February 1915 and her aircraft flew their first combat mission on 15 February, dropping a 20lb bomb on a Turkish position. Her aircraft spotted for the battleship Queen Elizabeth in March, using wireless to transmit corrections for the first time in action. In June 1915 she was relieved by Ben-my- Chree and moved to Salonika. From March 1916 she acted as depot ship for No.2 Wing RNAS at Mudros, a task which continued until October 1918, when she ferried aircraft of the newly-formed RAF across the Black Sea for operations against the Bolsheviks in Russia.
An aerial view of HMAS Albatross before the installation of the catapult. (RAN)
After the Armistice she continued to give useful service, and in December 1918 she ferried 2 Squadron RAF to Somaliland and supported it during operations to put down a revolt by insurgents.
In 1922 she ferried aircraft to Chanak during the crisis in the Dardanelles and supported them until the situation was resolved in 1923. After that she saw service as a fleet auxiliary, aircraft ferry and minesweeper depot ship until 1930, when she was fitted with a catapult for trials. Periods in reserve were varied with periods in commission to train seaplane crews in catapult launches and recoveries at sea by ship’s crane and to carry out seaplane trials such those with the Hein Mat in 1933. On 21 December 1934 she was renamed Pegasus to free the name Ark Royal for the new aircraft carrier being built by Cammell Laird, and was reduced to reserve.
In September 1939 she was recommissioned for use as an aircraft ferry and used to transport naval aircraft from the mainland to naval air stations in the Orkney Islands. After enemy aircraft began to operate from German-occupied France, the need for convoys to be defended against air attack became desperate, and Pegasus was allocated to WAC for use a fighter-catapult ship, with three Fairey Fulmars embarked, on convoys to and from Gibraltar despite initially having no radar or even VHF radio to communicate with the fighters. These were fitted later. As with other fighter- catapult ships the aircraft could be launched but not recovered, and had either to ditch near the convoy or, if possible, fly to the nearest friendly point of land. Her first convoy was OG 76 in December 1940, and subsequent launches were made on three occasions, in January, June and July 1941 while supporting convoys SL 60/HG 49; HG 63 and SL 78/OG 67. In the June launch the enemy aircraft was intercepted and driven off but not shot down; in the others the enemy evaded into cloud.
After the last launch the pilot elected to fly back to Ireland rather than ditch near the convoy, but unfortunately flew into a hillside in bad weather and was killed.
Later in July 1941 she ceased operational flying and returned to catapult training duties in the Clyde. In February 1944, with the need to find manpower for the large number of ships nearing completion, she was reduced to reserve and used for a while as an accommodation vessel. In May
1946 she was de-stored and a month later she was placed on the list of ships for disposal. On 18 October 1946 she was sold for conversion into a merchant ship and renamed Anita 1. The conversion was started but never finished, as more efficient merchant ships became available, and her hull was sold on to a succession of breakers before finally being scrapped at Grays in Essex during 1950.
Engadine
Built by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway Company and completed in 1911, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for naval service on 11 August 1914 and given temporary modifications in Chatham Dockyard to equip her as a seaplane carrier. She was commissioned on 1 September 1914 and allocated to the Harwich Force, taking part in a series of sweeps across the North Sea. On 25 December 1914 she launched aircraft against German Zeppelin sheds in the Cuxhaven Raid, in company with Riviera and Empress.
In February 1915 she was purchased outright by the Admiralty and taken in hand by the Cunard Steamship Company in Liverpool for improvements which included the fitting of a steel ‘box’ hangar aft with an operating platform and cranes positioned at the stern. After the modifications were completed in March 1915, she rejoined the Harwich Force and was based at Granton. In October 1915 she joined the BCF based in the Firth of Forth and carried out a series of tests to evaluate the high-speed towing of kite balloons attached to warships which proved the viability of the concept.
