Talk:HMS Victorious (R38)

Raid on Kirkenes and Petsamo
Could this be mentioned in here? (Msrasnw (talk) 20:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)) Added a little link (Msrasnw (talk) 11:56, 25 October 2009 (UTC))

damaged 1946
for info others can choose if its notable but I do note that passengers heading to the uk were transferred to another ship aftre sectionsof the bow fell off. Gnangarra 02:33, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Robin
This article has some more detail on her period as Robin.Le Deluge (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

HMS Victorious was not operated by the United States during WWII and was never USS Robin. This has grown out of badly misunderstanding the actual event, to the point of being a myth.

Victorious was sent to the Pacific to work with the US Pacific Fleet in 1943. She was placed under the tactical command of the US Pacific Fleet for this period, because it would be rather ridiculous to have a separate Royal Navy chain of command for the only British ship in the area when there’s an American Admiral a mile away on Saratoga. This was completely normal during WWII and repeated many times over, such as when Saratoga operated with the British in the Indian Ocean, Dutch submarines operated under British command (including using British torpedoes when Dutch weapons ran out), or various Australian and New Zealand ships operated with US Task Forces.

Victorious retained her British crew, bolstered by a few Americans to ensure common carrier landing procedures (American fighter squadrons operated from the British carrier) and radio operations. The British carrier was modified to operate American aircraft to ease the supply of spare parts/aircraft in theater, and these modifications were removed after her few months in the Pacific. Victorious never operated as USS Robin, Robin was the code name for the ship as the operation was classified and we didn’t want the Germans/Japanese to know where certain ships were located. USS Robin was used as a joke within the task force.

If we start going down the road of including Victorious as a US-operated warship in WWII, then any time that any foreign ship operated under US tactical command in this template. Furthermore, we’d need to expand that logic to other templates, which would quickly destroy the utility these provide. Finally and most importantly, it perpetuates a distorted version of history that is not appropriate for this website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beachedwhale1945 (talk • contribs) 22:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

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HMS Victorious (WW2)
My name is Jim Halley and I am Founder-Editor of Aeromilitaria, the quarterly on military aviation history published by Air-Britain {Historians) Ltd which was founded in 1948. I use my laptop for editing and writing articles and books. I have not been involved with Wikipedia before and have chosen this method as the most likely one to get an answer that tells me what I have done wrong!

I wrote an article on HMS Victorious in the Pacific in 1943 for the Spring 2010 issue which contained some items which I thought important. These centered around the Fighter Control system. On arrival at Norfolk, Virginia, her aircraft were disembarked and most of the crew assigned ashore while modifications were incorporated for duty in the Pacific, including changing flight deck operations to conform with US Navy practice. This paved the way for a standard used by both USN and RN for the rest of the war.

Victorious used the call-sign USS Robin to avoid the enemy finding out that Victorious had left European waters. A merchant ship was adapted as a dummy carrier and moved around Scottish waters to fool the Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft. They fell for it.

The current website for Victorious mentions the large number of USN visitors to the Fighter Control Room which had an advanced layout. Among them was Rear-Admiral Ramsey who inspected the system of fighter control and ordered it to be used on the new Boxer-class carriers which were being built at that time. The Royal Navy manual for Fighter Control Officers was also adopted and became standard. Both these innovations greatly improved the defence of ships from air attack.

In the past I have seen comments in emails about Victorious being taken over by the US Navy and manned by US personnel. These were in error; Victorious retained its crew and squadrons at all times except when cross-decking.

