HMS Colossus (R15)
_off_Shanghai_1945.jpg)
HMS Colossus off Shanghai, 1945.
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | Colossus |
| Namesake: | Colossus |
| Builder: | Vickers-Armstrong |
| Launched: | 30 September 1943 |
| Commissioned: | 16 December 1944 |
| Motto: | On The Ball |
| Fate: | loaned to French Navy in 1946 |
 France
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| Name: | Arromanches |
| Namesake: | Arromanches-les-Bains |
| Acquired: | 1946 |
| Decommissioned: | 1974 |
| Identification: |
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| Fate: | Scrapped in Toulon, France 1978 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Colossus-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: | 13 600 tonnes |
| Length: | 212 m (695 ft 6 in) |
| Beam: | 24.4 m (80 ft 1 in) |
| Draught: | 7.2 m (23 ft 7 in) |
| Propulsion: | Steam Turbines (4 Admiralty 3-drum boilers, Parsons geared turbines) |
| Speed: | 25 kn (46 km/h) |
| Range: | 12,000 nmi (22,000 km) |
| Complement: | 1,300 |
| Aircraft carried: | 48 |
| Notes: | Only under flag of the French Navy, her Air control callsign was "Sapho" |
Arromanches (R95) was an aircraft carrier of the French Navy, which served from 1946 to 1974. She was previously HMS Colossus (15) of the Royal Navy. She was the name-ship of the Colossus class of light carriers. She was commissioned in 1944, but did not see any action in World War II. She served with the British Pacific Fleet in 1945–46, as an aircraft transport and repatriation ship.
In 1946, she was loaned to the French Navy, and renamed Arromanches; she was bought by the French in 1951.
Arromanches participated in the First Indochina War in three campaigns from 1948 to 1954, and the Suez Crisis of 1956. In 1968 she was converted to an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) carrier. She was decommissioned in 1974, and broken up in 1978.
The Colossus class was designed to meet the Royal Navy's wartime need for more carriers as cheaply as possible. They were built to mercantile standards, with no armour, no heavy AA guns, and only 25 kn (46 km/h) speed. She was laid down 1 June 1942 by Vickers-Armstrongs, launched on 30 September 1943, and commissioned on 16 December 1944.
In 1947 she had for air scanning only, one 79B, for air and surface scanning, one 277 and one 281B. With those she also had a target indicator, a 293. Then in 1954 she still had in her possession a 281B for air and surface scanning a 291B and a 277. Arromanches also still had a 293 as her target indicator. Still for air scanning only she had the 79B, but she also gained later that year a YE and for navigation a DRBN-30. In 1959 she was down-graded and only had a YE in her possession left. That year she gained new scanning equipment. She had a DRBV-22 for air scanning and for surface scanning and navigation a new DRBV-31. And finally in 1972 she was fully downgraded and had her YE removed, but kept her DRBV-22 and DRBV-31 for air, surface, and navigation.
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