The contract to construct
Warrior was placed on 7 August 1942.
Warrior was built by
Harland and Wolff at their yard in
Belfast and given the
yard number 1224, originally to be called
Brave. Before construction began, once-innovative
armoured frigate (at the time just a floating oil jetty) was renamed to
Oil Fuel Hulk C77 in August 1942 to free up her name, and the carrier was renamed to
Warrior. Her
keel was
laid down on 12 December 1942, she was
launched on 20 May 1944 and became the last of the
Colossus class to finish construction. The
Royal Navy had originally intended to rush
Warrior into service for operations in the Indian Ocean during the
Second World War, thus she was built without heaters for some onboard equipment since heat was unnecessary in tropical operations.
Royal Canadian Navy service , 1947 As the focus of future operations at sea during the Second World War shifted to the
Pacific theatre, planning began in May 1944 that the
Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) would require a larger fleet both in numbers and in size of ships. In the effort to get bigger, the RCN returned the
escort carriers then on loan, and , in exchange for the loan of two light fleet carriers. A formal approach was first made in July, with negotiations being finalised in April 1945 when
Warrior and were acquired on loan with the option to purchase them outright at a later date. Negotiations were completed in May for the naval air
squadrons that would be needed to man the aircraft carrier, but the war ended before the ships were completed. After the agreement with Canada went through, Canadian naval aviation was established with the formation of four squadrons transferred from the
Fleet Air Arm intended to fly from
Warrior;
803 Squadron and
883 Squadron equipped with
Supermarine Seafires and
825 Squadron and
826 Squadron with
Fairey Fireflys.
Warrior was completed, transferred to the RCN and
commissioned as HMCS
Warrior on 24 January 1946 and placed under the command of
Captain Frank Houghton.
Sea trials were completed in March and flying trials were performed at
Spithead following that. For the voyage to Canada, 803 and 825 Squadrons were embarked, while 883 and 826 Squadrons were paid off.
Warrior entered
Halifax harbour on 31 March 1946, a week after leaving
Portsmouth. She was escorted by the
destroyer and the
minesweeper , having officially joined the Canadian Atlantic Fleet on 23 March. April through May was spent alongside fixing builder's defects before the ship began major fleet operations. In August, the aircraft carrier had its first loss, when a Firefly from 825 Squadron ditched, though both the pilot and observer were recovered. That same month, on 23 August while transiting the
St. Lawrence River,
Warrior ran aground at Pointe Sainte Antoine, near
Montreal while en route to the city after her
rudder jammed.
Tugboats got the aircraft carrier unstuck from the mud bank she had run into the same day and
Warrior continued on to Montreal where she became the largest ship to visit that port to that date. The RCN experienced problems with the unheated equipment during operations in cold
North Atlantic waters off eastern Canada during 1946. The ship was transferred west to
Esquimalt, British Columbia in November 1946, visiting
Bermuda,
Acapulco, Mexico and
San Diego, California before arriving in December. On 18 January 1947, Commodore
Harry DeWolf took command of
Warrior while the vessel was undergoing repairs to the damages to her hull that had been received during her August grounding. On 31 January, one 825 Squadron's Fireflys was lost along with its pilot off
Portland Island during a training mission. It was during this period, that the RCN, facing reduced defence spending and manning constraints, came to the conclusion that they could not operate two aircraft carriers. Negotiations began to return
Warrior when
Magnificent became ready, with the RCN deeming
Warrior unfit for service due to her lack of heating. In February 1947, the aircraft carrier began her voyage back to Halifax, accompanied by the cruiser and destroyer . The Canadian group stopped at
San Pedro, California before the aircraft carrier transited the
Panama Canal by herself, meeting the destroyers and
Micmac on the other side. The three Canadian ships visited
Havana, Cuba, marking the first time a Canadian warship had visited the Cuban capital since 1929.
Warrior returned to Halifax on 27 March. The ship then sailed for Bermuda with
Nootka to take part in a
naval exercise with the Royal Navy. Most of mid-1947 was spent undergoing repairs at Halifax and performing short cruises along east coast. In August,
Warrior sailed for the United Kingdom where her squadrons would be re-equipped with Firefly Mark IV and
Hawker Sea Fury aircraft, returning to Halifax on 28 August. Meanwhile, preparations were being made for the return of
Warrior and the acquisition of
Magnificent. In November,
Magnificents air group consisting of 826 and 883 Squadrons trained aboard
Warrior off the coast of Nova Scotia. Following this,
Warrior, escorted by the destroyer sailed to Bermuda where the ship was prepared to be
paid off. The ship sailed for the UK on 12 February, arriving at Belfast on 20 February. On 1 March the ship moved to Spithead where the aviation fuel was removed.
