Home > HMS Victorious (R38)
| HMS Victorious post-WWII |
| Career | |
|---|
| Laid down: | 4th May 1937 |
| Launched: | 14th September 1939 |
| Commissioned: | 14th May 1941 |
| Fate: | Decomissioned 13th March 1968, scrapped 1969 |
| General Characteristics |
|---|
| Displacement: | 29,500 tons post- WWII refit 35,200 tons |
| Length: | 673ft/205m post- WWII refit 753ft/229m |
| Beam: | 95ft/29m post- WWII refit 103ft/32m |
| Draught: | 28ft/8m post- WWII refit 31ft/9m |
| Propulsion: | Steam turbines, six boilers, 3 shafts |
| Range: | 11,000 nautical miles at 14 knots |
| Speed: | 30+ knots |
| Complement: | 2,200 (including air group) |
| Aircraft: | 36 During WWII these included - Albacore, Avenger , Barracuda, Corsair, Fulmar, Seafire, Sea HurricaneThe Hawker Hurricane is a fighter design from the 1930s which was used extensively by the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain. By some measures the design was outdated when introduced. Following traditional Hawker construction techniques closely,, SwordfishThe Fairey Swordfish was a torpedo bomber used by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during World War II. Affectionately known as the Stringbag by its crews, it was outdated by 1939, but achieved some spectacular successes during the war. It was operated, Wildcat Post- WWII included - GannetThe Fairey Gannet was a carrier-borne Anti-submarine warfare and Airborne Early Warning aircraft of the immediate post World War II-era developed for the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. It has been called "the ugliest aircraft in the world". The Gannet's wings, Scimitar, Sea Fury, Sea Hawk, Sea Vixen |
HMS Victorious (R38) (1939-1969) was an Illustrious-class fleet aircraft carrier . She was laid down in 1937, and launched just two weeks into WWII in 1939. Yet she was not commissioned into the Royal Navy until 1941, due to an urgent and more pressing need for escort vessels for service in the deadly Battle of the Atlantic.
1 Bismarck
In 1941, her first active mission, began when she took part in the infamous hunt for the leviathan battleship Bismarck, which had already sunk the WW1-era designed battlecruiser Hood, and severely damaged the HMS Prince of Wales, which newly-commissioned, had been unprepared for a duel with Bismarck, indeed some of Prince of Wales main armament were inoperable before the battle had commenced. Victorious herself was hardly ready to be involved in a hunt for such a potent battleship as the Bismarck, with just one-quarter of her aircraft embarked aboard her, hastily deployed to assist in the pursuit of the German ship. On the 24th May, Victorious launched nine of her biplane Fairey Swordfish aircraft, attacking the German battleship, but hitting her just once, with her aircraft receiving tremedous fire from Bismarcks AA guns. Contact with the battleship was soon lost though, and Victorious would have no further part in the historic sinking of this true monster of the seas. Bismarck herself was sunk just three days after Victorious's first and only attack on the warship.
