HMS Formidable - Lumbering Into Gunfight (And Shrugging Off Kamikazes)

Few British carriers are as well known as HMS Formidable. For both historical and...non-historical reasons.
This was a ship that took a serious pounding, across both theaters of the war. Yet came back for more, each time, even as it wore the ship down. Formidable served long and hard, until the ship was completely spent. In the end, the damage would relegate the ship to the scrappers torch.
But, before that, Formidable gave excellent service in every theater of the war.
Further Reading:
www.amazon.com/British-Aircra...
www.amazon.com/British-Carrie...
www.amazon.com/British-Carrie...
www.amazon.com/British-Pacifi...
www.amazon.com/Struggle-Middl...
www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chr...

[@FinsburyPhil]

Illustrious, Victorious, Formidable & Indomitable - great names

[@harryjohnson9215]

The royal navy has all the best ship names, Example are : WARSPITE VANGUARD DREADNOUGHT REVENGE COURAGEOUS GLORIOUS FURIOUS INDOMITABLE Inflexible VICTORIOUS FORMIDABLE ILLUSTRIOUS TRIDENT JAVELIN And many more can't forget WARRIOR and VICTORY

[@FinsburyPhil]

@@harryjohnson9215 Yes I think I'd take any of those over the Gerald R. Ford

[@JGCR59]

@@harryjohnson9215 They also had HMS Gay Corsair, HMS Petunia and HMS Spaker tho

[@Acridblue999]

@@JGCR59 Flower class Corvettes....never heard of the Gay Corsair though. :))

[@dovetonsturdee7033]

@@Acridblue999 There was a 'Gay' class of patrol boats introduced in the 1950s. HMS Gay Corsair & HMS Gay Viking, however, were motor gun boats built in late WW2.

[@Cdntrvler54]

And it was off of this carriers deck, that Canadian, Robert Hampton Grey flew the mission to Ona-Gawa Bay, August 9, 1945. He successfully landed a 500lb bomb onto a destroyer, sinking it and being that his F4U Corsair was badly shot up, crashed into the bay. Grey was killed yet for his actions, he was awarded the VC. This was the second to last VC to be awards to a Canadian for service in WW2.

[@reconn9056]

Skynea thank you so much for this. My Dad was an Air Mechanic on Formidable 44-46. He serviced the engines on Corsairs for example and was a member of the Crash Party. He was stationed in the midships mess area and lived through both of the kamikaze attacks. He was 19 years of age at the time.

[@geoffhunter7704]

My late Uncle JEW Steele was an FAA Pilot firstly on the Flying Stringbag Fairey Swordfish 1939-1943 then Seafires and 6F's in the Atlantic,Med and finally the Pacific after HMS Formidable was struck by the Kamikaze she was back in action in 1 hour,Then a stream of US Navy,AA Force and a few Army Officers requested to see the damage and the QD Concrete used to repair the er dent.There was much discussion over this, the highest rank to visit was ADM Halsey most very senior ranks sent their ADC's including Adm Nimitz's dozens of photo and colour film were taken the Wardroom Drink stock took a huge hit too.

[@rogerwolstenholme2710]

The first signal from Formidable as the smoke cleared after a Kamikaze hit was to the Flagship { they were worried } was ... " Little Yellow Bas@@%*D".... the Admiral signalled back .. " Did you mean me ?"... No problems then. LOL

[@SportyMabamba]

Unfathomably Based signalling

[@rayofhope1114]

Well done for pointing out the aircraft capacity when including the deck parking quantities. Most of the UK carrier aircraft capacities quoted in published video’s etc. only include the aircraft that are accommodated in the hangar with no deck park.

[@ro.stan.4115]

Yes. Why is that? I know in the beginning planes were stored only in hangars but later on 43-45 that was not the case.

[@mbryson2899]

​@@ro.stan.4115British doctrine, mainly based on the rigors and hazards of Atlantic weather. When deployed to the Pacific they adopted US practices. Also, resupply times were much longer in that theater, and aircraft production was off the charts comparatively speaking so aircraft written off or lost due to weather were not as precious.

