The Development of the Aircraft Carrier: the First Two Decades by Dan Linton
Writer: Dan Linton

 

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Part 2: Furious and Vindictive -- the Half Step

 

Seaplanes and Airships Again:

Some ideas, like the mythical phoenix, never really die: they keep being reborn. Seaplanes, in the form of flying boats, survived in military use in the United States until the early 1960’s and in the Soviet Union Beriev was still producing flying boats in the 1970’s. And the ‘Eukranoplane’ (the so-called ‘Caspian Sea Monster’ [picture 1] ) is another form of flying boat.(1) Floatplanes were given a new lease on life in the 1920’s and 1930’s by becoming more robust and thus able to survive the acceleration of the new cartridge-charged catapults that were put on major warships (battleships and cruisers)(2). This meant that no more long rails would interrupt the main forward guns. Most designs of the 1920’s and early 1930’s had the catapults amidships [picture 2] while later designs would see one or two catapults, and the recovery crane, at the stern [picture 3]. These floatplanes were reduced to one single mission – reconnaissance – but underway recovery was still a tricky operation and usually required the launching ship to severely restrict speed. Of the major fleets, it was the British and Japanese who depended upon the floatplanes for fleet reconnaissance (3) as their carrier air wings emphasized attack (particularly torpedo-bombers) and fighter aircraft. Some of the British capital ships were equipped with wheeled aircraft instead of floatplanes: they were expected to find a carrier at the end of the mission or ditch near a friendly ship (4). Still, seaplane carriers would be found in the world’s fleets up to and including WWII. In a sense, they were the ‘poor man’s aircraft carrier’ for only four fleets moved on to build and operate actual aircraft carriers in the 1920’s. (5)

The story of the Zeppelins did not end with WWI, of course. Their lifting power and long range, and a speed twice that of the fastest liners, gave promise of a bright future transporting passengers. Before WWI, the Zeppelins had begun regular passenger services so that many of the techniques of flight, passenger services, and maintenance schedules had already been worked out [picture 4]. But the destruction of the Hindenburg in 1938 destroyed the idea of the airship as a people-mover [picture 5]. As for rigid airships being used again in a military capacity, it was the United States Navy that developed this idea to the fullest only to see it die with the destruction of the USS Akron and the USS Macon [picture 6](6).

      
      
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British Analysis of the Battle of Jutland and Furi

From the Battle of Jutland, seen by the British as a missed opportunity to destroy the German High Seas Fleet, many lessons were learned. Concerning the use of aircraft, it was obvious that float planes were inadequate: the higher performance that aircraft were exhibiting in 1916 – faster speeds, higher ceilings, more accurate gunfire because of the new interrupter gear – was desirable at sea, particularly to counter the Zeppelins. The one aircraft that the British did manage to launch during the battle (Rutland’s aircraft from HMS Engadine) took a full half-hour to prepare for flight (7) and that was considered a very good response time for a floatplane in May, 1916. Faster response time, flight speed, and in the case of torpedo-carrying aircraft, more lifting power – all indicated that wheeled aircraft, taking off from a deck rather than the sea, would make up many of the inadequacies of float planes: thus the creation of HMS Furious and later HMS Vindictive. ‘Jackie’ Fisher [picture 7] was the First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy responsible for the creation and rapid construction by 1906 of HMS Dreadnought [picture 8] , a revolutionary battleship in terms of main battery, armour, and speed. The 174 battleships that followed her in the next four decades would all be called by the generic term ‘dreadnought’ and up until 1941 the strength of a fleet was measured by the number of these vessels it had in service. And it was this same Jackie Fisher who was again First Sea Lord in 1915 and who insisted that three ‘large light cruisers’ be built to support amphibious operations in the Baltic – landings on Germany’s Pomeranian coastline. These ships would be large (22,000 tons, 786’ length and 90’ beam) but fast at 30knts and have a shallow draught at 22’. Two, Courageous and Glorious would have4-15”guns (38cm)in two twin turrets, fore and aft [picture 9, top profile], while the third ship, Furious, was to carry the largest artillery pieces ever designed for naval warfare, an 18” (45.7cm) single-barrel turret at the bow and another at the stern (8). By 1916 Jackie Fisher was no longer First Sea Lord, nor were landings on Germany’s coastline considered feasible, thus the ships were considered useless. And yet, despite all the pressing demands on British shipyards to produce dreadnoughts, more cruisers, more anti-submarine craft, more merchant vessels, work on the ‘Baltic’ cruisers continued. In a sense, the Royal Navy was fortunate to have on hand three ‘white elephants’ – each eventually became a full carrier with the fleet. Because it was furthest from completion (its fore 18” turret had not been installed) Furious was chosen to be the ship with a ‘flying off deck’ for aircraft (as opposed to floatplanes). This deck measured 228’ x 50’ (69.5m x 15.2m) with a hangar deck beneath of 64’ x 36’ (21m x 11.6m). The deck had collapsible wind breaks port and starboard, and a slot-mounted trolley on the take-off deck for launching airplanes and seaplanes.(9) This modification, completed July 4, 1917 [picture 10] while useful, was only a half-way measure as the five Sopwith Pups and three Short Type 184 seaplanes could not land on the ship (the Pups had ‘floatation bags’ that would allow the aircraft to float on the sea until it was picked up). And yet that relatively large forward flight deck seemed to one pilot, at least, tempting as not just a take-off deck but a landing deck as well.

