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HMS Rajah

Escort carrier

Summary

Escort carrier

Field	Value
section1	{{Infobox ship/image
image	HMS Rajah.jpg
image_caption	Rajah in 1944
section2	{{Infobox ship/career
country	United States
flag
name	USS Prince
builder	Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation
laid_down	17 December 1942
launched	18 May 1943
fate	Transferred to Royal Navy
section3	{{Infobox ship/career
hide_header	title
country	United Kingdom
flag
name	HMS Rajah
commissioned	17 January 1944
decommissioned	7 February 1947
identification	Pennant number:D10
fate	Sold as a merchant ship; sold for scrap 1975
section4	{{Infobox ship/characteristics
class	* (USA)
displacement	9,800 tons
length	495 ft
beam	69 ft
draught	25 ft
propulsion	Steam turbines, one shaft, 8,500 shp (6.3 MW)
speed	17 kn
complement	646 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

USS Prince (CVE-45) (originally named McClure, designated AVG-45 then later ACV-45) was an escort carrier laid down on 17 December 1942 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation of Tacoma, Washington. She was renamed Prince on 13 November 1942 and launched on 18 May 1943. She was sponsored by Mrs. J. L. McGuigan, reclassified CVE-45 on 15 July 1943 and transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease on 17 October 1943.

Prince served the United Kingdom as HMS Rajah (D10). She was returned to the United States Navy at Norfolk, Virginia on 13 December 1946. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Registry on 7 February 1947 and delivered to her purchaser, Waterman Steamship Corporation, on 7 July. She became the merchant ship Drente (later renamed Lambros, then Ulysses) in 1948. She was scrapped in Taiwan in 1975.

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 by two boilers connected to a steam turbine, which was connected to one shaft, giving 9,350 brake horsepower (SHP). This 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 catapult and nine arrestor wires. Aircraft could be housed in the 260 ft by 62 ft hangar below the flight deck. The ship's 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. Each ship had a maximum capacity of twenty-four aircraft which could be a mixture of Grumman Martlet, Vought F4U Corsair or Hawker Sea Hurricane fighters 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-tacoma,-washington 1943-ships ruler-class-escort-carriers

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