HMS Formidable (67)

HMS ''Formidable'' was an 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 . ''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.

Assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942, ''Formidable'' covered the invasion of Diego Suarez in Vichy Madagascar in mid-1942 against the possibility of a sortie by the Japanese into the Indian Ocean. ''Formidable'' returned home for a brief refit before participating in Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa in November. She remained in the Mediterranean and covered the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943 before beginning a lengthy refit.

''Formidable'' made several attacks on the in Norway in mid-1944 as part of the Home Fleet. She was subsequently assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) in 1945 where she played a supporting role during the Battle of Okinawa and later attacked targets in the Japanese Home Islands. The ship was used to repatriate liberated Allied prisoners of war and soldiers after the Japanese surrender and then ferried British personnel across the globe through 1946. She was placed in reserve the following year and sold for scrap in 1953.

Background and description

The Royal Navy's 1936 Naval Programme authorised the construction of two aircraft carriers. Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, was determined not to simply modify the previous unarmoured design. He believed that carriers could not be successfully defended by their own aircraft without some form of early-warning system. Lacking that, there was nothing to prevent land-based aircraft from attacking them, especially in confined waters like the North and Mediterranean Seas. This meant that the ship had to be capable of remaining in action after sustaining damage, and that her fragile aircraft had to be protected entirely from damage. The only way to do this was to completely armour the hangar in which the aircraft would shelter, but putting that much weight so high in the ship allowed only a single-storey hangar due to stability concerns. This halved the aircraft capacity of the ''Illustrious'' class compared with the older unarmoured carriers, trading offensive potential for defensive survivability.

''Formidable'' had a length of overall and at the waterline. Her beam was at the waterline and she had a draught of at deep load. She displaced at standard load as completed.Friedman, p. 366 Her complement was approximately 1,299 men upon completion in 1940.Hobbs 2013, p. 89 The ship had three Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one shaft using steam supplied by six Admiralty 3-drum boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of , enough to give a maximum speed of .Campbell, N. J. M., p. 19 On sea trials, ''Formidable'' reached with .Brown, David, p. 367 She carried a maximum of of fuel oil, which gave her a range of at .

The armoured flight deck had a usable length of , due to prominent "round-downs" at bow and stern to reduce air turbulence, and a maximum width of . A single hydraulic aircraft catapult was fitted on the forward part of the flight deck. The ship was equipped with two unarmoured lifts on the centreline, each of which measured . The hangar was long and had a maximum width of . It had a height of , which allowed storage of Lend-Lease Vought F4U Corsair fighters once their wingtips were clipped. The ship could accommodate up to 54 aircraft rather than the intended 36 after the adoption of "outriggers" on the flight deck during the war and the flattening of the "round-downs" that increased the usable length of the flight deck to to facilitate the use of a permanent deck park. The additional crewmen, maintenance personnel and facilities needed to support the extra aircraft severely crowded the ship. She was provided with of petrol.

Armament, electronics and protection

The ship's main armament consisted of sixteen quick-firing (QF) dual-purpose guns in eight twin-gun turrets that were mounted in sponsons on the side of the hull. The roofs of the gun turrets protruded above the level of the flight deck to allow them to fire across the deck at high elevations.Hobbs 2013, p. 85 The gun had a maximum range of . Her light anti-aircraft defences consisted of six octuple mounts for QF two-pounder ("pom-pom") anti-aircraft (AA) guns, two each fore and aft of the island and two in sponsons on the port side of the hull. The two-pounder gun had a maximum range of .

While under repair in late 1941, ''Formidable''s light AA armament was augmented by the addition of 10