HMS Nabob (D77)

Career (USA)
Name: USS Edisto
Builder: Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation
Laid down: 20 October 1942
Launched: 22 March 1943
Fate: Transferred to Royal Navy
Career (United Kingdom)
Name: HMS Nabob
Commissioned: 7 September 1943
Decommissioned: 30 September 1944
Fate: Sold as merchant ship; for scrap 1977
General characteristics
Class and type: Bogue class escort carrier
Displacement: 15,390 tons (full)
Length: 495 ft 7 in (151.05 m)
Beam: 69 ft 6 in (21.18 m)
Draught: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion: Steam turbines, 1 shaft, 8,500 shp (6.3 MW)
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h)
Complement: 1,000 officers and men
Armament: 2 × 5 in (127 mm) guns
8 x twin 40 mm Bofors
35 x single 20 mm Oerlikon
Aircraft carried: 18-24, Grumman Avenger TBR Mk 1, F4F Wildcat
Service record
Operations: Operation Goodwood III

HMS Nabob (D77) was a Bogue-class escort aircraft carrier which served in the Royal Navy during 1943 and 1944. The ship was built in the United States as USS Edisto (CVE-41) (originally AVG-41 then later ACV-41) but did not serve with the United States Navy.

She was laid down on 20 October 1942, launched 22 March 1943, and transferred under Lend-Lease to the United Kingdom on 7 September 1943 prior to her commissioning as HMS Nabob (D77) into the Royal Navy. She served as an anti-submarine warfare carrier and the ship's crew was drawn from personnel provided by the Royal Canadian Navy. Flight crew were Royal Navy personnel (852 and 856 Naval Air Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm).

On 22 August 1944, while returning from a strike against the German battleship Tirpitz (Operation Goodwood), she was torpedoed by U-354 in the Barents Sea and sustained heavy damage. Five days later she steamed into Scapa Flow under her own power but had lost 21 men.

She was eventually judged not worth repairing, was beached and abandoned then cannibalized for other ships and decommissioned on 30 September 1944. She was returned to United States custody and sold into merchant service 26 October 1946 as the merchant Nabob (later renamed Glory). She was sold for scrap in Taiwan in 1977.

Nabob is one of three Royal Navy escort carriers built in the United States which is listed as lost in action (2 sunk and 2 heavily damaged and never repaired) during World War II.

Contents

Design and description

These ships were all larger and had a greater aircraft capacity than all the preceding American built escort carriers. They were also all laid down as escort carriers and not converted merchant ships.[1] All the ships had a complement of 646 men and an overall length of 492 feet 3 inches (150.0 m), a beam of 69 feet 6 inches (21.2 m) and a draught of 25 ft 6 in (7.8 m).[1] Propulsion was provided a steam turbine, two boilers connected to one shaft giving 9,350 brake horsepower (SHP), which could propel the ship at 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph).[2]

Aircraft facilities were a small combined bridge–flight control on the starboard side, two aircraft lifts 43 feet (13.1 m) by 34 feet (10.4 m), one aircraft catapult and nine arrestor wires.[1] Aircraft could be housed in the 260 feet (79.2 m) by 62 feet (18.9 m) hangar below the flight deck.[1] Armament comprised: two 4 inch Dual Purpose guns in single mounts, sixteen 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in twin mounts and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons in single mounts.[1] They had a maximum aircraft capacity of twenty-four aircraft which could be a mixture of Grumman Martlet, Vought F4U Corsair or Hawker Sea Hurricane fighter aircraft and Fairey Swordfish or Grumman Avenger anti-submarine aircraft.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f Cocker (2008), p.82.
  2. ^ Cocker (2008), p.79.

See also

References

References