HMS VENGEANCE 1945

The Colossus class was developed as a result of a requirement for an intermediate sized-carrier larger than the converted cruisers and C3 cargo ships (commonly known as ‘jeep’ carriers), and the larger fleet carriers. The Colossus class were designed to bridge this gap and were also designed to mercantile standards to allow them to be built in civilian yards. Considered a wartime expedient class with service lives of no more than three years, the Colossus (and later Majestic class, a slightly modified variant) proved to be more versatile for their size than expected. Several served with the Royal Navy after the war ended, but their greatest success was with smaller foreign navies, which purchased these ships after retirement by the RN and modified them for a variety of other purposes, including operating jet aircraft, for which they were modified with angled decks. The last unit of the Colossus class was not retired until 2001, and lasted long enough to be offered on eBay for scrap! The Colossus class is considered one of the most successful aircraft carrier classes ever, behind only the USN’s Nimitz and Essex classes.

Vengeance was completed in January of 1945. She served in the Pacific theatre but did not see active service before war’s end that year. Postwar she was used as a transport and training ship. She was used as an Arctic trials ship for six weeks in 1949 (Operation ‘Rusty’) to see how ships and personnel function in a cold environment. In 1952, she was loaned to Australia and returned to the RN in 1955, not seeing any significant RAN service. That year she was sold to Brazil and modified with an angled deck. She served in Brazil as Minas Gerais until 2001. An attempt was made to sell her on eBay in 2003 and another independent attempt in Brazil in 2004, but ultimately she was scrapped.