Classic British Flight Sim

I went on Victorius in 1958 at the ripe old age of one and don't remember anything at all

And aircraft from Victorious were the first to attack the Bismark.

Grand old lady saw plenty of service.

sketchy74 wrote:It has some great footage of Malta too for all you that put time in there over the years.

Thoroughly enjoyed that

I was in Valetta in 1960 when HMS Victorious arrived (if that was indeed the exact year)....but I was only 4 years old and I'm afraid I don't remember the occasion

Another tenous link: on return to the UK a couple of years later I was a schoolmate and 'best pals' with the son of the serving Padre on HMS Victorious. We were mates throughout junior school.....apart from when the RN decided that my dad and family had to go to Australia for a couple of years in the mid-sixties

Whether or not his dad is the gent in the film I'm not sure, the hairline looks the same from my vague recollection.

That's brought back a few memories, I remember the name and will do some research.

Derek

dodger wrote:Hi Fraser,

Your safe here mate Thats a lot different where you are after Cornwall, do you get to visit ?
My Daughter lives in Perranporth and my Grandsons live and work in Launceston and i used to live in Devon, lovely part of the world,
Cheers,
Roger.

Thanks Roger, Good to know!
Yea LA is a little different to the Duchy I must admit! But I live near the beach here so its kind of the same, I am from Camborne and went to school in Truro we used to go Surfing in Perranporth in the summer evenings, a great part of the world. I have been in the USA for 4 years now and actually came back to UK and down to Cornwall on holiday last month. On the subject of being from Cornwall in Los Angeles from experience don't put a small St Pirrans (Cornish) flag on the aerial of your car as a recognition point when picking people up from LAX, the Police Officer doing the spot checks on the road in to airport stopped me with concern about what it was and why I was proudly flying it!!

TobyV wrote:I looked up HMS Victorious and found out it was actually ordered pre-WWII. (Apologies to all those that knew that, although I had a suspicion). They talk about it as if it had been built the year before (ok, it had had a major refit). If only we had something of that size today, I could see it being useful.

Toby you are right the Vic was a WW2 Veteran, as Darren pointed out it was instrumental in the sinking of the Bismark. After the war she was practically rebuild from below the Hanger (See pic) this refit / rebuild took some time and is the main reason she did not see service in Korea.

DelP wrote: [.....apart from when the RN decided that my dad and family had to go to Australia for a couple of years in the mid-sixties

The RAF decided my dad and family had to go to Australia for two and a half years in the mid-sixties too. Where were you ? We were at RAAF Edinburgh, near Adelaide, from September 1965 to Feb 1968.

Fraser, thanks for the photo. Made me wonder why if they rebuilt it so thoroughly i nthe mid-late 50s did they scrap it by the end of the 1960s? Guess aircraft carriers went out of favour after the CVA01 debacle.

Made me wonder why if they rebuilt it so thoroughly i nthe mid-late 50s did they scrap it by the end of the 1960s? Guess aircraft carriers went out of favour after the CVA01 debacle.

Basically once the decision had been made not to replace the carriers having them hanging around had the potential to embarrass the government with them proving their utility, read Phoenix Squadron for an example of this. Victorious was supposed to have one more commission but a minor fire in the POs Mess was used as an excuse to scrap her early, the fire started in a tea urn and everyone was turned to the next day carrying on with the refit. Certainly there are fires of a similar magnitude throughout the fleet most years even now.

And the carrier HMS Indefatigable (entered service in 1944) was placed in reserve in 1946, decommissioned in 1950 and scrapped early in 1956 and never rebuilt. I think the excuse given was damage sustained in a kamikaze attack in WWII, rubbish of course. Like the Victorious fire, it was an excuse. RN Carriers had armoured decks, unlike USN carriers.

HMS Indefatigable Kamikaze attack, April 1st 1945 - http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=15090

HMS Indefatigable log

April 1st - Deployment in continuation.

Damaged by KAMIKAZE aircraft and sustained 30 casualties including 14 killed.

Available for operational action after only an hour.

Paul K wrote:

DelP wrote: [.....apart from when the RN decided that my dad and family had to go to Australia for a couple of years in the mid-sixties

The RAF decided my dad and family had to go to Australia for two and a half years in the mid-sixties too. Where were you ? We were at RAAF Edinburgh, near Adelaide, from September 1965 to Feb 1968.

Hi Paul,

We were in Sydney, well Manley actually, across the bay, 1964-66. My dad was a submariner.

This link sort of explains it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Aust ... ne_Service

The RN Submarine Service badge comes from the Australian version, I remember when my old man was issued with his he mentioned that if you look at it and squint it looks like something else. I'll leave that to your imaginations

http://upperiscope.com.au/history/Dolphins.htm

Sorry folks, OT

Derek

RN Carriers had armoured decks, unlike USN carriers.

True but this was part of the problem, the Illustrious class had an armoured hangar box which contributed to the torsional stiffness of the hull. The roof of this box was of course part of the flight deck and the damage caused to it during the war affected the whole box which in turn affected the whole ship. Sure Indefatigable was back conducting operations within an hour but that's not to say there wasn't a lot of deep structural damage that would affect her long term viability.
With the number of carriers coming on line at the end of the war there was little point in undertaking the level of rebuild that would have been needed when there were effectively going to be more carriers than the navy could use e.g. the Majestics none of which saw RN service.
At one point they were considering upgrading more of the Illustrious class to the same standard as the Victorious but as it took about twice as long as originally planned, not to mention the cost, that plan was shelved.