HMS Reaper (D82)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HMS Reaper
Career (USA) United States Navy ensign
Name: USS Winjah
Builder: Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation
Laid down: 5 June 1943
Launched: 22 November 1943
Fate: Transferred to Royal Navy
Career (UK) RN Ensign
Name: HMS Reaper
Commissioned: 18 February 1944
Decommissioned: 2 July 1946
Fate: Sold as merchant ship; scrapped 1967
General characteristics
Class and type: Bogue class escort carrier
Displacement: 7,800 tons
Length: 495 feet 8 inches (151.1 m)
Beam: 69 feet 6 inches (21.2 m)
Draught: 26 feet (7.9 m)
Propulsion: Steam turbines, 1 shaft, 8,500 shp (6.3 MW)
Speed: 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h)
Complement: 890 officers and men
Armament: 2 × 5 in (127 mm) guns
4 x twin 40 mm Bofors
10 x single 20 mm Oerlikon
Aircraft carried: 28

The USS Winjah (CVE-54) (originally AVG-54 then later ACV-54) was a Bogue-class escort aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, leased to the Royal Navy during World War II.

Winjah was laid down on 5 June 1943 at Tacoma, Washington, by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding; assigned to the United Kingdom under lend-lease on 23 June; redesignated CVE-54 on 15 July; launched on 22 November; and delivered to the British on 18 February 1944.

Renamed HMS Reaper (D82), the carrier operated in the Royal Navy for the duration of World War II. After arriving at Norfolk, Virginia, on 13 May 1946, Reaper was decommissioned on 20 May and returned to the United States Government. Authorized for disposal on 14 June, Winjah was struck from the Navy Registry on 8 July and sold to the Waterman Steamship Company of Mobile, Alabama on 12 February 1947 as the South Africa Star. She was scrapped in Nikara, Japan in May of 1967.

[edit] References

Languages