      
  
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HMS Furious: Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning and t

Dunning believed that landings could be made on Furious’ forward flight deck and set out to prove it. His Sopwith Pup was modified with straps hanging down from the wings and fuselage. So long as Furious maintained a good speed into the wind, then the speed of the aircraft (slowed by heading into the wind) might become very small relative to the ship’s speed. Approaching from the rear as Furious steamed into the wind, Dunning in his Sopwith Pup slowly passed Furious’ funnel and bridge and then, like a dancer on the dance floor, ‘side-stepped’ his craft to place it above the forward deck where officers were waiting to haul it down as Dunning killed the engine [picture 11]. On August 2, 1917 Dunning succeed and he repeated his success a few days later, but on August 7, on his third attempt, the Pup landed on the deck but a stalled engine, no brakes, and a gust of wind sent the aircraft over the side [picture 12] and Dunning was killed. One of the interesting features of the pictures of these landings, besides the straps hanging down from the wings, is that the men involved are all officers in Dunning’s squadron – no regular ships’ crew are seen anywhere (10). Obviously, landing on the fore deck was too dangerous (Dunning was considered to have been an extremely skilled pilot, and he was dead). Furious operated with the fleet from September to November 1917 despite the fact that any aircraft she launched, unless a seaplane, could not normally be recovered. But this the Royal Navy was determined to change.

A landing deck aft, the 18” turret being removed [picture 13], was installed in the winter of 1917-1918. This deck was 284’long, 70’wide for most of its length, and 50’ wide where it met the funnel. A hangar of 70’x38’ was established under this deck and electrically powered lifts (elevators) 48’ x 18’ were built into the fore and aft hangars. Previously, aircraft had to be hoisted from the hangar by the ship’s crane, a tricky operation even in good weather [picture 14]. Even with the lifts making operations easier, the hangars were still very small. The 1½ Strutters aircraft had detachable wings, hung from the top or sides of the hangar. The Sopwith Camels had detachable tails; and the torpedo planes had folding wings (11). A crash barrier (‘the gallows’) was constructed at the end of the landing deck just before the funnel [picture 15]. Two long gangways, 170’ x 11’ were built on either side of the superstructure to connect the aft and forward flight decks. By mid-March, 1918, Furious was back in service with F.J. Rutland (the now-famous ‘Rutland of Jutland’) the squadron commander being given the problem of landing on the new deck. We are now more than 90 years away from those days and live at a time when hydraulically-controlled steel wires draped across an angled deck has been the standard for more than half a century, but such innovations did not exist in 1916-1924 when the major navies sought to solve the problem of landing an aircraft on a moving vessel. Rutland and the other pilots in his squadron made 12 successful landings aboard Furious in 1918 but had many more failures: Rutland himself had his plane blown over the side but he survived this accident. Despite their slow speed, WWI aircraft had no brakes (some experiments were tried with aircraft using skids instead of wheels) and were very susceptible to any wind current: landings would never be easy. The problem with Furious after its second modification was that it could not be made safe. Consider an aircraft with a tailhook: in 1917 or 1918 it could grab a rope that had weighted bags at each end and drag them until it stopped. But if the hook did not engage the rope in the exact centre, then the aircraft would slew sideways, often over the side of the flight deck into the water. To prevent this, ropes were tied along the length of the landing deck (usually beginning at the half-way point to about ¾ of the distance along) and wooden pegs underneath held the ropes off the deck. Some aircraft even had small hooks welded to the bar that joined the two main wheels. The great desire was to keep the aircraft on a straight course as it landed: in a sense the longitudinal ropes ‘squeezed’ the aircraft into a straight line as it slowed down [picture 16]. Nevertheless, more accidents befell Furious’ pilots than successes [picture 17]. Rutland reported that the fundamental problem was Furious’ superstructure and funnel created maximum current effects 150-180’ aft of the funnel, the exact area where pilots were expected to set down on their wheels or skids (12). In essence, Furious’ landing deck was useless and in 1918 her pilots were ordered to ditch near the carrier after an operational mission. Somewhat later, the pilots were given the option of ditching or attempting a landing if the conditions seemed favourable, but most pilots preferred the known dangers of ditching to the unknown hazards of landing and no landings were attempted on Furious for the remainder of the war (13). As in 1917, Furious was a ship that could launch, but not recover, her aircraft. Nevertheless, the Royal Navy was so anxious to get aircraft into the fleet that Furious, despite her limitations, spent the summer and fall of 1918 at sea – and had one remarkable success.

