HMS Vengeance (R71) was a light aircraft carrier built for the Royal Navy during World War II. The carrier served in three navies during her career: the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy (as HMAS Vengeance, from 1952 to 1955), and the Brazilian Navy (as NAeL Minas Gerais, from 1956 to 2001).

Constructed during World War II, Vengeance was one of the few ships in her class to be completed before the war's end, but she did not see active service. The ship spent the next few years as an aircraft transport and training carrier before she was sent on an experimental cruise to learn how well ships and personnel could function in extreme Arctic conditions. In late 1952, Vengeance was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as a replacement for the delayed aircraft carrier . She remained in Australian waters, operating as an aircraft carrier and training ship, for the majority of her three-year loan, and was returned to the Royal Navy (RN) in August 1955.

Instead of returning to RN service, the carrier was sold in 1956 to Brazil, and entered service after major upgrades, which allowed the ship to operate jet aircraft. Renamed Minas Gerais, the carrier remained in operation until 2001. Several attempts were made to sell the ship, including a listing on eBay, before she was sold for scrap and taken to Alang for breaking up.

Design and construction

Vengeance was constructed by Swan Hunter. She was laid down on 16 November 1942, and launched on 23 February 1944. Construction was completed on 15 January 1945, and Vengeance was commissioned into the RN. Following the end of the war Vengeance was ordered to Hong Kong, and on 3 September was used as the venue for the Japanese surrender of the territory. Two sailors were killed. On 3 April, while escorting Gothic to the Cocos Islands with the destroyers and accompanying, Vengeances ship's company assembled on the flight deck and positioned themselves to form the Queen's signature. After later seeing an aerial photograph of this, Her Majesty had a message sent to the carrier, saying "Thank you for the original forgery." On 5 April, after arriving at the Cocos Islands, Vengeance was involved in a collision with Bataan while the destroyer attempted to refuel from the carrier.

Return to Britain and sale to Brazil

In May 1955, Sydney assumed Vengeances training carrier duties as well as her own flagship and operation duties, while the latter carrier was prepared for the return to England. Vengeance left for the UK in June, stopping in Singapore to collect a squadron of RN helicopters. Arriving on 13 August, her RAN crew prepared the carrier for reserve, and Vengeance was decommissioned on 25 October. The personnel were used as the first ship's company of , which was commissioned on 28 October 1955. As a result, Minas Gerais was required to embark two air groups: the Navy operated helicopters while the Air Force operated S-2 Tracker aircraft. Consequently, the ship spent most of her Brazilian career operating as an anti-submarine warfare carrier.

thumb|right|Minas Gerais underway during 1984

Minas Gerais underwent another major refit from 1976 to 1981, during which her radar suite was updated, datalinks were installed, and the ship's life expectancy was increased to the 1990s. From 1986, engine and funding problems saw the Argentine Navy's confined to port, making Minas Gerais the only operating carrier in the South American region.

From July 1991 to October 1993, the carrier underwent another modernisation refit; the work included refurbishment of her propulsion system, upgrades to the command and control system and radars, and replacement of the ship's Bofors with Mistral surface-to-air missiles. In 1999, the MB acquired 20 A-4KU Skyhawks and 3 TA-4KU trainer aircraft from the Kuwait Air Force; the first time since the carrier's commissioning that Forca Aeronaval da Marinha (Brazilian Navy Aviation) had been permitted to own and operate fixed-wing aircraft.

Decommissioning and fate

Minas Gerais was decommissioned on 16 October 2001: the last of the World War II-era light aircraft carriers to leave service. At the time of her decommissioning, she was the oldest active aircraft carrier in the world (a title passed on to the 1961-commissioned ). The carrier was marked for sale in 2002, and was actively sought after by British naval associations for return to England and preservation as a museum ship, although they were unable to raise the required money. Bidding reached £4 million before the auction was removed from the website under rules preventing the sale of military ordnance.

Citations

References

Books

Journal articles

Newspaper articles

Websites

  • – an autobiography by James Lovelock. The first part of chapter 4 (pp. 91–99) contains Lovelock's recount of the 1949 Vengeance voyage into Arctic waters.
  • – the proposal to convert Vengeance/Minas Gerais into a museum ship.