HMS Pretoria Castle (F61)

HMS Pretoria Castle (F61) was a Union-Castle ocean liner that in the Second World War was converted into a Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser, and then converted again into an escort carrier. After the war she was converted back into a passenger liner and renamed Warwick Castle.

For other ships with the same name, see Pretoria Castle.

HMS Pretoria Castle
History
Name: Pretoria Castle
Port of registry: London
Builder: Harland & Wolff
Yard number: 1006[1]
Launched: 12 October 1938
Completed: 18 April 1939[1]
Identification:
Fate: Requisitioned for Royal Navy October 1939
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Pretoria Castle
Commissioned: 28 November 1939
Decommissioned: August 1942
Refit: Converted from armed merchant cruiser to escort carrier
Identification: pennant number F61
Commissioned: 29 July 1943
Decommissioned: 26 January 1946
Fate: Sold back to the Union-Castle Line 1946
Name: RMMV Warwick Castle
Port of registry: London
Acquired: 1946
Fate: scrapped July 1962
General characteristics
Displacement: 23,450 tons
Length: 594 ft (181.1 m)
Beam: 76 ft (23.2 m)
Draught: 29 ft (8.8 m)
Installed power: 16,000 bhp; 3,284 NHP
Propulsion: diesel engines, twin screw
Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h)
Aircraft carried: 21

History

Harland and Wolff built Pretoria Castle in Belfast, launching her in 1938 and completing her in April 1939.[2] The Admiralty requisitioned her for the Royal Navy in October 1939, and had her converted into an armed merchant cruiser with 6-inch (150 mm) and 3-inch (76 mm) guns, entering service in November 1939. In this role she served mainly in the South Atlantic.

In July 1942 the Admiralty bought her outright for conversion to an escort carrier by Swan Hunter on Tyneside. For her new role her armament included ten Oerlikon 20 mm cannon.[3] She was commissioned in her new role in July 1943. She operated as a trials and training carrier, seeing no active combat service.

In 1945 she twice became part of aviation history, firstly when British test pilot Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown landed a Bell Airacobra Mk. 1 on her flight deck - the first carrier landing made using an aircraft with a tricycle undercarriage, due to a declared emergency during initial trials for rubber deck landings planned for future carriers, and then by hosting the first ever landings and take-offs by a glider, performed by John Sproule in a Slingsby T.20 as part of research into "round-down" turbulence. On 11 August 1946, while moored on the Clyde, a Gloster Meteor was used for deck handling trials which later led to flight trials on other carriers.[4]

After the war the ship was sold back to the Union-Castle Line in 1946 and converted back to a passenger liner, restored to its route between England and South Africa but renamed Warwick Castle. She was sold and scrapped in Barcelona in July 1962.

Notes
  1. McCluskie, Tom (2013). The Rise and Fall of Harland and Wolff. Stroud: The History Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0752488615.
  2. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1939. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  3. "HMS Pretoria Castle Gun 10 X BR 20mm 70cal Mark V VC Power Twin". NavHist. Flixco Pty Limited. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  4. Mason, Geoffrey B. "HMS Pretoria Castle (F 61) – Escort Aircraft Carrier". Service Histories of Royal Navy Warships in World War 2. Naval History. Retrieved 27 February 2016.

References
  • Osborne, Richard; Spong, Harry & Grover, Tom (2007). Armed Merchant Cruisers 1878–1945. Windsor, UK: World Warship Society. ISBN 978-0-9543310-8-5.

Further reading
  • Brown, Eric. Wings of the Weird and Wonderful.
  • Brown, Eric (2007). Wings on My Sleeve. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1407244518.

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