HMCS Bonaventure (CVL 22) - History

History

As HMS Powerful she was laid down at Harland and Wolff in Belfast on 21 November 1943, and launched on 27 February 1945. Work was suspended after the end of World War II, and was not resumed until the ship was bought by Canada. She was acquired in the early 1950s by the Royal Canadian Navy, which was looking to replace its aging World War II–vintage light carriers Magnificent (another Majestic class carrier) and Warrior, which were deemed unsuitable for the jet age. Several surplus US and UK ships were considered, and the then-incomplete HMS Powerful, a Majestic-class light fleet carrier, was purchased in 1952 from the Royal Navy on the condition that it be refitted with an angled flight deck and steam catapult. Bonaventure—named after Bonaventure Island, a bird sanctuary in the Gulf of St. Lawrence—was commissioned into the Canadian Navy upon completion of its refit and modernization on 17 January 1957. In 1966 the carrier docked in Quebec for a mid-life refit. This second refit took 18 months and cost $11 million. After the 1968 unification of the Canadian armed services, the Bonaventure was decommissioned in Halifax, on 3 July 1970, and was scrapped in Taiwan in 1971. Components from Bonaventure's steam catapult were used to rebuild the catapult aboard Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne.