HMS Formidable was an ordered for the Royal Navy before the Second World War. After being completed in late 1940, she was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet as a replacement for her crippled sister ship . Formidables aircraft played a key role in the Battle of Cape Matapan in early 1941, and they subsequently provided cover for Allied ships and attacked Axis forces until their carrier was badly damaged by German dive bombers in May.
Assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942, Formidable covered the invasion of Diego Suarez in Vichy-controlled Madagascar in mid-1942 against the possibility of a sortie by the Japanese into the Indian Ocean. Formidable returned home for a brief refit before participating in Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa in November. She remained in the Mediterranean and covered the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943 before beginning a lengthy refit.
Formidable made several attacks on the in Norway in mid-1944 as part of the Home Fleet. She was subsequently assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) in 1945 where she played a supporting role during the Battle of Okinawa and later attacked targets in the Japanese Home Islands. The ship was used to repatriate liberated Allied prisoners of war and soldiers after the Japanese surrender and then ferried British personnel across the globe through 1946. She was placed in reserve the following year and sold for scrap in 1953.
Background and description
The Royal Navy's 1936 Naval Programme authorised the construction of two aircraft carriers. Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson, Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, was determined not to simply modify the previous unarmoured design. He believed that carriers could not be successfully defended by their own aircraft without some form of early-warning system. Lacking that, there was nothing to prevent land-based aircraft from attacking them, especially in confined waters like the North and Mediterranean Seas. This meant that the ship had to be capable of remaining in action after sustaining damage, and that her fragile aircraft had to be protected entirely from damage. The only way to do this was to completely armour the hangar in which the aircraft would shelter, but putting that much weight so high in the ship allowed only a single-storey hangar due to stability concerns. This halved the aircraft capacity of the Illustrious class compared with the older unarmoured carriers, trading offensive potential for defensive survivability.Hobbs 2013, p. 83
Formidable had a length of overall and at the waterline. Her beam was at the waterline and she had a draught of at deep load. She displaced at standard load as completed.Friedman, p. 366 Her complement was approximately 1,299 men upon completion in 1940.Hobbs 2013, p. 89 The ship had three Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one shaft using steam supplied by six Admiralty 3-drum boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of , enough to give a maximum speed of .Campbell, N. J. M., p. 19 On sea trials, Formidable reached with .Brown, David, p. 367 She carried a maximum of of fuel oil, which gave her a range of at .
The armoured flight deck had a usable length of , due to prominent "round-downs" at bow and stern to reduce air turbulence, and a maximum width of . A single hydraulic aircraft catapult was fitted on the forward part of the flight deck. The ship was equipped with two unarmoured lifts on the centreline, each of which measured . The hangar was long and had a maximum width of . It had a height of , which allowed storage of Vought F4U Corsair fighters (once their wingtips were clipped) under the Lend-Lease program. The ship could accommodate up to 54 aircraft rather than the intended 36 after the adoption of "outriggers" on the flight deck during the war and the flattening of the "round-downs" that increased the usable length of the flight deck to to facilitate the use of a permanent deck park. The additional crewmen, maintenance personnel and facilities needed to support the extra aircraft severely crowded the ship. She was provided with of petrol.Brown, David, p. 44; Campbell, N. J. M., p. 19; Friedman, p. 134; Hobbs 2013, pp. 84–85, 90
Armament, electronics and protection The ship's main armament consisted of sixteen quick-firing (QF) dual-purpose guns in eight twin-gun turrets that were mounted in sponsons on the side of the hull. The roofs of the gun turrets protruded above the level of the flight deck to allow them to fire across the deck at high elevations.Hobbs 2013, p. 85 The gun had a maximum range of .Campbell, John, pp. 52, 55 Her light anti-aircraft defences consisted of six octuple mounts for QF two-pounder 2 pdr () ("pom-pom") anti-aircraft (AA) guns, two each fore and aft of the island and two in sponsons on the port side of the hull. The two-pounder gun had a maximum range of .Campbell, John, p. 71
While under repair in late 1941, Formidables light AA armament was augmented by the addition of 10 Oerlikon autocannon in single mountsFriedman, p. 148 with a maximum range of .Campbell, John, p. 75 By the time of her last recorded refit in March 1944, she had exchanged one octuple "pom-pom" mount for a quadruple mount and had a total of 20 twin and 14 single 20 mm mounts. Before seeing combat against the Japanese, some were replaced by Bofors AA guns as the 20 mm shell was unlikely to destroy a kamikaze before it hit the ship. The Bofors gun had a maximum range of .Campbell, John, p. 67 By the war's end the ship had all six of her original octuple "pom-pom" mounts, five single 40 mm power-operated mounts, seven single 40 mm "Boffin" mounts and 11 twin and 12 single 20 mm mounts.