[@alecblunden8615]

By comparison US figure usually include the deck park AND spare aircraft, often suspended from the hangar roof.

[@ethanmckinney203]

When you start storing planes on the deck, you've given up the major advantages of the enclosed hanger armored to the sides, front, and rear. Now you're toting around a lot of armor that doesn't do anything _and_ the carrier is in danger of destructive deck fire.

[@alecblunden8615]

@@ethanmckinney203 Deck fires were disastrous on the wooden flight decks of US carriers, , but were little more than temporary inconveniences on the armoured decks of the UK carriers, which were often back in action within minutes. If imitation os the sincerest form of flattery, consider the action of the US in adopting armoured flight decks for their post war carriers.

[@ARGONUAT]

It seems you could do a history on a floating piece of driftwood and make it unmissably interesting!

[@CaptainSeato]

Skynea: "First, as always, the design history and construction; the branch originally grew off a deciduous tree native to the region..." 😅

[@atomicwedgie8176]

I had a Dodge pickup with the color code: Driftwood Light Satin Glow. Pretty truck, until she sank due to rust. Iowa winters.... sigh

[@nickdanger3802]

Formidable arrived at Alexandria the following day and disembarked her air group. She received emergency repairs before departing on 24 July 1941 for permanent repairs at Norfolk Navy Yard in the United States, 829 NAS flying aboard with its Albacores to provide anti-submarine patrols during the voyage. She arrived on 25 August, and the repairs were completed in early December. After several days of sea trials, she sailed for Britain in company with Illustrious on 12 December. During the night of 15/16 December, Illustrious collided with Formidable's stern, but neither ship was seriously damaged. She was repaired at Belfast from 21 December 1941 to 3 February 1942[33] and embarked the Albacores of 818 NAS and 820 NAS and the Grumman Martlet fighters of 888 NAS.

[@barneymagee3285]

Her bell is still in the possession of ‘training ship’ formidable , a sea cadet unit formed during the war in Belfast where she was built.

[@marcuswardle3180]

I believe the quick drying concrete patch to 'smooth' out the deck was still there when it went in for scrap!

[@SennaAugustus]

There are a few more achievements. Formidable was a pioneer of radar fighter direction, where previously on Ark Royal, flag signals from Sheffield were used. Formidable's entry into the Mediterranean through the Suez was an eventful affair. It's the aftermath of the Illustrious Blitz, which would be a nice topic in itself. On 7 March 1941, Formidable arrived at Suez Bay. Although they have cleared the Italian mines dropped earlier, the Germans have dropped fresh mines in the area, and 2 cargo ships and 3 other smaller ships are now blocking the passage after hitting some of the mines. The area was swarmed with minesweepers and Wellington planes with mine-detonating hoops sweeping the area for mines. 8 other ships volunteered to act as meat shields for Formidable, 6 going ahead of her and 2 others zipping about trying to set off any mines so that none would hit the big lady. On the third day, 9 March 1941, there was one last scare for Formidable, there was a suspected acoustic mine which forced her to shut down and let the tugs pull her through. A strong gust of wind also threatened to push her into the wreck of a Greek merchant ship. Mavis Lever was the codebreaker who deciphered the Italian Enigma message, which was a bit older and less complicated than the German naval Enigma. When Lever decoded were the entire Italian plan, how many ships, where they're going, and so on, and the message "today's the day minus 3".

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

For the RN.

[@ptonpc]

Thanks for the extra info.

[@anthonywilson4873]

Some excellent footage and information from actual participants on Armoured Carriers site.

[@bazt8427]

This was my Dad's ship, he was a Telegrapher at the time. He lied to the drafting office about his age to join up, so he was only 17 on joining. He told me during the kamikaze attacks, he would hide under the table and after the attacks, would help sew the dead into body bags. Sad times

[@andypandy9013]

Thank you for not saying "The" HMS Formidable. 🙂

[@chrisbutcher5179]

2:49 😂

[@patkinder6632]

Lived up to her name , Formidable indeed !

