Talk:Merchant aircraft carrier

Fighters on MAC ships ? The only references I have been able to find show them as having Stringbags and nothing else.


 * It is probably mixed with escort carriers or CAM-ships. In my opinion, should be Swordfishes only. Pibwl 22:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


 * In the "Discovery Wings Clash of Wings 06 of 13 Germany's Third and Last Chance" episode, at 22:55, they seem to be showing monoplanes on a MAC. Netweezurd (talk) 01:33, 20 May 2020 (UTC)


 * That's definitely NOT a MAC in 'Clash of Wings (6/13)' which can be found on YouTube, even though the commentary wrongly suggests that it is. As mentioned above, it's an escort carrier, as can be seen from the two lifts (grain MACs only had one) and more complex island structure.  The only recorded example of a monoplane operating from a MAC, so far as I can establish, was on 13 October 1943 when a Martlet II fighter piloted by Lt (later Capt) Eric 'Winkle' Brown made four landings and take-offs onboard MAC Ship Amastra as a special addition to the ship's acceptance flying trials.  The aim was to investigate the practicability of operating Martlets from MACs for potential future operations in the Pacific.  Although the trial was considered successful, MACs were judged unsuitable for Pacific operations for a variety of reasons.  There was no requirement for fighter aircraft to operate from MACs in the Atlantic, so the trial was not repeated and monoplanes were never carried operationally.  --Mandrake079 (talk) 08:27, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

What are AB seamen??? Jaberwocky6669 07:26, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)


 * Able-bodied seamen. &#10149;the Epopt 02:41, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

AB doesn't stand for Able Bodied. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Seaman:

Able-bodied Seaman

Some modern references claim that AB stands for able-bodied seaman as well as, or instead of able seaman. In ships' muster books or articles, able seaman was originally entered using the abbreviation AB instead of the more obvious AS, likely to avoid confusion with ordinary seaman (OS). Later the abbreviation began to be written as A.B., leading to the back formation able-bodied seaman. In legal documents, in seaman's papers, and aboard ship the correct term able seaman remains in use.
 * AB doesn't stand for Able Bodied. It's a common myth. It means "able", abbreviated as above. Also, MAC ships, to my knowledge, didn't carry Hurrys, just TSRs (Stringbags, Swordfish). The CAM (Catapult-Armed Merchant) ships operated obsolete or worn out Hurricanes.
 * On another note, are there no pix of the MAC ships before (or after) conversion? And, a historical note, I understand (from Middlebrook's Convoy, I think) the idea for converting bulk grain carriers or tankers to merchant carriers sat on the shelf for over a year before McAlpine was taken in hand. Can anybody confirm?  Trekphiler 07:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Convoys ONS 18/ON 202
The article states that there were no losses to convoys that contained MAC ships. The combined ONS 18/ON 202 convoys lost 6 ships and 3 escorts despite having Empire MacAlpine with them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinius (talk • contribs) 20:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Article Update
This article hasn't been edited for quite a while so I've embarked on a fairly substantial update. All the points made above are valid and will be incorporated.

1. The main image has been changed to one of the Anglo-Saxon tanker MACs which is already on Wikipedia. I'm investigating the copyright status of a better image that I have.

2. The references to Hurricanes and other aircraft are probably confused between MACs and CAM ships. Swordfish were the only aircraft flown operationally from MACs although there was a trial landing of a Martlet fighter in Oct 1943 while assessing MACs' suitability for service in the Pacific.

3. The claim about 'no losses' is a repeat of a line that various authors have lifted verbatim from the official Naval Staff History apparently without bothering to check if it was true or not (it's not!). There were losses not only from ONS 18/ON 202 as stated above, but at least two other convoys escorted by MACs.

Mandrake079 (talk) 22:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

What's a triple twelve
article mentions this a lot, but doesn't really explain the term

Feldercarb (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

The 'Triple Twelves' were a class of 20 tankers built for Anglo-Saxon/Royal Dutch Shell between 1935 and 1939. They were known by that name within the company because (as now stated in the MAC article) they each had a capacity of 12,000 dwt, a service speed of 12 knots and a fuel consumption of 12 tons a day. Externally (eg when writing to the Admiralty) Anglo Saxon seem to have referred to them individually by name, and collectively as 'Seven-Tank Tankers'.

The Anglo-Saxon MACs were all from the original batch of tankers built in 1935-6. They are sometimes referred to as the 'Rapana class' but I'm not sure where this term (presumably predicated on the fact that 'Rapana' was the first of the Triple Twelves' to be converted) originated. Anglo-Saxon themselves did not seem to refer to them as 'Rapana class' and I can't see any reference to this term in the primary MAC-related sources. The earliest usage I can find is a paper about MACs in the Transactions of the RINA in April 1947.

The Wikipedia article has recently been updated with this information with an attribution to the late John Mably's unfinished thesis from Brighton University. A better reference would be John Howarth's 'Sea Shell' from which Mably seems to have taken the information. Mably's important work (he served as aircrew onboard MACs) needs to be treated with care because it contains a number of inconsistencies which he would undoubtedly have ironed out had he lived to complete it. The reference to 'Triple Twelves' is a case in point since the stated footnote (5) points to a history of BP tankers rather than 'Sea Shell'. I've got a copy of 'Sea Shell' and will amend the Wikipedia entry accordingly.

Incidentally, thank you whoever discovered that John Mably's thesis is available online. It wasn't when I did my own research in 2009 and I had to drive to Brighton (from Cheshire!) to read it.

Mandrake079 (talk) 01:35, 5 December 2018 (UTC)