The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945

“A comprehensive study of the bittersweet post WWII history of British naval aviation . . . will become a standard reference for its subject.”—Firetrench In 1945 the most powerful fleet in the Royal Navy’s history was centered on nine aircraft carriers. This book charts the post-war fortunes of this potent strike force; its decline in the face of diminishing resources, its final fall at the hands of uncomprehending politicians, and its recent resurrection in the form of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. After 1945 “experts” prophesied that nuclear weapons would make conventional forces obsolete, but British carrier-borne aircraft were almost continuously employed in numerous conflicts as far apart as Korea, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, the South Atlantic, East Africa and the Far East, often giving successive British Governments options when no others were available. In the process the Royal Navy invented many of the techniques and devices crucial to modern carrier operations angled decks, steam catapults and deck-landing aids while also pioneering novel forms of warfare like helicopter-borne assault, and tactics for countering such modern plagues as insurgency and terrorism. This book combines narratives of these poorly understood operations with a clear analysis of the strategic and political background, benefiting from the author's personal experience of both carrier flying and the workings of Whitehall. It is an important but largely untold story, of renewed significance as Britain once again embraces carrier aviation. “Makes a timely and welcome appearance . . . will make compelling reading for those with serious concern for our naval affairs.”—St. Andrews in Focus

As a follow-up to the highly regarded British Pacific Fleet, David Hobbs looks at the post-World War II fortunes of the most powerful fleet in the Royal NavyÑits decline in the face of diminishing resources, its final fall at the hands of ignorant politicians, and its recent resurrection in the form of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. Despite prophecies that nuclear weapons would make conventional forces obsolete, British carrier-borne aircraft were almost continuously employed. The Royal Navy faced new challenges in places like Korea, Egypt, and the Persian Gulf. During these trials the Royal Navy invented techniques and devices crucial to modern carrier operations, pioneering novel forms of warfare tactics for countering insurgency and terrorism. This book combines narratives of poorly understood operations with clear analysis of their strategic and political background. With beautiful illustrations and original research, British Carrier Strike Fleet tells an important but largely untold story of renewed significance as Britain once again embraces carrier operation.

For the first time, this book tells the story of how naval air operations evolved into a vital element of the Royal Navy's ability to fight a three-dimensional war against both the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. An integral part of RN, the Fleet Air Arm was not a large organization, with only 406 pilots and 232 front-line aircraft available for operations in September 1939. Nevertheless, its impact far outweigh its numbers; it was an RN fighter that shot down the first enemy aircraft of the war, and an RN pilot was the first British fighter "ace" with 5 or more kills. The Fleet Air Arm's rollcall of achievements in northern waters went on to include the Norwegian Campaign, the crippling of Bismarck, the gallant sortie against Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as they passed through the Channel, air attacks on enemy E-boats in the narrow seas, air cover for the Russian convoys, air attacks that disabled Tirpitz, and strikes and minelaying operations against German shipping in the Norwegian littoral that continued until May 1945. By the end of the war in Europe the FAA had grown to 3243 pilots and 1336 aircraft. This book sets all these varied actions within their proper naval context and both technical and tactical aspects are explained with 'thumb-nail' descriptions of aircraft, their weapons and avionics. Cross reference with the Fleet Air Arm Roll of Honour has been made for the first time to put names to those aircrew killed in action wherever possible as a mark of respect for their determination against enemy forces on, above and below the sea surface which often outnumbered them. The Fleet Air Arm and the War in Europe completes David Hobbs's much-praised six-volume series chronicling the operational history of British naval aviation from the earliest days to the present.

