HMS Hermes (95)

Hermes off Yantai, China, circa 1931
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Hermes
Namesake	Hermes
Ordered	April 1917
Builder	Armstrong Whitworth
Laid down	15 January 1918
Launched	11 September 1919
Commissioned	18 February 1924
Reclassified	Training ship, 16 July 1938 Aircraft carrier, 24 August 1939
Identification	Pennant number 95
Motto	Latin: Altiora Peto (I Seek Higher Things)[1]
Fate	Sunk by Japanese aircraft, 9 April 1942
General characteristics (as built)
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	10,850 standard ) 13,700 long tons (13,900 t) ( deep load )
Length	600 ft (182.9 m)
Beam	70 ft 3 in (21.4 m)
Draught	23 ft 3 in (7.1 m) (deep load)
Installed power	6 water-tube boilers 40,000  kW )
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbine sets
Speed	25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph)
Range	5,600 nmi (10,400 km; 6,400 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	566 (excluding aircrew)
Armament	6 × single 5.5 in (140 mm) guns 3 × single AA guns
Armour	Belt: 3 in (76 mm) Deck: 1 in (25 mm)
Aircraft carried	20

HMS Hermes was a British

Hermes was berthed in Trincomalee on 8 April when a warning of an Indian Ocean raid by the Japanese fleet was received, and she sailed that day for the Maldives with no aircraft on board. On 9 April a Japanese scout plane spotted her near Batticaloa, and she was attacked by several dozen dive bombers shortly afterwards. With no air cover, the carrier was quickly sunk by the Japanese aircraft. Most of the survivors were rescued by a nearby hospital ship, although 307 men from Hermes were lost in the sinking.

The wreck of the ship was discovered in the Bay of Bengal some sixty years after she was sunk roughly 45 mile northwest of Batticaloa. ^[3] Hermes is shallow enough to be visited by recreational divers and is frequently visited by tourists.

Development

Like Hōshō, Hermes was based on a cruiser-type hull and she was initially designed to carry both wheeled aircraft and

The DNC produced a detailed design in January 1918 that made some changes to his original sketch, including the addition of a rotating bow catapult to allow the ship to launch aircraft regardless of wind direction, and the ship was laid down that month to the revised design. Progress was slow, as most of the resources of the shipyard were being used to finish the conversion of Eagle from a battleship to an aircraft carrier. The leisurely pace of construction allowed for more time with which to rework the ship's design. By mid-June the slipway had been deleted from the design and the ship's armament had been revised to consist of eleven 6-inch (152 mm) guns and only a single anti-aircraft gun. By this time, the uncertainty about the best configuration for an aircraft carrier had increased to the point that the Admiralty forbade the builder from working above the hangar deck without express permission. Later that year the ship's design was revised again to incorporate a single island, her lifts were changed to a uniform size of 44 by 20 feet (13.4 by 6.1 m), and her armament was altered to ten 6-inch guns and four 4-inch anti-aircraft guns. These changes increased her displacement to 10,110 long tons (10,270 t).^[5]

Construction was suspended after Hermes was launched in September 1919 as the Admiralty awaited the results of flight trials with Eagle and Argus. Her design was modified in March 1920 with an island superstructure and funnel to starboard, and the forward catapult was removed.^[6] The logic behind placing the island to starboard was that pilots generally preferred to turn to port when recovering from an aborted landing.^[7] A prominent tripod mast was added to house the fire-control systems for her guns.^[6]

The last revisions were made to the ship's design in May 1921, after the trials with Argus and Eagle. The lifts were moved further apart to allow for more space for the arresting gear and they were enlarged to allow the wings of her aircraft to be spread in the hangar. Her anti-ship armament was reduced to six 5.5-inch (140 mm) guns and her flight deck was