[@robertsolomielke5134]

TY-I prefer British carriers, armored flight deck !

[@dilophosauruschannel9525]

I love how informative and detailed your videos are

[@paullane8709]

The metal decks on the carrier's sent out to the Pacific to help the US navy helped the allies shorten the Pacific campaign. American carriers could be out for weeks with kamikaze hits. Wooden decks. The British carriers did not have that problem. You never hear of American sailors mentioning the British. The exception was admiral Nimitz. Who praised the royal navy.

[@waynesimpson2074]

Agreed, my Granddad was onboard HMS Barham when she was torpedoed by U331 so he couldn't have been happier when the Albacores of HMS Illustrious settled the score by putting a torpedo into that U-Boat. He also mentioned the difference between wooden deck US and metal decked RN Aircraft-Carriers, namely shrapnel. Those splinters were responsible for devastating US casualties, imagine having to maintain your battle positions as a Kamikaze came at you.

[@73Trident]

Great as usual. Thank you for your time and effort on these presentations.

[@HandyMan657]

Thanks, Skynea. Take care.

[@straswa]

Great work Skynea, I love hearing the story of Formidable sailing in the battle line.

[@grahamgibbs5948]

Excellent video.

[@davidelliott5843]

The Luftwaffe went out of their way to take out HMS Illustrious. Stuka pilots had extensive training and manage to get two bombs into the aft deck elevator. The hangar blast curtains were ineffective but she was able to limp into Valletta Harbour with her hull plates glowing red hot. How many ships (never mind aircraft carrier) could withstand that sort of damage?

[@farmerned6]

Her deck was built to survive 1000Lb bombs, but was semi-penetrated during the attack, during repairs the hole was studied ,and it was realized it had been hit by a 1000KG bomb

[@iamrichrocker]

starting to wonder if you get any sleep with all of the content you have been presenting..and such great content/subjects..we thank you for these videos..

[@scabbycatcat4202]

Formidable launched herself !! Whilst preparations were underway , all of a sudden the ship started moving whilst there were dozens of workmen underneath . Mercifully there was only one fatality and dozens of injuries. Just got to the point in the narrative !!

[@barneymagee3285]

‘East’ yard, harland and Wolff Belfast…

[@JGCR59]

During Operation Husky, the losses of Seafires (first time they were embarked in strenght) were so badly that they basically rendered the british carriers defenseless. The losses to operational accidents that is, not to enemy action. They lost half the planes inoperable due to accidents in four days, though not all were total losses. The Seafire would dramatically improve its landing performance with later variants but would never be as safe a carrier fighter as the US models obtained by lend-lease

[@richardsuggs8108]

The USA borrowed a British carrier for a time. The ship was called USS ROBIN and it served honorably in the US Navy. We had to return the ship to the Royal Navy too soon.

[@MetalRodent]

A little bit of a misconception that she was actually called USS Robin, it was the radio call sign given to her so the Japanese didn't know how depleted the US was at that time, but she was still called Victorious with her crew and all. Sadly never got the chance to take a proper pop at the Japanese, who were still licking their wounds and staying away, but yes people forget that she was out there.

[@mickvonbornemann3824]

Actually the later Colossus & Majestic classes were built to similar designs as these Armoured carriers, but although made of armoured plate, their metal decks were a lot thinner, so they weren’t considered armoured (well thats what I was told on a visit to the Melbourne many decades ago). Considering how long they stayed in service around the world, it was quite amazing, as they were built to be disposable light fleet carriers.

[@anthonywilson4873]

An Armoured Carrier (Invincible) was loaned to the US and renamed the USS Robin. This was a critical time for the US as the Enterprise was away for repair leaving only the Saratoga on Station.