J J Halley  Shepperton  England  — Preceding unsigned comment added by JimHalley (talk • contribs) 17:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * What makes you think you've done something wrong? I don't see anything myself.
 * HMS Victorious (R38) currently has a section "Service with the US Navy" that contradicts everything you said, but it's completely unsourced. It would be a big help if you could supply some sources that would tell us what really happened. Your own article would be a great start; other sources would be welcome too.
 * I suggest you move this discussion to Talk:HMS Victorious (R38). I will watchlist it and try to help you out. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. Good to know I'm doing this correctly. My Original article appeared in Aeromilitaria magazine issue dated Spring 2010 and is below. I will see if I can find any other online sources to back it all up and add them below later. Unfortunately many sources are not available to the public online but are in institution archives such as the National Archives at Kew, London, UK. For example document ADM1/13385 in the Kew archives is an account by the commanding officer of the Victorious about their visit to the US and Pacific giving detailed background information that I used in my article. There were many more documents like this which I had access to at the time but aren't online. Anyway,here is the text of my original article:

HMS Victorious in the Pacific - 1943 The presence of a British aircraft carrier in the Pacific in the first half of 1943 is not widely covered and the reasons for her presence seemed rather vague. To find out some background in the National Archives at Kew a search was made for any files that might throw light on the subject. Unfortunately, the catalogue did not throw up many file references. There were only three catalogued and one was 'missing'. The other two were on fighter direction tactics. Curiously, a visit to the National Archives found that there were no ship's logs for Victorious in the archive, a remarkable omission for a major warship in World War Two. Victorious, Nos. 882, 896 and 898 Squadrons with the carrier's fighter complement of Martlets and NO.832 Squadron with Albacores, left the UK escorted by the destroyers Quickmatch, Racehorse and Redoubt on 20th December 1942 and arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on 1 st January 1943 after a stormy crossing during which Redoubt was blown into the side of Victorious, damaging her radio masts. The Albacores carried out anti-submarine searches en route. At Norfolk, she was given a refit while the fighter direction staff visited the Navy Department in Washington. They took with them the latest edition of the Admiralty book on Direction of Fighters and attended some training classes to see what the system was in use by the US Navy. They found it rather surprising that the subject was being taught by former fighter controllers who had different ideas on the subject as their carriers had always used their own methods and there were no standard instruction books. The Admiralty book was received with much interest and a lot of copying went on in the printing section. The reason for Victorious being in the USA was that the US Pacific Fleet was down to one carrier, Saratoga. All the pre-war carriers had been lost except Enterprise and Saratoga. Ranger in the Atlantic was a smaller ship and was needed there. Enterprise was under major rebuilding after receiving damage on several occasions during 1942. Saratoga was the only operational carrier and Admiral Nimitz asked for a British carrier as reinforcements at the end of 1942. Victorious was despatched for this reason and was intended to fill a gap until the arrival of the first of the Essex-class carriers in mid-194:3. They would all have a standardised fighter direction system, hence the interest in the Royal Navy's fighter defences, which did not differ very much in i'~s essentials to that used in the US Navy. But Victorious had been fitted out with a new design of control room. During refit, additional light AA guns were fitted on sponsons to supplement the carrier's eight-barrelled multiple pom-poms. Other strange equipment appeared, notably dispensers for ice-cream and Coca-Cola. On 6th February 1943, Victorious left Norfolk and headed for the Panama Canal. She had aboard No. 832 Squadron's Avengers that had been picked up from the US Navy. Probably her Albacores were eventually ferried to the large Fleet Air Arm base at Piarco, Trinidad, for training duties. Nos. 882, 896 and 898 Squadrons formed the carrier's fighter complement with Wildcat IVs, these having arrived, newly equipped, as the ship sailed. Arriving at Colon, the sponsons had to be removed to fit the locks and she squeezed through the Panama Canal. She stayed at Panama for four days while the sponsons were welded back on. Victorious arrived at Pearl Harbor on 4th March and berthed at Ford Island. Her aircraft were flown off to Barbers Point Naval Air Station. In the meantime, Victorious had disappeared. In her place a merchant ship with a