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The Malta-class aircraft carrier was a British large aircraft carrier design of World War II.Four ships were ordered in 1943 for the Royal Navy, but changing tactical concepts, based on American experience in the Pacific War, caused repeated changes to the design, which was not completed before the end of the war.
The training aircraft carrier HMS Argus was used to despatch twelve Hurricanes to Malta from a position to the south-west of Sardinia. Hurry was the first Club Run to reinforce the air defence of the island, despite the British Chiefs of Staff decision two months earlier that nothing could be done to reinforce Malta. [ 8 ]
HMS Malta: 80 56,800 long tons (57,711 t) 4 or 5 x shafts Steam turbines 8 x boilers ... British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories ...
Reinforcements for Malta included 19 costly aircraft carrier ferry operations to deliver fighters. [2] From August 1940 to the end of August 1942, 670 Hurricane and Sptifire fighters had been flown off carriers in the western Mediterranean. [3] Many other aircraft used Malta as a staging post for North Africa and the Desert Air Force. [4]
On 11 August the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious dispatched 37 Spitfires to Malta; the carrier Eagle, veteran of so many Club Runs was sunk by German submarine U-73 the same day. The escort for the convoy comprised three fleet aircraft carriers, two battleships, seven cruisers and 24 destroyers.
An unsinkable aircraft carrier is a geographically or politically important island that is used to extend the power projection of a military force. Because such an entity is capable of acting as an airbase and is a physical landmass not easily destroyed, it is, in effect, an immobile aircraft carrier that cannot be sunk.
Merchant Aircraft Carriers. Britain converted a total of nineteen merchant ships to Merchant Aircraft Carriers during the war. Nine of these were converted Royal Dutch Shell oil tankers, two of which operated under the flag of the Netherlands. [s] All served in the Atlantic theater and typically carried three or four Fairey Swordfish torpedo ...
HMS Malta (1854) was a paddle steamer originally called Britannia and purchased in 1854. She was sold in 1856. HMS Malta (D93) was to have been the lead ship of the Malta-class aircraft carriers. She was laid down in 1944 but construction was cancelled in 1945.