HMS Furious - Fisher's Folly Becomes Pioneering Aircraft Carrier

HMS Furious is a classic story of a ship that would probably have suffered in her original role, becoming a trendsetter in a different guise. From one of the more ill-advised British battlecruiser designs, to what could be argued as the first aircraft carrier.
And even if you prefer to look at other ships, such as HMS Argus, for that title...well, Furious was still a pioneering ship nonetheless. One that established many things for Royal Navy aviation, and by extension, other navies across the globe.
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[@legiran9564]

You forgot to add that Fisher had this nasty habit of pillaging from other building projects to shorten the construction time of his own pet projects. Like HMS Dreadnought being armed with the Lord Nelson's class main guns. Repulse and Renown using surplus guns, turrets and steel from the canned Revenge ships number 6 to 8. And the engines from the Courageous, Glorious and Furious were pillaged from a few C-class cruisers under construction. Fisher must have been very much liked by the navy guys doing the planning and logistics.

[@WildBillCox13]

"Furiouser and furiouser." -Dodgeson How doth the tinclad carrier, Improve upon design, And, so, remove the barrier, Tween now and coming time. How sprightly fast she scuds the waves, How deft she skirts the wrecks, And welcomes little Swordfish knaves, With rolling, heaving, decks. -WBC

[@Backwardlooking]

Have many wartime photos of her from my father’s wartime service. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧Must have been rough to serve in Northern and Atlantic waters.

[@jp-um2fr]

When we make a test bed, we make a 'good un. Probably the most interesting career of any ship ever built. Also, one of the luckiest, not a bad birth for any seaman - apart from freezing to death of Norway. Sad, though, we always carve them up into bake bean tins in the end.

[@MadMax-bq6pg]

in alternate history, She retains her two 18” guns & is assigned to special duties. With an ocean going tug following her closely, She leads the vessels in at Zeebrugge. Running aground, She can only bring one 18” gun to bear upon the mole. Her escorting tug in hammered by shore defences so there is no immediate way for her to get back out, but the defences were not expecting this level of attack. The mole does not withstand the assault, Royal Marines improvising their landing over the wreck of a ship on the opposite side of the planned assault. Confused fighting continues over several days. The U-boat attempting to reconnoiter the state of the channel was surprised (briefly); whilst the illumination round being sent up & loaded was a mistake, it was enough to prevent U13 going further. With the landing force steadily securing a beachhead, reinforcements are funnelled in and another front starts opening….

[@user-mu8ho3tt7p]

Very well done on all of furious various functions n rebuilds. Thank you Skynea!!

[@Straswa]

Great wokr Skynea. Furious certainly had a fascinating history.

[@opvjg]

Furious, along with Courageous and Glorious, were meant as bombardment ships in the Baltic

[@andrewemery4272]

Are those the same as Monitors?

[@Hannymcfee]

​@@andrewemery4272 Essentially large monitors in terms of role

[@edwardvincentbriones5062]

My favorite Royal Navy ship right now.

[@nickdanger3802]

June 1940 Furious Mix of 40 Wildcats and Buffalos to Britain 19.00 Repaired and ungraded in US under Lend Lease 20.00 T shaped elevator, Early Seafires did not have folding wings

[@tomc2631]

Very interesting, my grandad was an ordinary seaman on her in the second world war

[@keithplymale2374]

It's more true to say that her half sisters were thrown away due to mistakes and incorrect usage by the RN. Some time ago Avalanche Press did a variant were all three ships survived as gun are ships into the 1930's. They were updated like historical RN ships were. They make interesting ships in that game system in W W II.

[@carrickrichards2457]

The Tondern raid (Operation F7) resulted in Zeppelins being withdrawn from northern bases for the rest of the war. My Grandfather was a british army observer working in Germany in WW1. We are trying to find out who was the observer at Tondern and hope to succeed after RN archives move to their new home.

[@alexh3153]

She was pretty cool looking at first

[@grahamkearnon6682]

As you are focused on the RN then the term 'rebuild' is never used, the correct term is 'refit', the term conversion is correct.

[@Crazyman23]

Think you'll do a video on the monitors that got furious's 18" guns?

[@king_br0k]

What do you think of Dr, Clarke's idea that the Queen Elizabeth class hms Agincourt being planned to have 4 of the same 18 inch turrets that went on furious along with small tube boilers?

[@carrickrichards2457]

The british 18"/45 guns are widely regarded by US and UK navies as poor, especially compared to 15"/45 or 16"/50 that had more than double its rate of fire. They are not at all similar to the japanese 18"/45 type 94 of Musashi and Yamato.

[@Constance_tinople]

@@carrickrichards2457and even the Japanese 18 inch still wasn’t really worth the sheer effort and allocation of resources needed to accommodate them

[@mikearmstrong8483]

Arrestor gear had been thought of already betore Dunning's landings; in fact it was used on the first landing aboard a ship by Eugene Ely years before. And although wikipedia indicates his fatal accident was caused by engine failure, wikipedia is rarely to be trusted as an accurate source of information. I have seen printed info by actual naval historians, as opposed to any numbnuts that can make a wikipedia entry without proper review or editing, that indicates the accident was caused by a tire bursting on his plane when landing. (Or, being a British plane, I guess it was a tyre that burst.)