Hermes was laid down by

The ship remained at

Captain MacKinnon took sick the next month and he was relieved by Captain W. B. Mackenzie on 25 February. After a short refit, the carrier, escorted by the destroyer Whitehall, made a brief visit to Amoy in late April before sailing for Weihaiwei where she stayed until 17 September. On that day, Hermes sailed for the Japanese city of Nagasaki and then spent four weeks in Shanghai. The ship did not return to Hong Kong until 28 October and spent the next few months there. In January 1933, the carrier visited the Philippines for several weeks before returning to Hong Kong where she was given a brief refit. After short visits to Qingdao and Weihaiwei, Hermes departed Hong Kong in mid-June for Great Britain. She reached Sheerness on 22 July, but the ship was transferred shortly afterwards to Chatham Dockyard and opened to the public during Navy Week in early August. She sailed the next month for Devonport Dockyard for a thorough refit.^[29] Transverse arresting gear was fitted and her machinery was thoroughly overhauled. Sometime in 1932, the two single 2-pounders were replaced by two quadruple .50-calibre Mark III machine gun mounts.^[23]

Captain the Honourable G. Fraser was appointed on 15 August 1934 as the new commanding officer and the ship began trials of the new equipment in early November.

Plans were made in 1937 to replace Hermes's three single 4-inch guns with two twin 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, one forward and another aft of the island, as well as two octuple 2-pounder mounts. A single High-Angle Control System would have been fitted to control these guns, but the dockyard was overwhelmed with other work and couldn't begin to design the changes until July 1938. They were scheduled to be installed between September and December 1939, but the beginning of the war intervened and nothing was done. The ship's petrol storage was to be increased to 13,000 imperial gallons (59,000 L; 16,000 US gal) in April 1940, but this also does not seem to have occurred.^[35]

World War II

The ship was given a brief refit in early August 1939 and Captain F. E. P. Hutton assumed command on 23 August. She was recommissioned the following day, and 12 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of 814 Squadron flew aboard on 1 September. Hermes conducted anti-submarine patrols in mid-September in an effort to find and destroy U-boats in the Western Approaches. On 18 September, the day after the fleet carrier Courageous was sunk on one such patrol, Hermes located a submarine, but attacks by her escorting destroyers, Isis and Imogen, were ineffective. The carrier was then ordered to return to Devonport where she was fitted with degaussing gear during another brief refit. On 7 October, the ship rendezvoused with the French battleship Strasbourg and they arrived at Dakar in French West Africa on 16 October. Designated as Force X, they began searching for German ships in the Atlantic on 25 October. Hermes performed these patrols with no sightings until the end of December when she escorted a convoy to Britain where she could be refitted from 9 January to 10 February 1940; the ship then returned to Dakar and resumed her patrols for German commerce raiders and blockade runners.^[36]

Captain Richard F. J. Onslow relieved Captain Hutton on 25 May and Hermes continued her fruitless patrols. After returning from one such patrol on 29 June, the ship was ordered to leave harbour only nine hours after her arrival and to begin a blockade of Dakar as the Governor of French

Vichy French regime. On the night of 7/8 July, a boat from Hermes attempted to drop four depth charges underneath the French battleship Richelieu's stern in conjunction with a torpedo attack by the Swordfish of 814 Squadron. The boat was successful in reaching the French ship, but the depth charges failed to detonate. The torpedo attack was more successful as one of the battleship's propellers was damaged. French aircraft attacked the British forces several times in retaliation, but without success. While returning to Freetown after the attack, Hermes accidentally rammed the armed merchant cruiser HMS Corfu during a rainstorm in the dark on 10 July. The impact injured three of the carrier's crew, one of whom subsequently died of his injuries, but no one from Corfu's crew was injured. The two ships were locked together so that Corfu's crew could walk from one to the other when Captain Onslow ordered most of her crew to be evacuated onto Hermes. They were pulled apart by a combination of the carrier's turbines at full speed astern and blowing of ballast tanks on board Corfu to lighten that ship forward. Hermes had crumpled the forward 30 feet (9.1 m) of her bow, mostly above water, and was able to proceed to Freetown at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph), but Corfu had to be towed stern first to Freetown where she arrived three days later. The carrier joined a convoy to South Africa on 5 August and began repairs at Simonstown 12 days later. The repairs were completed on 2 November and the ship arrived back at Freetown on 29 November after working up.^[37]

