HMS Argus

FROM CONTE ROSSO TO ARGUS

In June 1 914, Beardmores yard at Dalmuir laid the keel for a passenger liner, destined to serve with the Italian Lloyd Sabaudo Line as the SS Conte Rosso. Work on her was suspended at the outbreak of the First World War in August of that year, and two years later she was purchased by the Admiralty. Her builders were instructed to complete her as an aircraft carrier. She was launched on 2 December 1917 and completed in September 1918, too late to see combat. She proved invaluable in training aircrew and in developing carrier-based operational tactics, and was employed as a training ship, as a ferry carrier and on convoy escort duties. She also participated in the landings in North Africa. She was reduced to an accommodation ship late in 1944, and sold for breaking up in 1946.

AN INNOVATIVE DESIGN

When the Admiralty decided to complete Argus as a carrier, not a single naval architect had the necessary experience, and the approach adopted was pragmatic. Originally she was to have been a seaplane carrier, and then was to have had separate flying-off and landing-on decks with super structure between them. It soon became clear, however, that her spacious hull would accommodate a single through deck, with a full-length hangar space below it at main deck level, connected by two 30ft (10m)-square lifts, and this was the final arrangement.

TECHNICAL DATA

Type: Aircraft carrier
Machinery; 4-shaft Parsons geared turbines delivering 20,000shp
Dimensions (overall): Length, 1.72.5m (566ft); beam, 20.7m (68ft)
Displacement: 1 4,550t standard; 1 7,000t deep load
Draught: 7.5m (24.75ft) deep load
Complement: 401 (including aircrew)
Speed: 20 knots (37km/h)