[@skyneahistory2306]

I didn't use Wiki for Dunning's loss. I used "British Aircraft Carriers" by David Hobbs (which I've never seen said to be particularly *wrong* about anything). The direct quote being: "As his wheels touched the deck the handling party started to grab the aircraft, but he waved them away and 'blipped' the engine on to fly away, but it choked and lost power." At which point the wind took his plane away, leading to the famous photo. Though I suppose one could argue he felt his tire burst and that's why he waved the crew off, the book doesn't specify on *that*.

[@mikearmstrong8483]

@@skyneahistory2306 David Hobbs is most certainly a respectable source, and I can accept that quote as gospel. My source was Louis S Casey. "On the second landing, a tyre burst on touchdown, causing the Pup to swerve over the side of the ship...". I also recall seeing a printed source to that effect by another historian whom, unfortunately I cannot recall. I think you are correct in that it may have been a combination of factors.

[@paulbarthol8372]

pulled from service before the war was over. That's really worn out.

[@GoodGnewsGary]

"Truly, truly, I say to you if you mothball a ship during war it be that she is held fast by tobacco spit and coal dust. It is better to let her rust at harbor than to be still upon thy enemy's spy glass spotting." -some old sea dog preaching, probably, maybe.

[@anantr99]

A large number of World War 1-era ships were quite worn out by 1943-44. In the case of the British ships, these were ships that had seen a fair bit of active service during the first war. That showed towards 1944-45: 1. Of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, Malaya was put into reserve in December 1944, with Warspite following in February 1945. Valiant and Queen Elizabeth were in better shape (due to their very significant reconstructions), but Valiant was put into the reserve in July 1945 as she was never fully repaired after the 1944 drydock accident. Queen Elizabeth finally entered the reserve in August 1945 (a day after the bombing of Nagasaki, in fact). 2. Of the Revenge-class battleships, Revenge and Resolution both entered the reserve as early as October 1943. Ramilles was retained for bombardment duty, and entered the reserve in January 1945. Only Royal Sovereign, which was originally planned to go into the reserve in February 1944, would see out the war in active service, albeit serving with the Soviet Navy. 3. Renown had seen an incredible war service (earning 10 battle honours). Renown was quite worn out, and entered the reserve in May 1945 pending a refit that was ultimately cancelled. 4. Furious and Argus were both quite worn out by late 1944, and entered the reserve in September 1944. 5. Even the Nelson-class battleships, albeit being one war and just over a decade newer than the aforementioned ships, were not in good shape by 1945. They had faced a lack of refits, and Rodney was basically deemed immobile by March 1945, being put into the reserve in December 1945. Only Nelson remained in service as the Eastern Fleet flagship, and later Home Fleet flagship until October 1947, when she went into the reserves. Something that is not oft appreciated is that the British ships in WW2 generally saw more action than other Allied counterparts, and considering that a lot of them were already a tad older than their counterparts and had seen more action, it is no surprise they were decommissioned early, especially considering that the European Axis navies had basically ceased to exist in great surface strength by late 1944.

[@Strelnikov403]

Same with Rodney, Warspite, and the Rs - WWII was ROUGH on the British battlefleet!

[@Greidiawl]

By late 1944 there were no Axis naval threats (including Pacific post Leyte Gulf). Save the crew for other purposes as well as the refit time/money/slipway the damage from kamikaze attacks were going require.

[@renown16]

i think the og courageous class battlecruisers would have been good enemies for the pocket battleships.

[@doccyclopz]

Only if they were to use their superior speed to stay both out of range of the 11" and simultaneously keep the Pocket battleships within range of their own 15". Seems like a very tricky adventure in hindsight though .

[@chloehennessey6813]

For future reference sir it’s : courageous.

[@renown16]

@@chloehennessey6813 oh yea sorry bro, misspelt it, thanks for picking up on it.

[@stephenrichards339]

She did her job thats it

[@veeleather_larpstrand7383]

18 min ,, where she was bomb damaged, my Dad served as a petty or chief petty officer , re saw the bomb break through the hanger ceiling a spilt secound before detonation ,, he's injuries saw him out of any further action

[@Josway37]

HMS Spurious is more like it, am I right? Am ... I ... right? No? Not even close.

[@christopherhill4438]

I believe that was her nickname. Courageous was labelled "Outrageous". Can't remember that of Glorious though.

[@rigelkent8401]

They were built for the Baltic campaign that never happened

[@GoodGnewsGary]

She brings a whole new meaning "you can put a dress on a hog, but it's still a hog."

[@andrewemery4272]

As they say in Tennessee ....

[@davidwright7193]

Large light cruiser was almost as big a heap of bullshit as “Through deck anti-submarine cruiser” and “large helicopter destroyer”. Though the second two were designed as aircraft carriers from the keel up. The armament of the “large light cruisers” in their “battle” cruiser formation is partially explained by their intended role. They were designed to support a large amphibious landing in the Baltic on the German coast with the aim of snatching Berlin before the German army could respond. As such they weren’t really expecting to hit surface ships as the Grand Fleet would have to have neutralised the High Seas Fleet before the op really begins. Instead the emphasis is on light draft to enable them to operate as Naval gunfire support platforms after troops have gone ashore. They really were an old man’s folly and being converted to aircraft carriers was a good use for new hulls otherwise only good for scrap.