      
      
  
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The Tondern Raid: July 18, 1918

On the early morning of July 18, seven Sopwith Camels [picture 18] rolled down Furious’ launching ramp from a position 80 miles (130km) from a Zeppelin base at Tondern. The attack had been rehearsed by mock attacks at Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, Scotland (14). The specific targets were three airship sheds, one 787’long and the other two 603’ long. Of the seven Camels launched, one turned back with engine trouble but the other six, each carrying two 50lb. bombs, achieved total surprise. The first three went into a gliding attack, releasing their bombs and pulling up quickly. The large shed, and the two Zeppelins it housed (L.54 and L.60) went up in a massive fire fueled by hydrogen gas. The second flight of three set one of the smaller sheds alight, destroying a balloon captive inside. Of the six attacking aircraft, three landed in Denmark, two ditched near the destroyers that accompanied Furious, and the final Camel was never seen again (15). The success of this raid was not to be repeated for despite some truly extravagant plans (100-plane torpedo attacks on the High Seas Fleet in their bases), the war ended before enough carriers could be completed and their crews worked into efficient teams. As for Furious, War. it spent part of 1919 in the Baltic, providing support to the anti-Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil

  
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HMS Vindictive

While Furious was undergoing its second conversion, the Admiralty decided that a heavy cruiser then building, HMS Cavendish, should be converted into a scheme that imitated the work being done on Furious. She was given a short flying-off deck (106’ x 49’) with a 78’ hangar underneath but no hydraulic lift: aircraft still had to be hoisted by crane onto the flight deck. A landing deck of 193’ x 57’ was built aft and like Furious, a gangway (port side only) joined the landing and take-off decks, and a barrier at the end of the landing deck prevented aircraft from crashing into the funnel (16) [pictures 19 and 20]. One landing was made on Vindictive (the ship was commissioned as HMS Cavendish in April 1918 but renamed Vindictive, to honour a cruiser of the same name that had just been lost) shortly after the ship joined the fleet in October but no further attempts were ever made (17)[picture21]. Vindictive was sent to the Baltic with 12 aircraft to relieve the more valuable Furious on July 2, 1919, but ran aground near Tallin, and it took eight days to re-float her. She stayed in the Baltic until December, 1919, launching aircraft but unable to recover them: they usually landed at shore installations and would later be ferried back to the ship (18). Considered too small (603’ x 65’) to bother converting into a flush-deck or an island carrier she was eventually taken in hand and converted back into a cruiser, although one with a catapult on the foredeck as her forward hangar was retained [picture 22]. She served several years as a catapult trials ship and could carry up to six aircraft, although the normal complement was three (19).

      
  
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Dreams, Plans, and Left-Overs