This book is a meticulously detailed history of British aircraft-carrying ships from the earliest experimental vessels to the Queen Elizabeth class, currently under construction and the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. Individual chapters cover the design and construction of each class, with full technical details, and there are extensive summaries of every ship's career. Apart from the obvious large-deck carriers, the book also includes seaplane carriers, escort carriers and MAC ships, the maintenance ships built on carrier hulls, unbuilt projects, and the modern LPH. It concludes with a look at the future of naval aviation, while numerous appendices summarise related subjects like naval aircraft, recognition markings and the circumstances surrounding the loss of every British carrier. As befits such an important reference work, it is heavily illustrated with a magnificent gallery of photos and plans, including the first publication of original plans in full colour, one on a magnificent gatefold.??Written by the leading historian of British carrier aviation, himself a retired Fleet Air Arm pilot, it displays the authority of a lifetime's research combined with a practical understanding of the issues surrounding the design and operation of aircraft carriers. As such British Aircraft Carriers is certain to become the standard work on the subject.

The history of the Royal Navy flagships that led the fleet through the Cold War, ensured victory in the Falklands War, and saw action in Iraq and the Balkans. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the Royal Navy's carrier fleet proved essential to the post-war world. Royal Navy carriers fought in the Korean War with the UN fleet, in the debacle at Suez, and in British operations in the last days of Empire, in Malaya, Borneo and Aden. But most famously, they were the key to the Royal Navy's victory in the Falklands campaign, and they went on to fight in the two Iraq wars. Illustrated throughout with new profiles of the key carriers and their development, as well as a cutaway of HMS Victorious and superb new illustrations of the carriers in action, this book explains how the Royal Navy's air power changed throughout the Cold War and beyond. Renowned naval historian Angus Konstam explains how the World War II carriers were rebuilt in a pioneering modernization that allowed them to operate a new generation of naval jets. As carriers became more expensive to operate, the Royal Navy had to scrap its conventional fast jets and introduce a new generation of light carriers designed for the innovative Harrier 'jump jet'. When the Falklands War broke out, it was one of these new carriers and one veteran carrier from World War II that gave the Task Force the fighters it needed to defend itself in hostile waters and retake the islands. Covering a period of dramatic change for the Royal Navy, this book is a history of the Royal Navy's most important ships throughout the Cold War, the retreat from Empire, and the Falklands and Iraq wars, up to the moment Royal Navy fixed-wing air power was temporarily axed in 2010.

This is a comprehensive study of every aircraft type ordered for the Royal Navy since 1908. It includes fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, rigid and non-rigid airships, unmanned aircraft and pilotless target aircraft together with many designs that were ordered but not built so that the importance placed on them by the Naval Staff or their potential technological impact on carrier design and operations can be explained. Every type - even unsuccessful single prototypes - is described; the majority are illustrated by photographs, many of which come from the author's own collection, and the fifty most significant aircraft have detailed drawings. The Australian and Canadian Fleet Air Arms operated RN aircraft types for many years after their formation and these are included together with other types they have operated subsequently to give a more complete overview. The book describes over 400 different types of aircraft built by over 100 different manufacturers to offer the most detailed coverage of RN aircraft ever produced. Research for the book took over forty years and reference material included Admiralty Archives and an array of material in the public domain including manufacturers' data, individual aircraft pilot's notes and a wealth of published sources. David Hobbs is uniquely well-placed to write this book having served in the RN for thirty-three years and retired with the rank of commander. He flew both fixed and rotary-wing aircraft and his log book contains 2300 flying hours with 807 day and night deck landings. He served in seven British aircraft carriers and spent four years within RN Director General (Aircraft) Department where he was closely involved with Sea Harrier carrier trials and introduced new visual landing aids for night recoveries and liaised with the USN on carrier operating techniques.

The Royal Navy s Fleet Air Arm grew from a small force into a powerful strategic weapon during World War II, with British carrier-based aircraft fighting throughout the world. This complete history describes their activities in the Home, Mediterranean, Eastern, and British Pacific Fleets, together with forces created for specific operations, and lists aircraft and units embarked during the various phases. The author also covers carrier operations in the Pacific between 1941 and 1945, noting that both the U.S. Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy watched the Royal Navy s early carrier operations in the European Theatre and benefited from the lessons. This work combines material from two earlier studies by J. D. Brown and adds information the author was compiling for a third volume at the time of his death.