[@WilkyTheFlyingScotsman]

It was HMS Victorious not HMS invincible that was leant to the USS, and it was only called USS Robbin over the radio so the Japanese didnt know the US were lacking numbers, it was still known as Victorious to its crew and when not over the radio

[@steveclarke6257]

My only complaint is your criticism and judgement about the RN tactics regarding the Indian Ocean Raid. Whilst IJN and USN carriers did battle to decide who ruled the day, when it comes to night operations the RN was in a class of its own; one of a couple of things the USN learns from borrowing HMS Victorious as the USS Robin. If certain guesses from Somerville had been correct, i think the Japanse would have loss the use of 2-3 carriers from the night strikes, which would not have been available for a counterstrike the following day- note I dont think all would have been sunk even with the IJNs infamously bad damage control procedures- but they would have been limping back for repairs. Understand why the RNs carriers are so tough is understanding what the RN thiught was important- they spend inordinately large amounts of early research ensuring the minimisation of fire risk from aviation fuel. Even looking at fuel handling systems from other navies from either friendly invited inspections to captured German seaplane carriers of WWI. Why you may ask...well as Dr Alexander Clarke says ( and his doctoral thesis is on Aircraft carriers, so its his specialist subject),when you have a global reach but your nearest major repair facility is two oceans away, you had better minimise things like fire risk in your design to ensure you can get back there.

[@user-ze5tu4ck1t]

They had a special unit on British Aircraft Carriers. The Broom Squad. Whos Duty included sweeping off the Kamikaze Pilots and Planes into the Pacific.

[@randomaccount-dq1jq]

9:13 "Tis but a scratch"

[@harryjohnson9215]

The royal navy has all the best ship names, Example are : WARSPITE VANGUARD DREADNOUGHT REVENGE COURAGEOUS GLORIOUS FURIOUS INDOMITABLE Inflexible VICTORIOUS FORMIDABLE ILLUSTRIOUS TRIDENT JAVELIN And many more can't forget WARRIOR and VICTORY

[@nitrous_god]

and also glowworm lol (but yes i agree. they have great names for the most part)

[@harryjohnson9215]

@@nitrous_god thay do have better names than most modern day American ships

[@WilkyTheFlyingScotsman]

What can we say, History means getting amazing names

[@lancerevell5979]

One of the biggest winners of WWII was "neutral" Sweden, which sold the same type weapons to both sides simultaneously. 😮

[@JGCR59]

Re the Ceylon Raid, Sommerville knew that the odds of his swordfish and albacore surviving japanese fighter patrols were almost zero, was planning a night raid, as his planes had radar. However, the opportunity didn't present itself.

[@chrisvickers7928]

Almost Zero, as it were.

[@enricomercado4671]

The armored flight deck really helped Formidable to survive attacks from bombers and kamikazes. The wooden flight decks on US aircraft carriers, made them easy to fix while away from home ports, but made the ships more vunerable to dive bombers and kamikaze.

[@paullewis4095]

The main reason for the armoured decks on British carriers is that in the Mediterranean you are always in range of large numbers of land based aircraft us got away with unarmoured decks due to the size of the Pacific.

[@lyedavide]

First episode on an aircraft carrier for me. It was lucky that she wasn't damaged or sunk on her first tour to the east in the Indian Ocean

[@panic_2001]

Were the two hits from Fliegerkorps X in the Mediterranean 1000 kilogram or 1000 pound bombs?

[@skyneahistory2306]

Kilogram.

[@fredsanford5954]

@@skyneahistory2306 Ouch. That's ~2,200 lbs for the metrically challenged.

[@davidb3172]

@@fredsanford5954 Actually 2205 lbs which is 35 lbs short of a ton.

[@neilturner6749]

@@skyneahistory2306 Kilos cant be correct If it was indeed a Stuka raid as you said. They carried 500kg bombs (just over 1000 lbs). Only Ju88s could carry the larger 1000kg bombs.

[@panic_2001]

@@neilturner6749 Why doesn't the metric system apply everywhere in the world? Then we wouldn't have these problems... If I remember correctly, there were special armor-piercing 1000 kg bombs for the JU87 against ships. Hence my original question

[@Hq888kv]

Only love ❤️ is OUR goal 😊.

