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Ship image
Ship caption	HMS Courageous

Ship country	United Kingdom
Ship flag
Ship name	HMS Courageous
Ship ordered	14 March 1915
Ship builder	Armstrong Whitworth
Ship laid down	18 March 1915
Ship launched	5 February 1916
Ship completed	4 November 1916
Ship original cost	£2,038,225
Ship nickname	Outrageous
Ship reclassified	Converted to aircraft carrier, June 1924–February 1928
Ship fate	Sunk by , 17 September 1939

Header caption	as light battlecruiser
Ship class
Ship displacement	(normal) (deep load)
Ship length
Ship beam
Ship draught
Ship power
Ship propulsion	4 shafts, 4 geared steam turbines, 18 Yarrow small-tube boilers
Ship speed
Ship range	at
Ship complement	842 officers and men
Ship armament	2 × 2 – guns
Ship armour	Belt: Decks: Barbettes: Gun turrets: Conning tower: Torpedo bulkheads:

Header caption	as aircraft carrier
Ship class
Ship displacement	(normal) (deep load)
Ship length	(p/p) (o/a)
Ship beam	(at waterline)
Ship draught
Ship power
Ship propulsion	4 shafts, 4 Parsons geared steam turbines18 Yarrow boilers
Ship speed
Ship range	at
Ship complement	814 + 403 air group (1938)
Ship armament	16 × 1 - AA guns
Ship armour	Belt: Decks: Bulkhead: Torpedo bulkheads:
Ship aircraft	48

|} HMS Courageous (pennant number 50) was the lead ship of the cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Designed to support the Baltic Project championed by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Lord John Fisher, they were very lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns. Courageous was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. She participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later.

Courageous was decommissioned after the end of the war, but was rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the mid-1920s. She could carry 48 aircraft compared to the 36 carried by her half-sister on approximately the same tonnage. After recommissioning she spent most of her career operating off Great Britain and Ireland. She briefly became a training carrier, but reverted to her normal role a few months before the start of the Second World War. Courageous was torpedoed and sunk in the opening weeks of the war, going down with more than 500 of her crew.

Origin and construction

During the First World War, Admiral Fisher was prevented from ordering an improved version of the preceding s by a wartime restriction that banned construction of ships larger than light cruisers. To obtain ships suitable for traditional battlecruiser roles, such as scouting for fleets and hunting enemy raiders, he settled on ships with the minimal armour of a light cruiser and the armament of a battlecruiser. He justified their existence by claiming he needed fast, shallow-draught ships for his Baltic Project, a plan to invade Germany via its Baltic coast.

Courageous had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draught of at deep load. She displaced at load and at deep load. Courageous and her sisters were the first large warships in the Royal Navy to have geared steam turbines. To save design time, the installation used in the light cruiser , the first cruiser in the navy with geared turbines, was simply doubled. The Parsons turbines were powered by eighteen Yarrow small-tube boilers. They were designed to produce a total of at a working pressure of . During the ship's sea trials she reached an estimated before they had to be curtailed by structural damage.

Courageous was designed to normally carry of fuel oil, but could carry a maximum of . At full capacity, she could steam for an estimated at a speed of .

Courageous carried four BL 15-inch Mark I guns in two twin hydraulically powered Mark I* gun turrets, one forward (designated 'A') and one aft ('Y'). Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen BL 4-inch Mark IX guns mounted in six manually powered Mark I mounts. The mount placed three breeches too close together, causing the 23 loaders to get in each other's way, and preventing the intended high rate of fire. A pair of QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns were fitted abreast the mainmast on Courageous. She mounted two submerged tubes for 21-inch torpedoes and carried 10 torpedoes.

First World War

Laid down on 28 March 1915, the ship was launched on 5 February 1916 and completed on 4 November 1916. During her sea trials later that month, she sustained structural damage while running at full speed in a rough head sea; the exact cause is uncertain. The forecastle deck was deeply buckled in three places between the breakwater and the forward turret. In addition the side plating was visibly buckled between the forecastle and upper decks. Water had entered the submerged torpedo room and rivets had sheared in the angle irons securing the deck armour in place. Courageous was stiffened with of steel in response. As of 23 November 1916, she cost £2,038,225 to build.

