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HMS Audacity

Originally a German merchant ship named MV Hannover captured by the Royal Navy in the West Indies in March 1940, HMS Audacity was the very first escort carrier.

The Hannover was a 5537 BRT Lloyd ship by Bremer Vulkan which entered service in 1939 under Kapitän Wahnschaff. While attempting to return as a blockade-runner to Germany from the West Indies she was sighted and ordered to stop on the night of 7/8 March 1940 by the light cruiser HMS Dunedin and the (Canadian) destroyer HMCS Assiniboine. The order was ignored and she unsuccessfully attempted to escape, whereupon the captain instructed that the sea cocks be opened and the ship be set on fire. Nevertheless the British boarded her, closed the sea cocks and fought for four days against the fire, eventually saving the ship which was then towed to Jamaica.

She became first Sinbad, then Empire Audacity and was commissioned as an "Ocean Boarding Vessel" in November 1940. She was then given over to Blyth Shipbuilding Ltd in January 1941 for conversion to an escort carrier. Conversion was completed in time for commissioning on 20 June 1941. She was renamed HMS Audacity on 30 July 1941.

Since no serious problems came to light in her trials she was put into full service, embarking eight Grumman Martlets of No. 802 Squadron FAA. The use of only fighters was a major departure from later practice where the main component was anti-submarine patrol aircraft, but she was used to support Gibraltar convoys and the only perceived threat was the German long-range Focke-Wulf Condor reconnaissance/bomber aircraft.

She sailed with her first convoy to Gibraltar in September 1941. One of her aircraft shot down a Condor bomber which had made a bombing run on the convoy rescue ship Walmer Castle, although not without the ship being damaged sufficiently to be sunk. She sailed with two more convoys.

She was torpedoed and sunk some 500 miles west of Cape Finisterre on 21 December 1941 by three torpedoes from U-751 under Kptlt. Gerhard Bigalk whilst on the convoy HG 76. Her survivors were picked up by the convoy's escorts. Only a few days earlier one of her Martlets had contributed its depth charges to the sinking of U-131.

Part of the reason for her short life was her placement with respect to the convoy. Escort carriers could either sail within the convoy, giving them the protection of the convoy's escort vessels, but at the cost of limiting the manoeuvring space which is required to turn the carrier into the wind to operate aircraft, or they could operate outside the convoy. Operating in the area near the convoy gave the carrier all the space it needed to turn as required for aircraft operations but necessitated a second escort for the carrier alone. The carrier could also prove a target for the convoy's attackers, leading them to target it first, to which the answer would be to operate at some distance from the convoy. HMS Audacity had been operating outside the convoy, a procedure that was later prohibited by the Admiralty as too risky.

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