[@harryjohnson9215]

Deck park wasn't practical in the north sea

[@pimpompoom93726]

Armored deck is a tradeoff, yes it makes the ship more impervious to aerial bombs-but it reduced the aircraft capacity significantly. US Navy gambled on more aircraft and for the most part it was the proper decision. US would not have decisively defeated Japan at Midway without the full complement of aircraft of the Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown. On the other hand, the loss of the Yorktown MAY not have happened had she had an armored deck (though it was air-launched torpedoes that caused the fatal damage). US strategy was predicated on the reality that the US had the manufacturing capacity to replace ship losses far better than Japan and the Allies needed to get ships in action FAST so that Japan could not fortify their captured territory (especially creating submarine/aircraft bases on Guadalcanal, interdicting Allied resupply of Australia). Had the Japanese had another year to consolidate/fortify the Allies would have suffered far greater losses long term.

[@mypuppydogtizzy1058]

one of the reasons why we built them that way was that as the 30s progressed we realized Germany was the main threat and we'd be fighting within range of land based aircraft, the arkroyal was built to fight in the Pacific against Japan and was larger

[@stephenmanchip9127]

My Coz was an Avenger pilot and had just stepped inside the Island when the kamikazi struck his closest friend who was following immediately behind him was killed.

[@panic_2001]

I have a question: The repairs to Formidable and Illustrious were carried out in the USA, but due to the construction of the carriers with the armor, I imagine the work required to be very complex. The Queen Elizabeth class also underwent repairs to various battleships in the USA. All before December 7th, 1941 What would the Royal Navy have done without this US option? The shipyards in the UK were certainly working at their absolute limits due to the submarine problem in the Atlantic.

[@WilkyTheFlyingScotsman]

It would be a case of finding space and or priority's, which ships would be operational enough that they werent considered a massive risk, which ones could be given temporary fixes to return them quickly and which ships being built were of the highest importance. At the end of the day it would all be about finding a solution

[@emerkamp1]

Brits and Japan used the same type of closed in hangars vs the open hangers on US ships. 2 different ways of dealing with ventilation and fires.

[@alephalon7849]

Formidable definitely lives up to her name. Hers is a different kind of toughness from Enterprise, but tough all the same.

[@paullewis4095]

Neither could have done the others job enterprise wouldn't have lasted an hour in the med due to the proximity of land based aircraft. Formidable didn't have a large enough air wing due to space lost with the armoured box to be desisive on her own in the Pacific.

[@mypuppydogtizzy1058]

I had an old Francaphile customer who started the war in the friends of the free French teaching Frenchies the Brumy accent to try and spot fake British pilots, when old enough he joined the navy and served on formidable in the Pacific, he was resting when one of the kamikazes hit, he said he instantly knew what it was and found it amusing that his first thought was 'what a prat'. later an American admiral who called the British aircraft carriers toy's visited the ship and when shown a dent in the ship that was simply fixd by pushing the kamikazes wreck off the deck and filling the dent with concrete was less than politely told f'ing toy's. there was an accident were someone left the chip fryer on all night and when opened in the morning it blew up making a bit of a mess, later up in Scotland two young lads joined the ship tasked with cleaning the mess one of the lads was tall and skinny with two new tattoos one possibly Scotland forever the other mom & dad after a few weeks that lad got il and was sent off to London for treatment, he turned out to be Saun Connery

[@g8ymw]

American aircraft carrier doctrine. The carrier's best defence is it's aircraft British aircraft carrier doctrine There's one going to get through. My own thoughts about the armoured carriers is that they will be operating, most of the time, within range of land based enemy planes

[@RayyMusik]

Well, the USN had much better carrier-based fighters until 1943 when Martlets and Seafires were deployed by the Brits.

[@g8ymw]

@@RayyMusik We had Martlets in 1941. They were Grumman Wildcats that were ordered by the French but went to us when France fell. Later ones that we got were called Grumman Wildcats

[@RayyMusik]

@@g8ymw Thanks for the info. On which carrier were the Martlets deployed then? I only know pictures of Fireflies from the early stages of the war.

