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HMS Premier

American escort carrier transferred to the Royal Navy

Summary

American escort carrier transferred to the Royal Navy

Field	Value
section1	{{Infobox ship/image
image	HMS Premier.jpg
image_caption	HMS Premier
section2	{{Infobox ship/career
country	United States
flag
name	USS Estero
namesake	Estero Island in Florida
builder	Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation
laid_down	31 October 1942
launched	22 March 1943
completed	October 1943
fate	Transferred to Royal Navy
section3	{{Infobox ship/career
hide_header	title
country	United Kingdom
flag
name	HMS Premier
commissioned	3 November 1943
decommissioned	21 May 1946
identification	Pennant number:D23
fate	Sold as merchant ship; for scrap 1974
section4	{{Infobox ship/characteristics
class	* (USA)
displacement	16,620 tons (full)
length	495 ft
beam	69 ft
draught	26 ft
propulsion	Steam turbines, 1 shaft, 8,500 shp (6.3 MW)
speed	18 kn
complement	890 officers and men
armament	*2 × 4"/50, 5"/38 or 5"/51 guns
aircraft	24

(UK)
8 × twin 40 mm Bofors
35 × single 20 mm Oerlikon The first USS Estero (CVE-42) (previously AVG-42 then later ACV-42) was an escort aircraft carrier launched 22 March 1943 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, Seattle, Washington, and sponsored by Mrs. C. N. Ingraham. She was reclassified CVE-42 on 15 July 1943. Completed in October 1943, she was transferred to the Royal Navy on 3 November 1943 and commissioned the same day as '*HMS *Premier'''''.

She served in World War II as an ASW escort carrier in European waters and additionally as a ferry carrier. She was returned to United States custody 2 April 1946, she was stricken on 21 May 1946 and was sold into merchant service as the Rhodesia Star (later renamed Hong Kong Knight) in 1947. She was scrapped in Taiwan in 1974.

Design and description

These ships were all larger and had a greater aircraft capacity than all the preceding American built escort carriers. They were also all laid down as escort carriers and not converted merchant ships. Propulsion was provided a steam turbine, two boilers connected to one shaft giving 9,350 brake horsepower (SHP), which could propel the ship at 16.5 kn.

Aircraft facilities were a small combined bridge–flight control on the starboard side, two aircraft lifts 43 ft by 34 ft, one aircraft catapult and nine arrestor wires. Aircraft could be housed in the 260 ft by 62 ft hangar below the flight deck. Armament comprised: two 4"/50, 5"/38 or 5"/51 Dual Purpose guns in single mounts, sixteen 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in twin mounts and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons in single mounts. They had a maximum aircraft capacity of twenty-four aircraft which could be a mixture of Grumman Martlet, Vought F4U Corsair or Hawker Sea Hurricane fighter aircraft and Fairey Swordfish or Grumman Avenger anti-submarine aircraft.

Notes

References

All the ships had a complement of 646 men and an [[Length overall. overall length]] of {{convert. 492. ft. 3. in. 1, a [[Beam (nautical). beam]] of {{convert. 69. ft. 6. in. 1 and a draught of {{Convert. 25. ft. 6. in. m. 1
Cocker (2008), p.79.
Cocker (2008), p.82.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

ships-built-in-seattle 1943-ships ruler-class-escort-carriers

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