Upon commissioning, she served with the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet. After most of the 1st Cruiser Squadron was sunk at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 the squadron was disbanded, but it was re-formed near the end of the year with Courageous as flagship along with her sister ship Glorious. The ship was temporarily fitted as a minelayer in April 1917 by the addition of mine rails on her quarterdeck that could hold over 200 mines, but never actually laid any mines. In mid-1917 Courageous received a half a dozen torpedo mounts, each with two tubes: one mount on each side of the mainmast on the upper deck and two mounts on each side of the rear turret on the quarterdeck.

On 16 October 1917 the Admiralty received word of German ship movements, possibly indicating some sort of raid. Admiral Beatty, the commander of the Grand Fleet, ordered most of his light cruisers and destroyers to sea in an effort to locate the enemy ships. Courageous and Glorious were not initially ordered to sea, but were sent to reinforce the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron patrolling the central part of the North Sea later that day. Two German light cruisers managed to slip through the gaps between the British patrols and destroy a convoy bound for Norway during the morning of 17 October, but no word was received of the engagement until that afternoon. The 1st Cruiser Squadron were ordered to intercept, but were unsuccessful as the German cruisers were faster than expected.

Second Battle of Heligoland Bight

Throughout 1917 the Admiralty was becoming more concerned about German efforts to sweep paths through the British-laid minefields intended to restrict the actions of the High Seas Fleet and German submarines. A preliminary raid on German minesweeping forces on 31 October by light forces destroyed ten small ships, and the Admiralty decided on a larger operation to destroy the minesweepers and their light cruiser escorts. Based on intelligence reports, the Admiralty allocated the 1st Cruiser Squadron on 17 November 1917, with cover provided by the reinforced 1st Battlecruiser Squadron and distant cover by the battleships of the 1st Battle Squadron.

The German ships—four light cruisers of II Scouting Force, eight destroyers, three divisions of minesweepers, eight sperrbrechers (cork-filled trawlers) and two trawlers to mark the swept route—were spotted at 7:30 a.m. Courageous and the light cruiser opened fire with their forward guns seven minutes later. The Germans responded by laying an effective smoke screen. The British continued in pursuit, but lost track of most of the smaller ships in the smoke and concentrated fire on the light cruisers. Courageous fired 92 fifteen-inch shells and 180 four-inch shells during the battle, and the only damage she received was from her own muzzle blast. One fifteen-inch shell hit a gun shield of but did not affect her speed. At 9:30 the 1st Cruiser Squadron broke off their pursuit so they would not enter a minefield marked on their maps; the ships turned south, playing no further role in the battle.

After the battle, the mine fittings on Courageous were removed, and she spent the rest of the war intermittently patrolling the North Sea. In 1918, short take-off platforms were fitted for a Sopwith Camel and a Sopwith 1½ Strutter on both turrets. The ship was present at the surrender of the German High Seas fleet on 21 November 1918. Courageous was placed in reserve at Rosyth on 1 February 1919 and was assigned to the Gunnery School at Devonport the following year as a turret drill ship. She became flagship of the Rear-Admiral Commanding the Reserve at Devonport in March 1920.

Conversion

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 severely limited capital ship tonnage, and the Royal Navy was forced to scrap many of its older battleships and battlecruisers. However, the treaty allowed the conversion of existing ships totaling up to into aircraft carriers, and the Courageous class's combination of a large hull and high speed made these ships ideal candidates. The conversion of Courageous began on 29 June 1924 at Devonport. Her fifteen-inch turrets were placed into storage and later reused during the Second World War for , the Royal Navy's last battleship. The conversion into an aircraft carrier had cost £2,025,800.

Her new design improved on her half-sister HMS Furious which lacked an island and a conventional funnel. All superstructure, guns, torpedo tubes, and fittings down to the main deck were removed. A two-storey hangar, each level high and long, was built on top of the remaining hull. The upper hangar level opened onto a short flying-off deck, below and forward of the main flight deck. Two lifts were installed fore and aft in the flight deck. An island with the bridge, flying control station and funnel was added on the starboard side, since islands had been found not to contribute significantly to turbulence. By 1939 the ship could carry of petrol for her aircraft.

Courageous received a dual-purpose armament of sixteen QF 4.7-inch Mark VIII guns in single HA Mark XII mounts. Each side of the lower flight deck had a mount, and a pair were on the quarterdeck. The remaining twelve mounts were distributed along the sides of the ship. During refits in the mid-1930s, Courageous received three quadruple 2-pounder "pom-pom" Mark VII mounts, two of which were transferred from the battleship . Each side of the flying-off deck had a mount, forward of the 4.7-inch guns, and one was behind the island on the flight deck. She also received four water-cooled .50-calibre Mark III machine guns in a single quadruple mounting.

