HMS Ravager (D70) - General characteristics in a nutshell

Name: HMS Chaser

Builder: Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation

Laid down: 11 April 1942

Launched: 16 July 1942

Commissioned: 25 April 1943

Decommissioned: February 1946

Struck: 1946

Fate: Sold into merchant service as Robin Trent. Scrapped 1973.

Class and type: Bogue class escort carrier

Displacement: 14,630 tons (full load)

Length: 465 ft (142 m)

Beam: 69 ft (21 m)

Draught: 23 ft (7.0 m)

Propulsion: Steam turbines, 8,500 shp (6.3 MW)

Speed: 18 knots (33 km/h)

Complement: 646 officers and enlisted

Armament: 2 × 4 in (102 mm) guns, 15 × 20 mm guns AA

Aircraft carried: 20

Operations: Battle of the Atlantic (1943-44)

HMS Ravager (D70) was an Ruler class escort carrier escort carrier built in the United States and operated by the Royal Navy during World War II.

Ravager was initially constructed in the U.S. by Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding in Tacoma in 1942. She was purchased by the U.S. Navy and was converted to an escort carrier at Commercial Iron Works, Portland, Oregon. Upon completion in 1943 she was transferred to the Royal Navy and named HMS Ravager.

The ship initially served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic theatre. Later in the war she was used mainly as a deck-landing training carrier. In February 1946 she was returned to the US Navy and sold for civilian use in July 1947, being renamed the Robin Trent and later the Trent. She was scrapped in 1973.

Design and description

These ships were all larger and had a greater aircraft capacity than all the preceding American built escort carriers. They were also all laid down as escort carriers and not converted merchant ships.^[1] All the ships had a complement of 646 men and an overall length of 492 feet 3 inches (150.0 m), a beam of 69 feet 6 inches (21.2 m) and a draught of 25 ft 6 in (7.8 m).^[1] Propulsion was provided by one shaft, two boilers and a steam turbine giving 9,350 shaft horsepower (SHP), which could propel the ship at 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph).^[2]

Aircraft facilities were a small combined bridge–flight control on the starboard side, two aircraft lifts 43 feet (13.1 m) by 34 feet (10.4 m), one aircraft catapult and nine arrestor wires.^[1] Aircraft could be housed in the 260 feet (79.2 m) by 62 feet (18.9 m) hangar below the flight deck.^[1] Armament comprised: two 4 inch Dual Purpose guns in single mounts, sixteen 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in twin mounts and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannons in single mounts.^[1] They had a maximum aircraft capacity of twenty-four aircraft which could be a mixture of Grumman Martlet, Vought F4U Corsair or Hawker Sea Hurricane fighter aircraft and Fairey Swordfish or Grumman Avenger anti-submarine aircraft.^[1]