The ship was joined by the light cruiser

siege by Commonwealth forces. Hawkins captured three Italian merchantmen and Hermes captured one on 12 February.^[38]

On 22 February, the carrier was one of the ships tasked to search for Admiral Scheer after she was spotted by an aircraft from the light cruiser

Seychelles Islands. The ship continued to patrol until 19 November when she arrived in Simonstown for a refit that was not completed until 31 January 1942. Hermes was assigned to the Eastern Fleet and arrived at Colombo on 14 February. She put to sea on 19 February to receive the Swordfish of 814 Squadron and to rendezvous with the destroyer HMAS Vampire to conduct an anti-submarine patrol. The squadron was disembarked on 25 February after the ships arrived in Trincomalee Harbour. The two ships were ordered to Fremantle, Australia, in mid-March to join the Allied naval forces headquartered there, but they were recalled after three days and assigned to Force B of the Eastern Fleet.^[40]

After the raid on Colombo by the Japanese aircraft carriers on 5 April, Hermes and Vampire were sent to Trincomalee to prepare for

Operation Ironclad, the British invasion of Madagascar, and 814 Squadron was sent ashore. After advance warning of a Japanese air raid on 9 April 1942, they left Trincomalee and sailed south down the Ceylon coast before it arrived.^[41] They were spotted off Batticaloa, however, by a Japanese reconnaissance plane from the battleship Haruna.^[42] The British intercepted the spot report and ordered the ships to return to Trincomalee with the utmost dispatch and attempted to provide fighter cover for them.^[43] The Japanese launched 85 Aichi D3A dive bombers, escorted by nine Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters, at the two ships. At least 32 attacked them and sank them in quick order despite the arrival of six Fairey Fulmar II fighters of No. 273 Squadron RAF. Another six Fulmars from 803 and 806 Squadrons arrived after Hermes had already sunk. The rest of the Japanese aircraft attacked other ships further north, sinking the RFA Athelstone of 5,571 gross register tonnage (GRT), her escort, the corvette Hollyhock, the oil tanker SS British Sergeant and the Norwegian ship SS Norviken of 2,924 GRT.^[44]

Hermes sank at coordinates 7°35′28.392″N 82°05′55.089″E / 7.59122000°N 82.09863583°E / 7.59122000; 82.09863583 with the loss of 307 men, including Captain Onslow. Vampire's captain and seven crewmen were also killed. Most of the survivors of the attack were picked up by the hospital ship Vita.^[45] Japanese losses to all causes were four D3As lost and five more damaged, while two Fulmars were shot down.^[46]

Two HMS Hermes

The merchant ship SS Mamari III was converted to resemble Hermes as a decoy ship to confuse the Axis and was redesignated as Fleet Tender C. On 4 June 1941, when she was sailing down the east coast of England to Chatham Dockyard in Kent to be converted back into a cargo ship, the decoy Hermes hit a submerged wreck off Norfolk during a German aerial attack. Before she could be refloated, she was crippled by German E-boats and abandoned in place.^[47][48]

Notes

1. ^ Tensions between the United Kingdom and Italy were high as a result of the earlier Abyssinia Crisis and the United Kingdom considered intervening against the Italians, but ultimately chose to do nothing.