mock-up of a flight deck and island was anchored in Loch Eriboll. All communications to the carrier were routed to USS Robin and the name Victorious was kept secret. This avoided the Germans discovering that one of the Home Fleet's carriers was thousands of miles away. At Pearl Harbor, more close-range guns were fitted, 40 mm Bofors guns and 20 mm Oerlikons. En route to Hawaii, an Avenger went over the side of the flight deck on landing and cut a fuel line. This started a major fire and the damage was repaired at Pearl. Exercises were carried out with shore-based aircraft. These were useful to Victorious in that she was subjected to dummy attacks by larger numbers of aircraft than were available in the UK. Interception tactics appeared to work well as one of the files reported an attack by 40 aircraft being intercepted by 30 Wildcats. It was also time to get used to USN landing practices as one of Victorious' reasons for being in the Pacific was to provide a back-up flight deck should Saratoga be damaged. On 8th May, the carrier plus the battleship North Carolina formed TG.36.3 and sailed to join the Third Fleet. Their mission was to provide cover for landings on New Georgia in the South Pacific during which FAA and USN squadrons operated from each other's carriers, adopting changes that assisted both navies to arrive at a common aircraft operating procedure. The TG arrived at l\Joumea, on New Caledonia on 17th May but sailed next day with TF.14 as a Japanese foray into the Coral Sea had been reported as imminent. But the enemy fleet of four carriers missed its chance and turned back so the TF returned to Noumea. Joint exercise were carried out, with Victorious with eight Avengers, twelve Wildcats and six Dauntlesses moving over from Saratoga while six Avengers and twelve Wildcats went to the US carrier. Landing patterns had been co-ordinated and all the FAA aircraft were painted in US markings. This was for safety as the red spot in the FAA roundels was often mistaken for Japanese markings, even by aircraft of the same type. To provide fighter cover for the landings at Munda, Victorious had 60 Wildcats, including VF-3 from Saratoga while 832 Squadron transferred 16 Avengers to Saratoga for air support of the landing forces. 614 sorties were flown from Victorious during this period but there was little reaction from the Japanese. The arrival of newly-operational US carriers meant that Victorious could be returned to the Home Fleet and she left the area on 31 st July and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 9th August. She left on 12th August, heading for San Diego and then through the Panama Canal for home, to rejoin the Home Fleet. Back at Norfolk on 1 st September, she had her gun sponsons welded back on and sailed on 16th September. On arrival in the Clyde, she flew off her fighters to Eglinton and the Avengers to Hatston then sailed down to Liverpool and dry dock. Early in 1945, Victorious was back in the Pacific as part of the British Pacific Fleet with her five sister carriers. It had been a strange deployment and little was said about it in the history books. Victorious was sent to back up the US Pacific Fleet at a time when it was very short of operational carriers and the elderly Saratoga was vulnerable on her own. Having an armoured deck gave Victorious more protection and a useful refuge for aircraft in the air should Saratoga's wooden deck be damaged. The loss of her sister ship, Lexington, to lack of effective damage control after bomb damage, was still firmly in the mind of carrier commanders. The deployment was useful in other ways. Settling for a common landing procedure made it easier for aircraft to be recovered on both British and American carriers when the British Pacific Fleet, Victorious and her five sister ships, were back in the Pacific in 1945 for a series of attacks on Japanese islands being used as transit bases for aircraft from south-east Asia trying to reinforce Okinawa, then off Okinawa during the kamikaze attacks that followed the landings there and finally on targets on the Japanese mainland. Internet sources vary on the subject of Victorious' spell with the US Pacific Fleet. Some say that the ship was taken over by the US Navy and renamed USS Robin (or even Robbin) then handed back. Others that all the aircraft aboard were US Navy, probably as a result of US photos of the Wildcats with their 'star' markings. One even states that she had moved to the USA so that her crew and pilots could be trained in carrier-borne aviation, which seemed rather an exaggeration for a ship that had commissioned early in May 1941 and, in the middle of an Atlantic gale, had torpedoed the Bismarck nine days later, followed by Arctic and Malta convoy operations before supporting the landings in Algeria during Operation 'Torch'. But Victorious remained a Royal Navy carrier throughout the deployment. JimHalley (talk) 12:27, 10 March 2017 (UTC) - — Preceding unsigned comment added by JimHalley (talk • contribs) 13:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * @JimHalley: please sign all posts on talk pages (4 tildes )