She was present at the battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 and the aircraft she launched to locate the German fleet was the first ever to take part in a sea battle. Although the aircraft’s successful reports were received by Engadine, their rebroadcast was, unfortunately, not taken in by the C-in-C in his flagship Lion. After the battle she took the damaged cruiser Warrior in tow and rescued her survivors when she foundered. In 1918 she was transferred to the MF and operated from Malta until the end of hostilities. In December the Admiralty sold her back to her former owners and she returned to use as a cross-Channel ferry. In 1923, with the regrouping of Britain’s railways, her ownership transferred to the Southern Railway and in 1932 she was sold to a ship broker who sold her on to Hermanos Inc in the Philippines in 1933 and renamed her Corregidor. In December 1941, during the Japanese invasion, she was sunk by a mine in Manilla Bay, with heavy loss of life.
Two merchant ships renamed as Athene and Engadine were purchased by the Admiralty from the Clan Line in 1939 and extensively modified for use as seaplane carriers. After their completion in 1941, however, they were used exclusively as aircraft transports and thus fall outside the scope of this work. This is Engadine in 1941. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)
Riviera
Built by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway and completed in 1911, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty with her sister ship Engadine on 11 August 1914 and given temporary alterations in Chatham Dockyard for use as a seaplane carrier. She joined the Harwich Force, together with Engadine, in October and took part in the Cuxhaven Raid on Christmas day 1914, together with her and Empress. She was fully converted into a seaplane carrier by the Cunard Steamship Company in Liverpool in February 1915, and on completion of the work she joined the Dover Patrol on 7 April 1915. Her seaplanes were used extensively to spot for the gunfire of monitors off the Belgian coast and other duties until 1918 when, with other early seaplane carriers, she transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet based in Malta. In 1919 she was sold back to her original owners and resumed duty as a cross-Channel ferry, transferring to the new Southern Railway in 1923.
In 1932 she was sold to the Burns and Laird Lines and renamed Laird’s Isle.
In September 1939 she was requisitioned again by the Admiralty, this time under her new name, and used at first as a torpedo training ship and then as an ocean boarding vessel. After modifications in 1944 she was used as an infantry landing ship. In 1945 she was demilitarised and returned to Burns and Laird, who continued to operate her until 1957, when she was sold for scrap.
Empress
Built as a cross-Channel ferry for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway by William Denny &
Brothers of Dumbarton, she was completed in April 1907 and requisitioned by the Admiralty on 11 August 1914. Until space was available in Chatham Dockyard for her modification she was used as a dispatch vessel for the RNAS, carrying the men and equipment of the Eastchurch Squadron to France.
After 30 August she was fitted out as a seaplane carrier, and when the work was completed in September she joined the Harwich Force and took part in North Sea sweeps. On 25 December 1914 she joined Riviera and Engadine in launching aircraft against Zeppelin bases in the Cuxhaven raid.
In May 1915 she was taken in hand by the Cunard Steamship Company of Liverpool and given more extensive modifications to operate seaplanes, the work being completed in July.
On 18 July 1915 she was based at Queenstown in Ireland for patrol work which lasted until January 1916, when she sailed to join the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron based at Port Said. In April 1916 she was detached for operations off the Bulgarian coast, for which she was based at various ports in the Aegean Sea. In November 1916 she used her seaplanes to support operations ashore in Sinai and the coast of Syria. From January 1918 she was based in Port Said again and used her seaplanes for antisubmarine patrols over the eastern Mediterranean. Later in the year she was based in Gibraltar to support patrols in the western Mediterranean.
Empress was handed back to her original owners in November 1919. She was transferred to the Southern Railway in 1923 and later in the same year sold to the French Société Anonyme de Gérance et d’Armement. She was eventually scrapped in France in 1933.
Campania
Built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Glasgow and completed for the Cunard Steamship Company in 1894, she was purchased from T W Ward on 27 November 1914 and taken to Cammell Laird’s yard in Birkenhead for conversion to a seaplane carrier. On completion of the work she was commissioned at Birkenhead on 17 April 1915 and subsequently joined the GF in Scapa Flow. On 11 June 1915 she carried out her first successful operational sortie with the G F. In August 1915 she successfully launched Sopwith Schneiders from her take-off platform, but it was demonstrably too short for larger aircraft to use. In consequence she was taken back into Cammell Laird’s hands to have the deck lengthened and to have facilities for a kite balloon installed aft. She emerged from this work and rejoined the GF on 2 April 1916. Successful trials demonstrated her ability to launch aircraft under way, and she was regarded as an asset to the GF’s reconnaissance capability but, due to a signalling error, she missed the battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. She had actually sailed late when the error was realised and had the speed to catch up with the main fleet, but the C-in-C considered her too vulnerable on her own and ordered her to return to Scapa Flow. The potential usefulness of her aircraft remains one of the Battle of Jutland’s imponderable questions.
