Courageous Class

Aircraft Carrier histories. Royal Navy aircraft carriers of the Courageous Class. Aircraft carrier website dedicated to the history of HMS Courageous, HMS Glorious, HMS Furious, HMS Eagle, HMS Hermes, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Argus from their launch to their participation in major wars also notice board for families of ex-crew of Courageous Class carriers. HMS Glorious started life as a light battle-cruiser. Laid down on the 1st May 1915 at the Harland and Wolff shipyards. She was launched on the 20th April 1916 and completed on the 14th October 1916. This Battle Cruiser only saw one action during world war one at Heligoland bight on the 17th November 1917. It was then that a weakness to the ships decking was found when HMS Glorious had fired its main armament of four 15-inch guns (mounted in pairs ) one pair forward and pair aft. The firing actually caused the structural damage. Probably due to this weakness HMS Glorious and her sister ship HMS Courageous were placed in the Royal naval reserve fleet in February 1919, at Devonport, Plymouth
HMS Glorious	20th April 1916	Converted to carrier 1924-30. Sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8th June 1940.
HMS Courageous	5th February 1916	Converted to carrier 1924-28. Sunk by U-29 on 17th September 1939.
Displacement: 22,000 tons/22,352 tons (standard); 26,100 tons/ 26,518 tons (deep load) Length: 735ft/ 224.03m (pp); 786ft 6in/239.73m (oa); 530ft/161.54m (fd) Beam: 90ft 6in/27.58m (hull); 84ft 6in/25.76m (fd) Draught: 24ft/7.32m (mean); 27ft 3in/8.31m (deep load) Machinery: Parsons geared turbines; 18 Yarrow small-tube boilers; 4 shafts Speed: 90,000shp; 30.5kts Bunkerage: 3,800 tons/3,861 tons Range: 5,860 nm at 16kts Aircraft: 48 Armament: 16x4.7in Crew: 1,200

Naval Historians, Crew & Family Noticeboard Courageous Class aircraft carriers, Message Board for naval enthusiasts and ex Crew families of the Courageous class carriers. This website is not part of any governmental body or official websites of Courageous Class Aircraft Carriers. Photographs and information on historical events about Courageous Class ships requested for this new website. If you have any information you would like to send us including photographs of crew members serving on Courageous Class sips and also photographs of the ship please USE OUR MESSAGE FORM IF ANYONE CAN HELP. WE ARE BEING ASKED FREQUENTLY ABOUT CREW LISTS FOR HMS GLORIOUS AND COURAGEOUS ESPECIALLY AT THE TIME OF THEIR SINKING. IF ANYONE CAN SUPPLY THIS INFORMATION PLEASE EMAIL US AT cranston@onetel.net We will not display any requests for this information on our site but as soon as we get anything we will display for the information MESSAGES IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEAVE A MESSAGE USE OUR MESSAGE FORM