CAG, was formed in Australia at RNAS St Merryn in April 1950 comprising 808 (Sea Fury FB 11s) and 817 (Firefly FR 5s) NAS and subsequently took passage to Australia in Sydney. To provide the aircrew for its new squadrons the RAN entered thirty-five ex-Second World War aviators at Flinders Naval Depot in January 1948 with the rank of Acting Lieutenant RAN.¹⁸ Also four lieutenants from the Royal Australian Naval College, RANC, started flying training with the RN in the UK and five ex-RAAF pilots already serving on short-service commissions in the RN were transferred to the RAN. On its formation 20 CAG comprised the four lieutenants from the RANC, the first six of the aircrew who had entered Flinders in January, fifteen RN pilots, six RN observers and six aircrewmen recruited into the RAN from the RN. The air group commander and the two squadron commanding officers were both RN at first but by 1952 the only RN officers in the Australian Fleet Air Arm under the rank of commander were the small number of exchange officers retained in squadrons as a permanent feature to broaden the knowledge of tactics and ideas at unit level.

The ship that became HMAS Sydney 3 was laid down in Devonport Dockyard as HMS Terrible in April 1943 as one of sixteen 1942-design light fleet carriers,¹⁹ part of the massive expansion of naval aviation within the RN during the latter part of the Second World War. The 1942 design was divided into two classes, the Colossus class of ten ships and the improved Majestic class of six ships which were capable of operating larger and heavier aircraft. Four ships of an even larger 1943 design were built for the RN but they were considered to be beyond the RAN’s ability to man and operate in the early 1950s. The Majestics were laid down slightly later; all were suspended incomplete soon after the Japanese surrender and none saw service with the RN. Terrible was laid up in Devonport before she was bought by the Australian Government on 3 June 1947 but work re-commenced immediately to complete her to the original design and she was handed over to the RAN in December 1948 and commissioned by Mrs J A Beasley, wife of the Australian High Commissioner in London, on 5 February 1949.²⁰ Her first commanding officer was Captain R R Dowling DSO RAN who maintained the very close links between the RN and RAN. Even those who worked so hard to establish an Australian carrier strike force did not realise how effective the Fleet Air Arm would become in a very short time; just over a year after her arrival in home waters, Sydney deployed to the Korean War with the outstanding success described in the previous chapter.

HMAS Sydney leaving the UK for Australia with a large number of cocooned Sea Furies and Fireflies for the RAN’s new Fleet Air Arm on deck and in the hangar. (Author’s collection)

The second Australian carrier was Majestic herself, renamed as HMAS Melbourne, built by Vickers and suspended at Barrow-in-Furness after 1946. She was completed at a slower pace so that that the revolutionary new British carrier systems could be included. In the event she was virtually rebuilt to a much-improved design and when completed in November 1955 she was only the third carrier in the world to be completed with a steam catapult, angled deck and mirror landing aid fitted during build rather than retro-fitted later.²¹ She too was to have a long and productive life, remaining in operation until 1982. To cover the period before Melbourne was completed, some years later than originally planned because of the amount of reconstruction needed to bring her up to the latest standard, the light fleet carrier Vengeance was lent to the RAN from November 1952. She sailed for the UK in June 1955 with the ship’s company that would take over the new Melbourne and was returned to the RN in August. It would be difficult to imagine a closer relationship between two navies.

The light fleet carriers were undoubtedly a good choice for Australia. They were available, affordable, economical in operation and at the time of their completion both ships represented the current ‘state of the art’. The completion of the second ship on a slower timescale to incorporate new technology was also a sensible move which gave the Fleet Air Arm the chance to mature. Had Australia elected to buy one of the 1943 light fleet carriers it is doubtful whether it could have been completed before 1954, a considerable delay, and it would have had a much higher ‘price-tag’. It would also have been more expensive to man and operate. In an era when personnel were trained by, and interchangeable with their RN contemporaries the ships’ standardised British equipment was easy to absorb and presented few operating problems²² and this meant that attention could be focused on flying operations. The only viable alternative would have been surplus USN escort carriers of the Commencement Bay class and with their different machinery, systems and ammunition they might have been cheap to buy but would have been expensive to assimilate and operate. Sydney proved herself to be a better carrier than ships of this class such as the USS Rendova in operations off Korea. She was also more seaworthy and better able to adapt to subsequent development.