She continued to operate with the GF throughout the remainder of the war, latterly based in the Firth of Forth, but mechanical defects caused escalating problems in 1918 and she was used increasingly in a training role after other large aircraft carriers joined the fleet. On 5 November she dragged her anchor during a gale in the Firth of Forth and collided with Royal Oak and Glorious. Her lack of underwater protection let her down and she sank about a mile south of Burntisland harbour.
The ship’s company were all taken off the stricken vessel without loss of life and she remains the largest vessel ever to sink in the Forth. Although she sank in 100ft of water, the tops of her masts and funnels still showed above the water and in 1921 they were cut down to give 6.5 fathoms clearance at low water. The hull remains intact on the seabed, although in 2013 it is said to be in a state of collapse. Given its history as one of the world’s first practical aircraft carriers, the wreck has been declared a site of historic importance and is designated as a Protected Wreck under Section 1 of the protection Wrecks Act, 1973.
Anne
Built by Rickmers AG in Bremerhaven, Anne Rickmers was completed as a tramp cargo steamer in 1911. She was captured in Port Said in August 1914 and subsequently used as a temporary seaplane carrier. At first she retained her original name and flew the red ensign with a mixed RN and civilian ship’s company, operating French Nieuport seaplanes manned by French pilots and British observers.
She operated in the Eastern Mediterranean in early 1915 and reconnaissance missions flown by her aircraft contributed to the successful British naval and military actions that halted the Turkish thrust towards the Suez Canal. On 11 March 1915 she was torpedoed by the Turkish torpedo-boat Demir Hisar and deliberately beached at Mudros, after which her seaplanes were transferred to Raven. On 12 May 1915 she was refloated and towed to Alexandria for repairs and improvements to her aviation facilities. These were completed in July and she sailed for further operations off the Turkish coast, again with French seaplanes embarked.
On 5 August 1915 she was commissioned into the RN and renamed Anne before joining the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron in January 1916. On 9 May 1916 she replaced her French aircraft with RNAS Short 184s and Sopwith Schneiders in Malta and returned to operations in the
Eastern Mediterranean. By mid 1917 seaplane carriers that had been more extensively modified for the role in the UK arrived in the theatre, and on 8 August 1917 Anne was paid off.
On 29 January 1918 she was sold to F C Strick & Co for use as a collier. Sold on to a Greek shipping concern in 1922 and renamed Ithaki, in 1939 she was sold on to a Romanian company and renamed Moldova. In 1942 she was re-registered in Panama and in 1949 sold to the Panamanian firm of Wallen and Co. In 1954 she was renamed Jagrahat and in 1955 reverted to Moldova. After a long and varied career she was broken up for scrap in Hong Kong in 1958.
Ben-my-Chree
Built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness, launched on 23 April 1908 and completed on 8 August 1908 for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty on 1 January 1915 for conversion into a seaplane carrier. The work was carried out by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead and completed on 23 March 1915, when she commissioned in Birkenhead. In April 1915 she replaced Empress in the Harwich Force and operated in the North Sea with Sopwith Schneider seaplane fighters embarked. On 11 May 1915 attempts to launch a Schneider on a wooden trolley from the flying-off deck proved unsuccessful and the method was not used again.
On 12 June 1915 she replaced Ark Royal in the fleet off the Dardanelles with an air group that included the first Short Type 184 seaplanes to be used in operational service. On 12 and 17 August 1915 her aircraft carried out the first aerial-torpedo attacks in history; the targets were Turkish merchant ships. In January 1916 she became the flagship of the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron on its formation at Port Said. From then onwards she operated in the Eastern Mediterranean, Red and Aegean Seas. In March 1916 she was dry-docked in Suez for repairs.
