HMS Indomitable (R92)
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Indomitable |
| Ordered: | 6 July 1937 |
| Builder: | Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness |
| Laid down: | 10 November 1937 |
| Launched: | 26 March 1940 |
| Commissioned: | 10 October 1941 |
| Identification: | Pennant number 92 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap in 1955 |
| Status: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Illustrious-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 230.0 m (754 ft 7 in) |
| Beam: | 29.2 m (95 ft 10 in) |
| Draught: | 8.8 m (29 ft) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 30.5 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range: | 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km; 13,000 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: | |
| Aircraft carried: | |
HMS Indomitable (pennant number 92) was a modified Illustrious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy. The Illustrious class was developed in the 1937 Naval Programme. Originally planned to be the fourth of the class, she was redesigned to enable her to operate more aircraft, 48 instead of 36. A second hangar was added above the original, raising the flight deck by 14 feet (4.3 m), although the hangar side armour had to be reduced to compensate. Part of the lower hangar was converted into extra workshops and accommodation to support the added aircraft.
Indomitable was laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness, on 10 November 1937. She was launched on 26 March 1940 and commissioned the following year in October. She was christened by Clementine Churchill.
She sailed to the West Indies in November 1941 for her maiden voyage. While there, Indomitable ran aground on a coral reef near Jamaica, though she returned to service soon afterwards. It has been suggested that this short delay proved fatal for British plans for Singapore. There were provisional plans that Indomitable was to join HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse in the port of Singapore as part of a deterrent force, Force Orange, against Japanese aggression in the Far East. However, given that the aircraft carrier was in the vicinity of Jamaica, on 3 November 1941, it seems unlikely that Indomitable could really have reached Singapore in sufficient time to provide air cover for the battle fleet. For that to have been achieved, it would have been necessary to order the ship to proceed to Singapore at a date earlier than 3 November. In the event, the other two capital ships, designated Force Z, did not have adequate air cover, and were sunk by Japanese aircraft when the Japanese landed in Malaya in December 1941. The following month, in January 1942, Indomitable joined the Eastern Fleet based at Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). At the end of January, she ferried 48 Royal Air Force Hawker Hurricanes to airfields in Sumatra in the Dutch East Indies, to reinforce the air defenses of Singapore, but a large proportion of the Hurricanes were destroyed on the ground by Japanese air raids. The British commanders in Singapore surrendered to the Japanese on 15 February.
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Wikipedia