Attack by air from the sea – destroy Zeppelin bases – destroy the High Seas Fleet at anchor – end the war quickly. This was the grand idea but it needed entire new aircraft and ship technologies to achieve and the grand idea had to compete with the realities of the actual war (build a carrier of unknown value as opposed to six destroyers to attack U-boats?) and the great unknown – how long would the war last. Up until the great battles of 1916 – Verdun and the Somme – it was common for generals and admirals to advise their governments that the war would ‘likely be over some time next year’ (20). By the end of 1916 this idea was dead but building a new type of ship, of uncertain characteristics, from paper designs, appeared very risky and had to compete with other priorities; thus the conversion of ships that were available (particularly those which could not be profitably used for other purposes, such as Furious and her sisters) was the preferred route. By the end of 1917 it was known by the Admiralty that ‘flush-deck’ or ‘island carriers’ would be necessary for continuous air operations with the fleet – what then explains the curious ‘half-steps’ represented by Furious and Vindictive? And the answer appears to be an attitude of ‘let’s get on with it!’, ‘let’s do something!’ – even if the tools available were inadequate, or barely adequate, for the task. Thus the willingness of the Admiralty to sacrifice aircraft (but hopefully not pilots) ‘ditching’ all over the North Sea. Had the war continued into 1919, then massive torpedo attacks might have been possible – enough decks and aircraft with sufficient lifting ability might well have provided the model for the later, larger, successful attack at Pearl Harbour. And the issue of ‘flush-deck’ or ‘island carrier’ might have been resolved earlier: as it was, the Royal Navy entered the 1930’s with six carriers, two with flush decks and four with islands; three with two flying off decks forward; inadequate aircraft; limited air wings; and no hope of a new design carrier being constructed any time soon. One of those six carriers was Furious which was destined to undergo yet more changes. Because of her large size and high speed, Furious was too valuable not to be converted yet again, this time into a flush-deck carrier, a vessel that would be capable of continuous air operations with the fleet. She emerged from the yards in 1926 with a lower ‘flying-off deck’ – smaller aircraft could move directly from the upper hangar out forward doors onto this deck and take off. This design would be used in Furious’ sister ships and be copied by the Japanese [pictures 23 and 24]. To increase the size of the air wing, Furious emerged from the yards with a two-level hangar, copied again in other British and Japanese carriers. And in 1926, with a newly-installed pattern of more than 160 white and amber deck lights, a Blackburn Dart made the first night deck landing on May 26, 1926 (21)[picture 25]. The greatest problem with the ship was where to release the gases from her machinery: long funnels (as in HMS Argus) ran the length of the ship on both sides of the hangar to exhaust near the stern and while these interfered with landings from time to time, it was the problem of excess heating that had to be addressed (22)[pictures 26 and 27]. Further modifications occurred in 1930-31, 1936, and in 1938-39 [pictures 28, 29, 30]. These made her a more efficient ship and she was able to carry 36 aircraft but from the lean cruiser lines of her original design, to the addition of a tiny island in 1939, each change unquestionably made the ship uglier and uglier. Ugly or not, she served well through five years of WWII until retired on September 14, 1944.

      
      
    
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Modeling HMS Furious and HMS Vindictive

Considering how many transformations she went through, the question becomes which HMS Furious to model. On the Carrier Builders website (ACB), go to the Gallery and click on ‘carriers’. With a date of 2009-02-07, an HP Models 1:700 resin kit of HMS Furious was done by Christoph Metzel, showing the ship as she was in 1943. Scrolling through this gallery further, to date 2006-02-28, one finds Jim Baumann’s version of the same HP resin kit. This model is also built to represent Furious in WWII but Jim provides an extensive blow-by-blow description of the modifications that had to be made to the kit. Jim Baumann produced another model of the Furious, this time using the Loose Cannon 1:700 resin kit: his article will be found on the Steel Navy website (www.steelnavy.com) in its Model Gallery (aircraft carriers). Again, this is a highly detailed built article. In this same Steel Navy galley, Vincent Lau scratchbuilt a 1:700 Furious as she was modified in 1917. Loose Cannon Productions have a 1:700 resin kit showing Furious as she was in 1917 (forward flight deck) and another version as she was in 1918 (forward and aft flight decks). The German company HP Models produces a 1:700 resin model of the 1935 version of the ship, thus some modifications are necessary for a WWII fit.

It is almost a given that if the ship model exists in resin, then here is an excellent chance that it does not exist in plastic, and as far as I could determine, Furious and Vindictive have never been modeled in plastic. So the choices are one or another of the two resin kits in 1:700 which are not inexpensive and are waterline only, or finding plans and scratchbuilding your own model. And even here the choices are limited. In his article on building his WWII version of the Furious Jim Baumann wrote that one option was to purchase a set of plans from the National Maritime Museum in London (www.nmm.ac.uk). Unfortunately, I had no luck hunting any such plans – most seemed to be 17th to 19th century. Perhaps some members know more and will share the information on the General Discussion Forum. Once again there are two versions of Furious available in 1:1250 metal kits, a 1918 version (Navis 120aN) and a 1941 version (Neptun 1117). And once again, HMS Vindictive is an orphan – no metal, or resin, or plastic kits to be found. This orphan status is maintained in the world of ship plans (or at least, there were none that I could find). And yet again, two versions of HMS Furious’ plans were found, this time on the Loyalhanna Dockyard site. Loyalhanna owns the rights to Taubman Plans and a search of the website (www.taubmansonline.com) managed to locate for Furious a simple 1:384 plan (no. 225) and a 1:144 scale plan suitable for a radio-control model (RC144-BCFR)(23). Either plan could be purchased and then scaled up or down for whichever scale one desired.

Next: Part 3: HMS Argus: the World’s First ‘True’ Carrier?



Endnotes:

1.Revell of Germany produced a model of one of these Wing in Ground Effect (WIG) aircraft, the A 90 model, in 1:144 scale.