Formidable was completed with a Type 79 early-warning radar. The specifics of the additional radars fitted during the war are not readily available, but she probably had, by the end of the war, a Type 277 surface-search/height-finding radar on top of the bridge and a Type 293 target-indicator radar on the foremast. She also probably mounted Type 279 and Type 281B early-warning radars, based on those fitted aboard her sister ship . In addition, Type 282 and Type 285 gunnery radars were mounted on the fire-control directors.Brown, David, p. 43; Campbell, John, pp. 15–16, 18–19; Friedman, pp. 145, 148
The Illustrious-class ships had a flight deck protected by of armour, and the internal sides and ends of the hangars were 4.5 inches thick. The hangar deck itself was thick and extended the full width of the ship to meet the top of the 4.5-inch waterline armour belt. The belt was closed by 2.5-inch transverse bulkheads fore and aft. The underwater defence system was a layered system of liquid- and air-filled compartments backed by a splinter bulkhead.Friedman, p. 137; Hobbs 2013, p. 83
Construction and service
Formidable was ordered as part of the 1937 Naval Programme from Harland & Wolff.Friedman, p. 140 She was laid down at their Belfast shipyard on 17 June 1937 as yard number 1007 and launched on 17 August 1939.Hobbs 2013, p. 97 Just before the launch ceremony was to begin, the wooden cradle supporting the ship collapsed, and the ship slid down the slipway while workmen were still underneath and around the ship. One spectator was killed by flying debris and at least 20 others were injured. Formidable was not damaged and because of the incident, was referred to as "The Ship That Launched Herself"."Formidable – The Ship That Launched Herself" , "The Times of London", 8 August 2009, accessed 6 March 2011."HMS Formidable Launches Herself" "British Pathe", 17 August 1939, accessed 20 April 2019. She was commissioned on 24 November 1940.
After a very brief work up, the Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers of 826 Naval Air Squadron and 829 Squadron and the Fairey Fulmar fighters of 803 Squadron flew aboard and she joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow on 12 December. Her stay there was brief as she, escorted by the heavy cruisers and , sailed on 18 December to protect convoys and search for the , which had recently attacked Convoy HX 84 in the North Atlantic. They failed to find the commerce raider and escorted a convoy to Cape Town, South Africa, arriving on 22 January 1941. Four days later the ship was ordered north to replace her sister Illustrious with the Mediterranean Fleet after she had been badly damaged by German dive bombers. En route, she took the opportunity to attack Italian forces in Italian Somaliland and Eritrea.McCart, p. 50 They sank the steamer on 12 February for the loss of two Albacores.Shores, p. 112
Battle of Cape Matapan
Several weeks later, she made a cautious transit of the Suez Canal (which was recently mined) and reached Alexandria on 10 March.McCart, p. 51 829 Squadron was issued Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to replace its losses.Sturtivant, p. 284 On 20 March Formidable escorted a convoy to Malta and flew off five aircraft for Crete while returning to Alexandria. On the morning of 27 March, major elements of the Italian Fleet were spotted en route to the sea lanes between Egypt and Greece and the carrier sailed later that afternoon with a force of three battleships, cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Reinforced by three Fulmars from 806 Squadron, her air group numbered 13 Fulmars, 10 Albacores and 4 Swordfish. An Albacore spotted the leading Italian ships the next morning and six Albacores with torpedoes attacked . Two German Junkers Ju 88 bombers intervened, but they were driven off by the escorting pair of Fulmars. The attack failed and another strike force of three Albacores and two Swordfish was prepared. Shortly after launching them at 12:22, Formidable was attacked by a pair of torpedo-carrying Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bombers to no effect. Around 14:50, one Albacore torpedoed the Italian battleship, although the other aircraft missed. The hit briefly knocked out her engines and caused heavy flooding. Another air strike of six Albacores and two Swordfish was launched at 17:30 to finish off the battleship, but they mistook the for it in the fading light.Shores, Cull & Malizia, pp. 150–151, 153–162
The cruiser was struck by a torpedo from one of the aircraft, possibly from one of two Swordfish from 815 Squadron from Maleme, Crete, that joined Formidables aircraft before the attack. The mistake allowed the battleship to reach port. One Albacore was shot down by Vittorio Veneto and two others were forced to ditch after running out of fuel. Cunningham continued the pursuit of the Italian ships into the night. Unaware of the British pursuit, a squadron of cruisers and destroyers was ordered to return and help Pola. This squadron included Polas sister ships, Zara and Fiume while Vittorio Veneto and the other ships continued to Taranto.Greene & Massignani, pp. 152–156 In the darkness and without radar the Italian cruisers were surprised and the three battleships plus Formidable were able to close to and open fire. After three minutes, Fiume and Zara had been destroyed. Formidable which was third in line behind and and ahead of received the order to open fire with her 4.5-inch guns although the order was almost immediately countermanded and she was ordered out of line to starboard as soon as it was realised such a valuable ship was so close to the Italian ships. Some of Formidables 4.5-inch guns fired a salvo in what was one of the few occasions in the Second World War in which an aircraft carrier fired her main armament at enemy warships.Ballantyne, pp. 123–125