Warrior was returned to the Royal Navy on 23 March 1948 at Portsmouth.
Royal Navy service HMCS
Warrior returned to the United Kingdom and was recommissioned as HMS
Warrior on 23 March 1948.
Warrior was then refitted at
Devonport and equipped with a
flexible flight deck to test the feasibility of receiving undercarriage-less aircraft; modified
de Havilland Sea Vampire aircraft were used to test the concept, which was successful but not introduced into service. The flexible deck was composed of a rubber sheet supported by air bags. The new deck extended from the bow to the barrier forward of the island and was superimposed on the existing flight deck. Aft of the flexible deck, a light steel ramp was placed over the flight deck rising to in height with a single arrestor wire. The trials lasted from November 1948 to March 1949 and upon completion,
Warrior was paid off into the
reserve at Portsmouth.
Warrior was reactivated in June 1950 and modified to carry troops and aircraft to the
Far East during the
Korean War, departing in August on the first such mission. In June 1951, with
16 Parachute Brigade embarked,
Warrior sailed to
Cyprus in response to a crisis in the Middle East. The ship underwent refit during most of 1952 and 1953 at Devonport Dockyard. The ship was fitted with a new
lattice mast and new radars with Type 281Q fitted to the mast and Type 277Q radars installed fore and aft of the island.
Identification friend or foe aerials were also installed on the mast. The
bridge was enlarged and enclosed. The Fleet Air Arm
811 Squadron in Sea Furys and 825 Squadron in Fireflys were embarked after sea trials. During 1954,
Warrior was deployed to the Far East, patrolling off the coast of Korea, following the ceasefire. In September, during
Operation Passage to Freedom, the ship was among those sent to evacuate non-Communist refugees from
Haiphong,
North Vietnam to
Vung Tau,
South Vietnam, transporting more than 3,221 people in two voyages and being awarded a South Vietnamese Presidential Citation. After returning to England another refit was carried out in 1955 at Devonport. This time
Warrior received an
angled flight deck of 5 degrees for trials. To install the angled deck, portside
sponsons were removed, the angled deck installed portside amidships and the deck itself was upgraded to take aircraft up to . Furthermore, the catapult was upgraded to launch 20,000-pound aircraft and the arrester wire system improved to take the same weight of aircraft at . The aircraft carrier also received a
mirror landing aid and Type 961 CCA radar. As the only ship in the class to receive the upgrade, it was intended to turn
Warrior into a
training and trials ship. Following a short period as a training ship,
Warrior was dispatched to the Pacific Ocean, where the aircraft carrier took part in
Operation Grapple, the first British
hydrogen bomb tests, as the
headquarters ship embarking a
flight of
Westland Whirlwind helicopters and
Grumman Avenger AS4 aircraft to collect air samples from the tests and ferry them back for examination. After the operation was completed the Avengers were catapulted into the sea as they were contaminated with radioactivity. Considered surplus to requirements by the late 1950s, the Royal Navy decommissioned
Warrior in February 1958 and offered her for sale. The return voyage from the Grapple tests was via Argentina, with port visits and demonstrations to the
Argentine Navy, to whom the
Admiralty was trying to sell her.
Argentine Navy service Warrior was sold to
Argentina in 1958 and renamed ARA
Independencia on 6 August 1958. The Argentine naval ensign was raised on 4 November at Portsmouth and sailed for Argentina on 10 December. The
Argentine Naval Aviation began air operations from
Independencia on 8 June 1959, even before the vessel was officially commissioned into the fleet. The ship was commissioned into the Argentine Navy on 8 July 1959. The anti-aircraft armament was initially reduced to twelve 40 mm guns, soon further reduced to eight. In May 1962 the ship was however provided with one quadruple and nine double mountings of that caliber. After all the modifications the displacement of the ship had climbed to while the vessel's maximum speed had declined to . The air group, which had a maximum of 24 aircraft, was mainly formed from
Vought F4U Corsairs,
North American SNJ-5Cs Texans and
Grumman S2F-1 (S-2A) Trackers. Naval Aviation inventory also included
Grumman F9F Panther (the first
jet fighters in service with the Argentine Naval Aviation, starting from August 1963 which launched from
Independencia) and
TF-9J Cougar jets, although
Independencia's catapult was not powerful enough to launch them. The ship also used the
North American T-28 Trojan trainer. The aircraft carrier , also of the British but with a more powerful catapult retrofitted while in Dutch service, entered service in 1969, and
Independencia moved to the reserve in 1970. She was
scrapped in 1971. == See also ==