A ‘most original forgery’ on the flight deck of HMAS Vengeance when she escorted HM Queen Elizabeth II for part of her tour of the Commonwealth in the liner Gothic during 1954. (RAN)

The Indian Navy

India was the last Commonwealth navy to adopt aircraft carriers, although a small shore-based Fleet Air Arm had been operated since independence in 1947. In 1957 the Indian Government purchased the incomplete light fleet carrier Hercules, a sister-ship of the vessels procured and operated by Australia and Canada. She had been built by Vickers-Armstrong on the Tyne but laid up incomplete in the Gareloch after launch. After her purchase she was towed to Harland & Wolff in Belfast for completion, capitalising on the experience gained with the modernisation and completion of Bonaventure. She was completed in 1961 and commissioned as INS Vikrant, the last of the 1942 light fleet carriers to enter service, and fitted with a steam catapult, angled deck and mirror landing aid. Her air group comprised Hawker Sea Hawk FGA 6 fighters and Breguet Alizé anti-submarine/reconnaissance aircraft which were later joined by Westland Sea King helicopters. The IN had hoped to buy French Etendard fighters but accepted the obsolescent Sea Hawks as the RN was withdrawing them from service and offered them at a bargain price.²³ A subsequent batch of surplus Sea Hawks was bought at low cost from the Federal German Government which was replacing them with F-104 Starfighters. Vikrant’s ship’s company and the squadrons were initially trained in the UK but, unlike Canada and Australia, India moved away from British technical management to adopt its own more nationally-centred support infrastructure. It obtained remarkable value for money from its purchases and the IN’s Sea Hawks were not finally withdrawn from service until the 1980s after proving effective in a number of regional conflicts. Indian naval air squadrons were never numbered in the RN sequence but were, instead, given numbers in the 300 range. In the 1980s India became the only export customer for the Sea Harrier which replaced the Sea Hawk at modest cost. They were able to operate from Vikrant which was fitted with a 12-degree ‘ski-jump’ and subsequently from Hermes, renamed Viraat, which was purchased from the RN in 1986, again at a bargain price which included a major refit in Devonport Dockyard. She is still active in 2015 with an air group of Sea Harriers and Sea King helicopters to which a small number of Russian-built Kamov Ka-31 airborne surveillance and control helicopters have been added.

HMAS Melbourne, seen here with a Gannet landing-on, was the only third aircraft carrier in the world to be completed with a steam catapult, angled deck and mirror landing aid rather than having them added later. (Author’s collection)

Russian influence grew significantly and in 1994 the Russian Navy offered one of its Kiev class aircraft carriers for sale. The offer was not immediately taken up but in 1999 the former Admiral Gorshkov was offered free of charge provided that the Indian Government paid for her to be modified to a revised design and refitted. Again this was seen as a bargain which was taken up with a contract signed in 2004 but, in this instance, the ‘bargain basement’ tactic proved unsuccessful. The original cost of the work was US$ 625 million but unforeseen problems and difficulties delayed the project and the ship, renamed Vikramaditya, was not delivered until 2013 at a cost well over $2 billion with several technical issues including boiler reliability unresolved. Like similar ships in the Russian and Chinese navies she uses a ‘ski-jump’ to operate fighters in the short take-off but arrested landing (STOBAR) mode. A new carrier built to an indigenous Indian design with Italian engineering support was launched in 2014 for planned completion in 2018. She is to be named Vikrant II and the Indian Navy hopes to build further carriers with catapults instead of the ‘ski-jump’ to give fighters greater load-carrying capability and flexibility.

INS Vikrant in 1962 shortly after her arrival in India. (Author’s collection)

The Royal New Zealand Navy

Despite the large number of New Zealand aircrew who flew with the RN in the Second World War, the post-war RNZN was not large enough to operate an aircraft carrier or form its own Fleet Air Arm and a number of New Zealanders have flown with the RN and RAN as pilots and observers. RNZN ships have operated helicopters since 1966, however, when the first Leander class frigate entered service. Westland Wasps were procured and flown by RNZN pilots trained in the UK with RNZAF maintenance technicians to support them. With the introduction of the ANZAC class frigates from 1997, Wasps were replaced by the Kaman SH-2G Seasprite. These too are flown by RNZN pilots and observers trained in New Zealand and supported by embarked RNZAF detachments. This arrangement is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as a further batch of Seasprites was ordered in 2014.