2. The USN modified five Fletcher class destroyers in WWII to handle a catapult-launched seaplane but the modifications were not considered a success.

3. Often with unhappy results. It was the float plane from the IJN cruiser Tone that found the US carriers during the Battle of Midway, but it had been launched a full half-hour later than the others and the messages it did send back were not clear: in effect, the Japanese had no warning until the American planes attacked them.

4. Friedman, N., British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft, Conway Maritime Press, 1988, p. 11

5. Among these would be Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands and others.

6. Subjects of a future article.

7. Preston, A., Aircraft Carriers, Galahad Books, 1979, p. 17

8. The Yamato and Musashi, completed in Japan in 1941, would each have 9 18” (45.7cm) barrels in three triple turrets.

9. Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: the Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Conway Maritime Press, 1989, p. 58

10. This dichotomy continued with the suppression of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) into a single Royal Air Force (RAF) on April 1, 1918. RAF pilots and maintenance personnel would form the squadrons on board Royal Navy carriers until an independent Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was established just before WWII. In 1924 there was a Fleet Air Arm but it was established as a branch of the RAF and was a very poor cousin in an organization dedicated to the strategic bombing theories of Giulio Douhet. Ambitious officers saw the FAA as a career dead-end and shipboard service was never very popular. Preston, op. cit., pp.31-32

11. Friedman, op. cit., p.58

12. Jenkins, C.A., Warship Profile #23: HMS Furious – Part 1: The First Eight Years, Profile Publications, 1972, p. 259

13. Preston, op. cit., p. 21

14. Jenkins, op. cit., p.261

15. Preston, op. cit., pp.21-22

16. Layman, R.D., The Hybrid Warship, Conway Maritime Press, 1991, p.13

17. Ibid., p.15

18. Idem

19. Ibid., p.16

20. Among the British, only Lord Kitchener sensed from the very beginning that it would be a long war.

21. Jenkins, C.A., Warship Profile # 24: HMS Furious – Part 2: 1925-1948, Profile Publications, 1972, p.274

22. Ibid., p.269

23. Such a model would be 65” (1.65m) long.



Bibliography:

Friedman, Norman, British Carrier Aviation: the Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft, Conway Maritime Press, 1988

Jenkins, C.A. Commander, OBE RN, Warship Profile # 23: HMS Furious – Part 1: The First Eight Years, Profile Publications, 1972

_________________ Warship Profile # 24: HMS Furious – Part 2: 1925-1948, Profile Publications, 1972

Layman, R.D., Before the Aircraft Carrier: the Development of Aviation Vessels 1849-1922, Conway Maritime Press, 1989

____________ The Hybrid Warship, Conway Maritime Press, 1991

Preston, Anthony, Aircraft Carriers, Galahad Books, 1979



Picture Credits:

Picture Credits:

Main Picture: Profile Publications # 23: p. 267 (Imperial War Museum – IWM)

1. Federation of American Scientists website

2. USS Indianapolis 1934 USNHCC #NH 91519

3. USS Quincy 1943 USNHCC

4. LZ 13 Hansa carried over 6,000 passengers in two years of regular commercial service in Germany from 1912 to the onset of the war in 1914. From www.airships.net

5. LZ-129 Hindenburg From www.airships.net

6. USS Akron ZRS-4 From www.airships.net

7. From a painting by Sir Hubert von Herkomer (d.1914) presented to the National Portrait Gallery, London, 1936. In the public domain.

8. HMS Dreadnought 1906 USNHCC Photo # NH 6107

9. Profile Publications #23: HMS Furious: Part 1, p.253

10. National Maritime Museum (NMM); in Profile #23, p. 248

11. Fleet Air Arm (FAA) Museum, Yeovilton; in Profile # 23, p.258

12. Papers of Wing Cdr. Acland at the Imperial War Museum (IWM); in Profile # 23 p.259

13. NMM; in Profile # 23, p.249

14. IWM; in Profile # 23, p.254

15. Ministry of Defense (MOD); in Profile # 23, p. 265

16. IWM; in Profile #23, p.265

17. Idem

18. IWM; in Profile # 23, p.260

19. IWM

20. IWM photo # SP 669

21. IWM

22. located at www.naval.history.net

23. IWM

24. Real Photographs, Ltd., in Profile # 24, p.269

25. IWM, in Profile # 24, p.272

26. Wright and Logan, in Profile # 24, p.275

27. USNHHC picture # NH 60973

28. in Profile # 24, p.270

29. IWM

30. MOD 1941; in Profile # 24, p.290



 


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  Photos and text © 2009 by Dan Linton

December 2, 2009

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