HMS Ruler (D72)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	25 March 1943
Launched:	21 August 1943
Fate:	Transferred to United Kingdom, 22 December 1943
Struck:	20 March 1946
Career
Acquired:	22 December 1943
Commissioned:	22 December 1943
Decommissioned:	29 January 1946
Fate:	Scrapped in 1946
General Characteristics
Displacement:	15,390 tons
Length:	492 ft (150 m)
Beam:	108 ft 6 in (33 m)
Draft:	26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion:	Steam turbines, 1 shaft, 8,500 shp
Speed:	18 knots (33 km/h)
Range:
Complement:	646 officers and enlisted
Armament:	• 2 × 5 in (127 mm), • 16 × 40 mm, • 35 × 20 mm guns
Aircraft:	30

St. Joseph (AVG/CVE/ACV-50) was a Bogue-class escort aircraft carrier, the first United States Navy ship named for St. Joseph Bay, Florida.

The name St. Joseph was assigned to MC hull 261, a converted C3-S-A1, on 23 August 1942. She was laid down on 25 March 1943 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., Tacoma, Washington; redesignated CVE-50 on 15 July; launched on 21 August 1943; sponsored by Mrs. W.W. Smyth; transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend Lease agreement on 22 December 1943; and commissioned the same day as HMS Ruler (D72) in the Royal Navy.

HMS Ruler served in the North Atlantic during 1944 protecting the vital flow of men and war material from the United States to England and to fighting fronts on the European continent. In early 1945, she transferred to the Pacific Theatre and supported the campaign to take Okinawa.

After the war ended, Ruler returned to the United States at Norfolk, Virginia, on 28 January 1946; was decommissioned from RN service on 29 January; and was accepted by the U.S. Navy the same day. In excess of the Navy’s needs, she was slated for disposal and struck from the Navy Register on 20 March 1946. She was sold on 13 May and scrapped within the year.