The reconstruction was completed on 21 February 1928, and she spent the next several months on trials and training before she was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet to be based at Malta, in which she served from May 1928 to June 1930. The ship was relieved by Glorious and refitted from June to August 1930. She was assigned to the Atlantic and Home Fleets from 12 August 1930 to December 1938, aside from a temporary attachment to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1936. In the early 1930s, traverse arresting gear was installed and she received two hydraulic aircraft catapults on the upper flight deck before March 1934. Courageous was refitted again between October 1935 and June 1936 with her pom-pom mounts. She was present at the Coronation Fleet Review at Spithead on 20 May 1937 for King George VI. The ship became a training carrier in December 1938 when joined the Home Fleet. She was relieved of that duty by her half-sister Furious in May 1939. Courageous participated in the Portland Fleet Review on 9 August 1939.

Air group

Courageous could carry up to 48 aircraft; following completion of her trials and embarking stores and personnel Courageous sailed for Spithead on 14 May 1928 to enable her aircraft Flights to join the ship. On 15 May 1928 a Blackburn Dart of 463 Flight became the first aircraft to land and the ship's first deck landing. The Dart was followed by the Fairey Flycatchers of 404 and 407 Flights, the Fairey IIIFs of 445 and 446 Flights and the Darts of 463 and 464 Flight. The ship sailed for Malta on 2 June to join the Mediterranean Fleet.

From 1933 to the end of 1938 Courageous carried 800 Squadron, which flew a mixture of nine Hawker Nimrod and three Hawker Osprey fighters for this entire period. 810, 820 and 821 Squadrons were embarked for reconnaissance and anti-ship attack missions during the same period. They flew the Blackburn Baffin, the Blackburn Shark, the Blackburn Ripon and the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers as well as Fairey Seal reconnaissance aircraft. As a deck landing training carrier in early 1939 Courageous embarked the Blackburn Skua and Gloster Sea Gladiator fighters of 801 Squadron and the Swordfish torpedo bombers of 811 Squadron, although both of these squadrons were disembarked when the ship was relieved of her training duties in May.

Second World War and sinking

Courageous served with the Home Fleet at the start of World War II with 811 and 822 Squadrons aboard, each squadron equipped with a dozen Fairey Swordfish. In the early days of the war, hunter-killer groups were formed around the fleet's aircraft carriers to find and destroy U-boats. On 31 August 1939 she went to her war station at Portland and embarked the two squadrons of Swordfish. Courageous departed Plymouth on the evening of 3 September 1939 for an anti-submarine patrol in the Western Approaches, escorted by four destroyers. On the evening of 17 September 1939, she was on one such patrol off the coast of Ireland. Two of her four escorting destroyers had been sent to help a merchant ship under attack and all her aircraft had returned from patrols. During this time, Courageous was stalked for over two hours by , commanded by Captain-Lieutenant Otto Schuhart. Then the carrier turned into the wind to launch her aircraft, which put the ship right across the submarine's bow, which fired three torpedoes. Two of the torpedoes struck the ship on her port side, knocking out all electrical power, and she capsized and sank in 20 minutes with the loss of 518 of her crew, including her captain. The survivors were rescued by the Dutch ocean liner Veendam and the British freighter Collingworth. Although the two escorting destroyers counter-attacked U-29 for four hours, the submarine escaped.

An earlier unsuccessful attack on Ark Royal by on 14 September, and the sinking of Courageous three days later, prompted the Royal Navy to withdraw its carriers from anti-submarine patrols. Courageous was the first British warship to be lost in the war; the civilian passenger liner had been sunk two weeks earlier. The commander of the German submarine force, Commodore Karl Dönitz, regarded the sinking of Courageous as "a wonderful success" and it led to widespread jubilation in the Kriegsmarine. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander of the Kriegsmarine, directed that Schuhart be awarded the Iron Cross First Class and all other members of the crew receive the Iron Cross Second Class.

Notes

Footnotes

References

External links

Photo gallery of Courageous and Glorious

Category:Glorious class aircraft carriers Category:Armstrong Whitworth ships Category:Tyne-built ships Category:1916 ships Category:World War I battlecruisers of the United Kingdom Category:World War II aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom Category:Ships sunk by German submarines Category:World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean Category:Maritime incidents in 1939

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