On 9 January 1917, while anchored off Castelorizo Island, she was engaged and hit by Turkish shore batteries which started fires and explosions which became uncontrollable and she sank in shallow water. Her wreck was raised in 1921 and subsequently sold to a breaker’s yard in Italy.
Vindex
Built by Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co of Newcastle-upon-Tyne as Viking for the Isle of Man Steam packet Company, she was launched on 7 March 1905 and completed on 26 June 1905. On 26 March 1915 she was hired by the Admiralty, retaining the name Viking, and converted into a seaplane carrier by the Cunard Steamship Company of Liverpool. On 3 November 1915 she was the first vessel ever to launch a wheeled ‘landplane’ from a flight deck, and on 11 November 1915 she was purchased outright by the Admiralty, renamed Vindex and commissioned at Liverpool. She was allocated to the Harwich Force and used in the North Sea on anti-airship patrols off the Nore. On 2 August 1916 she launched a Bristol Scout against a Zeppelin, the first ever interception of an enemy aircraft by a carrier-based fighter. Unfortunately the Zeppelin, L17, managed to evade the fighter and escaped.
In 1918 she was allocated to the MF with a number of other early seaplane carriers. On 12 February 1920 the Admiralty sold her back to her original owner, who used her on the Isle of Man run again. In 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for the second time, this time as a troopship, retaining the name Viking. She was again restored to her original owner in 1945 and used on the Isle of Man run until 1954, when this grand old vessel was sold to British Shipbreakers for
scrap.
Raven II
Rabenfels was built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Wallsend-on-Tyne for the German shipping firm of Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts Gesellschaft and completed in December 1903. After being captured in Port Said she underwent a conversion into a temporary seaplane carrier that was similar in scope to Anne, and began operations in December 1914 with French seaplanes embarked.
These had French pilots and British observers in an early example of a coalition force. In March 1915 she took over Anne’s aircraft and on 12 June 1915 she was commissioned formally into the Royal Navy and renamed Raven II.
In January 1916 she joined the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron and embarked a mixed group of Short 184 and 827 and Sopwith Schneider seaplanes. On 1 September 1916, while anchored in Port Said, she was damaged by a bomb dropped by a German aircraft. On 16 March 1917 she passed through the Suez Canal in company with the French cruiser Pothuau to form a hunting group searching for the German raider Wolf in the Indian Ocean. She returned to the Eastern Mediterranean on 10 June 1917 and paid off. In January 1918 she was bought by Graham & Co for mercantile service and renamed Ravenrock. In 1923 she was sold on to the British Dominion Steamship Company, which then sold her again to Karafuto KKK, who renamed her Heiyei Maru 7. She was sold for the last time to Innui KKK in 1935 and was eventually sunk in the Pacific during the Second World War.
Manxman
Built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim at Barrow-in-Furness for the Midland Railway Company, she was completed in 1914 and ran on the Isle of Man packet service. She was purchased by the Admiralty on 17 April 1916 and taken in hand by Chatham Dockyard for conversion to a seaplane carrier. The work was completed in December 1916, and in early 1917 she carried out a series of trials with Sopwith Pup fighters and seaplanes, as a result of which the Pup was adopted as the GF’s standard fighter and Manxman was allocated to the BCF rather than the Harwich Force, as had originally been the intention. In April 1917 she supported a minelaying operation in the North Sea, but her low speed meant that she could not operate with the battle cruisers, limiting her usefulness. In October 1917 she moved to the MF but acted more as a harbour depot ship for aircraft than as a fleet unit; she moved in turn from Syracuse to Taranto to Brindisi. In January 1918 she was ordered to embark aircraft and move to Mudros to prepare for a strike against the Turkish battle-cruiser Goeben, which was aground in the Dardanelles. The strike was, however, cancelled.
On 12 February 1920 she was sold to the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, but she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for the second time in October 1941, modified for use as a radar training ship and recommissioned as HMS Caduceus. She was paid off again in 1945 and placed on the disposal list; this time she did not attract a buyer and she was broken up for scrap in 1949.
Pegasus
Laid down as Stockholm for the Great Eastern Railway Company by John Brown & Co of Clydebank,