HMS Nairana (D05)

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Career

Laid down:	7 November 1941
Launched:	20 May 1943
Commissioned (RN):	12 December 1943
Commissioned (Dutch Navy):	23 March 1946
Decommissioned:	28 May 1948
Fate:	Merchant service as Port Victor. Scrapped 1971.
General Characteristics
Displacement:	17,000 tons fully-loaded
Length:	524 ft
Beam:	68 ft
Draught:	25 ft
Propulsion:	Diesel, 10,700 bhp
Speed:	16 knots
Complement:	728
Armament:	2 x 4" guns, 16 x 2pdr guns (4x4), 16 x 20mm guns (8x2)
Aircraft:	15-20

HMS Nairana was an escort aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that saw service in World War II. She was built at John Brown & Company shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland. When construction started in 1941 she was intended as a merchant ship, but was completed and launched as an escort carrier, entering service at the end of 1943.

Nairana operated escorting convoys and doing anti-submarine work in the Atlantic and Arctic theatres. She survived the war, and in 1946 was transferred to the Dutch Navy as the Karel Doorman, the first Dutch aircraft carrier. In 1948 she was replaced in the Dutch Navy by another Karel Doorman (previously HMS Venerable). Nairana was returned to the Royal Navy, and immediately sold to Port Line, becoming the merchant ship Port Victor. In 1971 she was scrapped at Faslane.