 * Does Aeromilitaria hold the copyright to articles that appear in it? If it does, then the wall of text above must not be on Wikipedia servers because its presence here would violate Aeromilitaria copyright.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I wrote the article and I have copyright on it. I am the Founding Editor of Aeromilitaria magazine. The purpose of posting the article is as a source, as the original article is not available online for people to check it. I apologize if I am not doing anything correctly, I have never tried to update a wiki entry before. Thanks for you reply. JimHalley (talk) 12:27, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There should be no problem if you add the corrected material, preferably not copied verbatim from the Aeromilitaria article but suitably edited, followed by a citation quoting the source, something like:
 *  new text new text new text 
 * The fact that the original article is not online does not matter. . . Mean as custard (talk) 13:40, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Aeromilitaria is a periodical so should be cited as a journal:
 * or as a magazine:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * or as a magazine:
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Kamikaze photo
I think we should restore the photo of the kamikaze attack on Formidable. Agreed it's not a photo of ths subject of this article, but it was being used to illustrate a battle in which Victorious was attacked in a similar way, and I think it helps to understand the subject. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:57, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

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Commas
regarding the little contretemps wrt commas. In a list, if the last two items are being considerd as one, then it is fine to omit the comma, but when all items on the list are separate items in their own right, as is the case here, then the final comma before the and is required. BTW, the comma in Grible's last but one edit was not "inside the quotes" there were no quotes at all. What looks like quotes in the edit screen are italic markers, whether or not the comma is rendered in italics is a minor formatting consideration, not a grammatical error. - Nick Thorne talk 23:25, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Nick, referring back to my copy of Fowler's, it's known as the Oxford comma! Apparently deprecated by some scholars but recommended by others.  Obviously, my former English teacher, a Cambridge man IIRC, was of the former persuasion!  Apologies about the confusion on "quotes" but I though putting "inverted commas" might lead to confusion, given the subject. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 08:33, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It has it's own article under Serial Comma. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest we're not the first two to clash over the use of it. Grible (talk) 13:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably not, sorry about the mix-up. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 15:18, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

New steam turbines?
The article currently states that one of the major changes during her reconstruction was the fitting of new steam turbines, referenced to the 2014 article by Hobbs in Ships Monthly - the problem is I cannot find any sources that corroborate this - although all sources refer to new BOILERs being one of the changes brought in half way through the refit that put costs up so much. Sources checked included Hobbs's article in 2020 issue of Warship, Apps, Conway's and D. K Brown's Rebuilding the Royal Navy - can someone check whether the Ships Monthly actually does say this, and if so, whether it is backed up by any other sources.Nigel Ish (talk) 16:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The Hobbs article doesn't mention new turbines - the text was added [here] (with the cite) back in 2015 by an ip - the question is how much more has been added under false pretences.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:11, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

crew
The crew is about 1200 before and 2200-2400 after the refit. If true, this should be explicitly commented to avoid that a reader considers it a misprint.Suppongoche (talk) 08:02, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Honours and awards
This section includes awards from before the ship was built. Is there an explanation for this? If so could it be put in comments to explain the reason, and prevent people like me from thinking it's a mistake? DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The British Battle Honour system recognizes successful actions of a particular ship and prior ships of the same name. In this case the carrier Victorious inherited three honours from the 1785 third-rate, two from the 1808 third-rate, and none from the Majestic-class battleship, while earning nine honours of her own. The current Vanguard-class submarine inherited honours from all prior ships bearing the name Victorious. This is distinctly different from the American practice, where campaign stars and other awards are not formally passed down to later ships that bear the same name (and will be awarded even for battles that were lost, the British generally do not authorize honours for "a British defeat, or when the action was inconclusive and badly fought".) Beachedwhale1945 (talk) 14:42, 29 April 2023 (UTC)