Footnotes

1. ^ McCart, p. 191
2. ^ Milanovich, pp. 9, 13
3. ^ "HMS Hermes; the first aircraft carrier". 6 December 2022.
4. ^ Friedman, pp. 62–63, 67–68, 71–72, 83
5. ^ ^{a b} Friedman, p. 73
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f} McCart, p. 11
7. ^ Friedman, p. 76
8. ^ Friedman, pp. 83–84
9. ^ Friedman, pp. 365–366
10. ^ ^{a b c} Preston, p. 71
11. ^ Friedman, pp. 85, 366
12. ^ Friedman, p. 84, 366
13. ^ Friedman, p. 366
14. ^ Brown, p. 120
15. ^ Friedman, pp. 84–85
16. ^ Milanovich, p. 13
17. ^ McCart, pp. 11, 13–16
18. ^ Sturtivant, pp. 466, 468
19. ^ McCart, pp. 16–17
20. ^ McCart, pp. 18, 20
21. ^ Sturtivant, pp. 467–468
22. ^ McCart, pp. 20–22
23. ^ ^{a b} Friedman, p. 89
24. ^ McCart, p. 22
25. ^ Sturtivant, pp. 466–468
26. ^ McCart, pp. 22–24
27. ^ McCart, pp. 24–26
28. ^ McCart, pp. 27–28
29. ^ McCart, pp. 28–30
30. ^ ^{a b} McCart, p. 32
31. ^ Sturtivant, p. 258
32. ^ Sturtivant, p. 172
33. ^ McCart, pp. 32, 34–35
34. ^ McCart, pp. 35, 37–39
35. ^ Friedman, pp. 89, 368
36. ^ McCart, pp. 39–40
37. ^ McCart, pp. 41, 43–44
38. ^ McCart, pp. 44–45
39. ^ Rohwer, p. 59
40. ^ McCart, pp. 46–48
41. ^ McCart, pp. 48–49
42. ^ Shores, et al., p. 422
43. ^ McCart, p. 49
44. ^ Shores, et al., pp. 422–428
45. ^ McCart, p. 50
46. ^ Shores, et al., p. 428
47. ^ "Britain's phantom fleet decoyed the Luftwaffe. July 1940, aerial photographs at Scapa Flow. Secret fleet tenders, merchant ships camouflaged with wood and canvas to represent "R" class battleships and the aircraft carrier Hermes. They were used in fleet anchorages in the first two years of the war as aerial decoys and to dilute bombing attacks". www.iwm.org.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
48. ^ "SS Zealandic". The Hermes Viraat Heritage Trust. 2022. Retrieved 4 June 2023.

References

• Brown, David K. (2003). The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906–1922 (reprint of the 1999 ed.). London: Caxton Editions.
  ISBN 1-84067-531-4
  .
• Friedman, Norman (1988). British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press.
  ISBN 0-87021-054-8
  .
• McCart, Neil (2001). HMS Hermes 1923 & 1959. Cheltenham, UK: Fan Publications.
  ISBN 1-901225-05-4
  .
• Milanovich, Kathrin (2008). "Hôshô: The First Aircraft Carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy". In Jordan, John (ed.). Warship 2008. London: Conway.
  ISBN 978-1-84486-062-3
  .
• ISBN 0-85177-245-5
  .
• ISBN 1-59114-119-2
  .
• Shores, Christopher; Cull, Brian; Izawa, Yasuho (1993). Bloody Shambles: The Defence of Sumatra to the Fall of Burma. Vol. II. London: Grub Street.
  ISBN 0-948817-67-4
  .
• Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books.
  ISBN 0-88254-979-0
  .
• Sturtivant, Ray (1984). The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm. Tonbridge, UK: Air-Britain (Historians).
  ISBN 0-85130-120-7
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to HMS Hermes (95).

• Video highlights of diving HMS Hermes out in Sri Lanka on
  YouTube
• Fleet Air Arm Archive
• WW2DB: Hermes
• Maritimequest HMS Hermes photo gallery
• Accounts of dive expeditions to HMS Hermes and comprehensive Wreck Photos
• IWM Interview with survivor Eric Monaghan
• The Story of the SS Tungchow tod by a Survivor