CAM ship

CAM ships were World War II-era British merchant ships used in convoys as an emergency stop-gap until sufficient escort carriers became available. CAM ship is an acronym for catapult aircraft merchant ship. A CAM ship was equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Hurricane, dubbed a "Hurricat" or "Catafighter". CAM ships continued to carry their normal cargoes after conversion. They are distinguished from fighter catapult ships (FCS), which also carried catapult launched fighters, in that the CAM ship was a merchant vessel commanded and crewed by the Merchant Navy but the FCS was a merchant ship that had been commissioned as a warship and commanded and crewed by the Royal Navy.

The German Luftwaffe had Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft with a range of nearly 2,000 nautical miles. After the Fall of France, these aircraft could operate from western France against British merchant ships in the Atlantic. Flying from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, Fw 200s of I/KG40 could reach the convoy lanes west of Britain while staying outside the range of British land-based fighters. The Royal Navy had no aircraft carriers available to provide close air cover for the convoys. The Fw 200s could shadow convoys, directing U-boat attacks on them, or drop bombs on convoy ships, without opposition and to deadly effect.

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