HMS Hermes (95)

HMS Hermes (95)

HMS Hermes was an aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy. The ship was begun during World War I and finished after the war ended. She was the world's first ship to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier, although the Imperial Japanese Navy's Hōshō was the first to be commissioned. The ship's construction was delayed by multiple changes in her design after she was laid down. After she was launched, her shipyard closed and her construction was suspended. Most of the changes were made to optimise her design in light of the results of experiments with the existing carriers.

Commissioned in 1924, Hermes served briefly with the Atlantic Fleet before spending the bulk of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and the China Station. In the Mediterranean, she worked with other carriers developing multi-carrier tactics. While showing the flag at the China Station, she helped to suppress pirates in Chinese waters. Hermes returned home in 1937 and was placed in reserve before becoming a training ship in 1938.

When World War II began in September 1939, the ship was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet and conducted anti-submarine patrols in the Western Approaches. She was transferred to Dakar in October to cooperate with the French Navy in hunting down German commerce raiders and blockade runners. Aside from a brief refit, Hermes remained there until Vichy France was established at the end of June 1940. Supported by several cruisers, the ship then blockaded Dakar and attempted to sink the French battleship Richelieu by exploding depth charges underneath her stern, as well as sending Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers to attack her at night. While returning from this mission, Hermes rammed a British armed merchant cruiser in a storm and required several months of repairs in South Africa, then resumed patrolling for Axis shipping in the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

In February 1941, the ship supported Commonwealth forces in Italian Somaliland during the East African Campaign and did much the same two months later in the Persian Gulf during the Anglo-Iraqi War. After that campaign, Hermes spent most of the rest of the year patrolling the Indian Ocean. She refitted in South Africa between November 1941 and February 1942 and then joined the Eastern Fleet at Ceylon. After the raid on Colombo on 5 April by the Japanese, Hermes was sent to Trincomalee, but had left the harbour when the Japanese attacked it on 9 April. She was spotted near Batticaloa by a Japanese scout plane and attacked by several dozen dive bombers shortly afterwards. The carrier and her escorting destroyer were quickly sunk by the Japanese aircraft. Most of the survivors were rescued by a nearby hospital ship although 307 men from Hermes were lost in the sinking.