1939 AUDACITY From mid-1940 onwards, following the fall of France, Britain faced a new threat to her maritime lifeline; in an attempt to pro vide much-needed air cover, merchant ships were converted to become expedient aircraft carriers, the first of which was HMS Audacity.
AN EXPEDIENT SOLUTION
To counter the threat posed by ultra-long range Focke WuIf FW.200 Kondor bombers operating from fields on the Atlantic coast, the Admiralty first equipped selected merchant ships with catapults to allow them to launch obsolescent Hurricane fighters (which could, of course, not be recovered). Then a better solution came to mind, the conversion of appropriate merchant ships into carriers, their superstructures razed and their uptakes diverted to discharge horizontally, and a simple flight deck installed. The first ship to be thus converted was a German cargo-passenger liner, captured in the Caribbean in March 1940.
A NEW LEASE OF LIFE
Constructed by Bremer Vulkan for the Norddeutsche Line as the 5500grt Hannover, she was launched on 29 March 1939. Work on converting her was put in hand by Blythe Shipbuilding in January 1941, and she was commissioned as HMS Audacity in June that year. Only very rudimentary equipment was installed. There was no hangar and consequently no need for a lift, and her six aircraft were kept on deck. Tanks to hold 10,000 gallons of aviation fuel were installed. Navigation and control of air operations was carried out from a simple platform to starboard. She operated in defence of the Gibraltar convoys for six months, being torpedoed by U751 off the coast of Portugal on 20 December 1941.
TECHNICAL DATA
Type: Escort aircraft carrier
Machinery: 1 -shaft, 7 cylinder MAN diesel producing 5,200bhp
Dimensions (flight deck): Length, 1 42.4m (467.251t); beam, 1 8.3m (60ft)
Displacement: 10,250t deep load
Draught: 6.6m (21 .5ft)
