The Ships of Battlegroup: Great Britain Victorious (CV)

Displacement	23,000 tons	Belt Armor	4.5 inches
Overall Length	744 feet	Deck Armor	3 inches
Beam	95.75 feet	Aircraft Complement	36
Speed	30.5 knots	Main Guns	16 × 4.5″

Laid down on May 4, 1937, launched on September 14, 1939 and commissioned on May 15, 1941, Victorious was one of the three-ship Illustrious class (the third was Formidable) of armored aircraft carriers. These were to be improvements on the Ark Royal. The layout of the guns was the same as on the earlier Ark Royal . Great emphasis was placed on the class’s survivability. The large antiaircraft battery coupled with an armored flight deck and an armored hanger “box” served the class well in their actions versus German dive bombers in the Mediterranean and Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers in the Pacific.

The name is a much-used one in the Royal Navy, having been borne by, among others, two 74-gun ships of the line and two pre-dreadnought battleships. Both the Illustrious and the Formidable survived bomb attacks that, in all probability, would have sunk any other aircraft carriers. However, the size of the air group suffered as they carried less than half the number of aircraft of their contemporaries in the United States and Japanese Navies. This was partially rectified in a near-sister ship (originally to have been the fourth ship of the Illustrious class), HMS Indomitable, which increased the air group to 48 aircraft by reducing armor and adding another hanger. The components of Victorious’ air group varied greatly during her wartime career. Her initial air group comprised Swordfish and Fulmar types and she finished the war carrying United States-built Corsair and Avenger aircraft and operating with the fast carriers of the vast United States Pacific Fleet.

Victorious was rebuilt and modernized with an angled flight deck in 1958 and scrapped in 1969.

For contemporary foreign aircraft carriers, see: Enterprise, Shokaku and Zuikaku .

Where did we get all these fascinating historical tidbits and factoids? See the Bibliography for the culprits.