HMS Nairana () was the lead ship of the Royal Navy's s that saw service in the Second World War. She was built at John Brown & Company shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland. When construction started in 1941 she was intended as a merchant ship, but was completed and launched as an escort carrier, entering service at the end of 1943.
Nairana operated escorting convoys and doing anti-submarine work in the Atlantic and Arctic theatres. On 26 May 1944, Royal Navy Sea Hurricanes operating from Nairana claimed the destruction of three Junkers Ju 290s during the defence of a convoy. This represented 10 percent of the total German inventory of the type. She survived the war, and in 1946 was transferred to the Royal Netherlands Navy as the Karel Doorman (QH1), the first Dutch aircraft carrier. In 1948, she was replaced in the Royal Netherlands Navy by another vessel of the same name. Nairana was returned to the Royal Navy, and sold to the Port Line company, becoming the merchant ship Port Victor.
Design and description
The Nairanas were a class of three escort carriers built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Escort carriers were designed to protect convoys of merchant ships from U-boat and aircraft attack. Following the successful conversion and operation of , the Admiralty decided to take over three more merchant ships while they were still under construction and convert them into escort carriers. The three ships chosen were being built at three different shipyards Harland and Wolff in Northern Ireland, Swan Hunter in England and John Brown & Company in Scotland. The prototype was built by John Brown who supplied the other two companies with copies of the plans. The three ships were supposed to be identical but in reality they were all slightly different.
HMS Nairana—built by John Brown was launched on 20 May 1943 and completed on 12 December 1943. She had a complement of 728 men and displaced . Her other dimensions were a length of , a beam of and a draught of . Her aircraft facilities included a flight deck, a hangar measuring , eight arrestor wires and an aircraft lift measuring .
She had a traditional rivetted hull, steel flight decks and a closed hangar. Propulsion was provided by diesel engines connected to two shafts giving , which could propel the ship at . Her armaments concentrated on anti-aircraft (AA) defence and comprised two dual purpose guns on a twin mount, sixteen AA autocannons on eight twin mounts and sixteen 2-Pounder "Pom Pom" AA guns on four quadruple mounts. Aircraft assigned were either anti-submarine or fighter aircraft, which could be made up of a mixture of Hawker Sea Hurricanes, Grumman Martlets or Fairey Swordfish.
Service history
Nairana was commissioned in December 1943, and moved to Gourock for working up. Nairana with 835 Naval Air Squadron Fleet Air Arm on board commenced flying exercises with Activity on 27 January 1944. Both carriers left the River Clyde on 29 January with the 2nd Escort Group under the command of Captain Frederic John Walker. They were to form a "hunter killer group" in the waters west of Ireland, providing cover for two southbound convoys OS 66 and KMS 70. Weather conditions had prohibited flying until 31 January. With clearer weather Nairana turned into the wind to send off her first anti-submarine patrol. At the same time, reported contact with a submerged U-boat on her ASDIC. Warning Nairana that she had just turned into danger, the carrier took avoiding action. was sunk by Wild Goose and Walker's own ship , while a Fairey Swordfish from Nairana circled the area.