“Suppose I could give you something with the same capability of Implacable this year,” Fraser teased. “That’s where my idea concerning those hulls for the Lion Class comes in. This time our Mister Goodall, the Director of Naval Construction, said I should look to building out the Audacious Class carrier concept on those hulls.”
“Audacious Class?”
“That’s the reworked carrier design with dual hangar decks. I’m afraid we won’t get anything like that in this war. But those Lion class hulls were just sitting there begging to be useful.”
“Ah, yes, we once thought the splendid cats were going to prowl the seas again, but work was stopped on those. I thought the orders were cancelled?”
“Not at all,” said Fraser. “My good man, I took this little problem right to the Former Naval Person to see what he might think, and did so just after the DNC wrote that cancellation order for the Lion Class, in 1939.”
“Indeed?” Tovey inclined his head. “And what did Mister Churchill think?”
“Not much in the beginning, though he said he would try to see the work along, particularly on those new 16-inch gun turrets. However, shortly after Hood took that hit, he told me that he wanted them built out as fast carriers, and as quickly as possible. You see, if we try to build them out as fast battleships, the job will never be done in time. He agreed with my argument on that point.”
“And here I was hoping for some good fast battleships to run with Invincible,” said Tovey. “Lion is to become a carrier?”
“We won’t be using that name,” said Fraser with a wave of his hand. “Too much like the German tanks for my liking. The other two hulls were going to be Conqueror and Thunderer, a bit difficult to roll off the tongue, so I suggested Incomparable.”
“Four or five syllables? You should just stay with Lion, or you might try something like Superb.” Tovey looked at his good friend and colleague, curious. “Well… Don’t just sit there with that smile on your face. What about this ship?”
“Superb… I rather like that. Perhaps I’ll recommend it to the DNC, because it’s coming along nicely,” said Fraser with a wink. “The first two hulls were laid down before the war, and the DNC tried to cancel them shortly thereafter. That’s when I stepped up, and had my little chat with Churchill.” Fraser smiled.
“What? You mean to say they’ve been building this ship for two years, and as a carrier?”
“That’s the ticket,” said Fraser. “Fly over the damn thing and it looks like a battleship that will never be completed in any good time. Why, you could only see the beginnings of what might be the main superstructure, and one stack. But down deep, all the boilers and propulsion systems are finished, and the hangar decks have all been laid out. That bit of superstructure is the island, and now all it needs is a good armored flight deck. They’ll start building that out this week.”
“My word… This hasn’t been in any of my fleet status reports.”
“Churchill wanted it that way. He said that, if it came down to discussion at the Admiralty, there would be no end of change proposals and such, and the ship would simply never get built. So he gave the project to me, and I’ve been shepherding things along, nice and quiet like.”
“Really quite irregular,” said Tovey, though he was inwardly pleased at this news. Nobody knows everything going on in this bloody war, he thought. Not even the Commander of Home Fleet.
Chapter 5
“Now,” said Fraser, “they had to thin out the belt armor a wee bit to get the speed we wanted, but she’ll still have 250mm through the gut, and 150 at the bow and stern. That will handle 8-inch rounds well enough, and the two forward turrets will handle anything that throws one at her.”
“Two forward turrets?”
“They never stopped work on those, as I’m sure you know—the 16-inch guns for the original Lion design. But that’s all they managed to build in two years, and it was going to take another two years to finish the job. That just would not do. Admiral, a bird in hand, that’s what we have now. So we just used the two turrets we had ready, and they went on last month. The Germans still think we have half a battleship there, and with no superstructure.”
“Just as I thought,” said Tovey. “And one might think the Commander of Home Fleet might be better informed than the Abwehr!”
“Sorry John, but this was all very hush hush. Churchill insisted. Not even Pound knows the details I shared with you here.”
“And good that he doesn’t,” said Tovey.
“So then, with only A and B turrets, it saves a good deal of weight, eliminates another barbette and magazine, and increases speed to 30 knots. The main elevator area is now aft where Y turret would have been.”
“And the planes?”
“Here’s the good part,” said Fraser with a smile. “You are certainly correct about the lack of capacity on our carriers. We need planes with folding wings, just like the Americans. Well, waiting for that is like waiting for spring in November, so I suggested we just buy them from the Americans. They have good folding wing fighters and dive bombers right now. We even have a few Martlet Squadrons deployed. Only this new plane we’re getting is even better than the Martlet. The Americans are calling it the F6F Hellcat, and they’re going to build them in droves. The wings can fold hydraulically, or manually if necessary. It promises to be a good rugged plane, just what we need.”
“What about the Seafires?”
“We got 30 of the Mark IIIs. Somerville even had a dozen at Ceylon, but not enough to matter. Oddly, the damn wings won’t fold on that lot. Now what was that all about? They build a carrier fighter with wings that won’t fold! Well, we got the matter corrected, and the Seafire will make a fine plane if we can get enough of the new version with folding wings. In the meantime, we’ll take these Hellcats and put them to good use. I’m told that given the current hangar and deck space on our old Lion, this new hybrid can still carry 24 of them, and have enough room left over for two dozen more strike planes.”
“Why, that’s no more than Illustrious could carry.”
“True, but Illustrious didn’t have those 16-inch gun turrets up front.”
“I’m not sure they would have done her any good. She never saw the ship that launched the planes that sunk her.”