[@philsalvatore3902]

RN carriers had their hanger decks, usually two, built into the hull. As with the case of Illustrious, a hanger fire was both very difficult to extinguish and the heat damaged the hull structurally. US Navy practice was to build the hanger and flight deck as superstructure above the hull. The hanger deck was the main deck and had 4 inch armor. From the Essex Class all the way to the Ford Class there is an intermediate deck with squadron sleeping, office and briefing spaces directly under the flight deck and above the hanger deck. The US Navy assumed their ships would get hit and wanted the damage confined to superstructure above the hull. With an hanger deck bomb damage was confined above. Damage to the hanger and flight deck didn't affect the hull structure. US Navy hangers had big roll up doors to permit ventilating after a fire and jettisoning debris over the side. On RN carriers burned aircraft and other damage had to be brought up to the flight deck, assuming the elevators still worked, and their hangers were very hard to ventilate without contaminating the air throughout the ship. Their lower hangers were also a significantly large space and low enough in the hull that could flood and sink the ship in the event of a torpedo hit. The US Navy didn't lose any of the Essex Class even though several suffered major combat damage and because of their construction even those that did experience major combat damage were fit to be used for decades after WWII. Franklin and Bunker Hill for example had hulls in such pristine condition after WWII they were kept in reserve to be converted into a Super Essex class intended to be an improvement on the Oriskany that was ultimately never built

[@g8ymw]

@@RayyMusik HMS Audacity (ex-German merchantman) had some. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXPFqKamjdSGb9U

[@jimmyseaver3647]

One hundred (thousand) kilos.

[@atomicwedgie8176]

1 kilo = 2.2 pounds. -Pablo Escobar

[@jessebauer7372]

Formidable was another ship that was sadly scrapped that should have been repaired and made into a floating museum.

[@45641560456405640563]

Yawn.....

[@glenn1035]

So for 3 inches of flight deck armor the design sacrificed 50% of its aircraft capacity. They're lucky lightweight Zeros crashed on the deck because any armor piercing bomb would have punched right through. The battleship Arizona had 5 inch armored decks for example.

[@davidclarke7122]

At least they had armoured decks, unlike American carriers of the period.

[@glenn1035]

It would take 2 Illustrious class carriers to equal the air strength of 1 Yorktown class, the battle of Midway would have been lost if the US had Illustrious class carriers.

[@paulwalsh598]

Are you seriously comparing armour on a Battleship to a carrier?

[@davidclarke7122]

No, I'm. Comparing armoured carrier survivability to unarmoured carrier.

[@paulwalsh598]

@@davidclarke7122 I believe you may have thought I was replying to David. I was not, I had no issue with your comment. I was replying to the first comment in this thread which ludicrously compared a Battleship’s armour to that of a Carrier.

[@mikeray1544]

Royal Navy could use a good quality built carrier like Formidible- current ones having major issues...

[@davidelliott5843]

1111,000 shaft horsepower is about 85 Megawatts but probably closer to 100 megawatts after gearbox losses are accounted for. That’s a huge amount of power given the available space on board.

[@contumelious-8440]

I would agree but based on your improper placement of the simple , and your seemingly lack of understanding of physics I'll just disagree and bow out.

[@moosifer3321]

Oh Dear - the Aussies will be `Upset!!` you didn`t mention the Scrapiron Fotilla`s HMAS Vampire, lost defending Hermes - be VERY cautious visiting `Down Under`! A ship and Flotilla of some Renown.

[@ironkeko4423]

Any Shikikans here

[@d.olivergutierrez8690]

How not to be here to hear the stories of my preferred, beautiful, attribute blessed armored carriers.

[@ironkeko4423]

@@d.olivergutierrez8690 nah Man I also love the History of the Ships, I was a Lover of History first and then a Degenerate 😅🤣😂

[@An_AtomA]

Isn't so formidable after sinking innit? K this is a joke chill k?

[@silgen]

Isn't a joke supposed to be funny?

[@WilkyTheFlyingScotsman]

People losing there lives serving their country is not what i would call a joke - Serving RN.