Admiral's day cabin Lieutenant Commander's cabin Wardroom anteroom Officer's cabin Officers... The overseas house magazine of the Vickers Group of Companies SPRING 1960 VICKERS LIMITED London VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS SOUTH AFRICA (PTY) LTD Companies) York; London; Croydon; Boston; Cape VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS LTD London Johannesburg Town; Johannesburg VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS (AIRCRAFT) LTD Weybridge; VICKERS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD (and subsidiary Companies ENGLISH STEEL CORPORATION LTD (and subsidiary Hurn; South Marston Melbourne; Perth; Sydney; Brisbane; Dandenong and associated Companies) Sheffield; Manchester; VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS (ENGINEERS) LTD Barrow; VICKERS INDIA PRIVATE LTD Bombay Darlington; Birmingham; Vancouver; Salisbury; Crayford; Dartford; Elswick; Scotswood; Erith; VICKERS (PAKISTAN) LTD Karachi Bulawayo; Montreal; Melbourne; Sydney; Johannesburg Weymouth VICKERS NUCLEAR ENGINEERING LTD London GEORGE MANN AND CO LTD Leeds; London VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS (SHIPBUILDERS) LTD Barrow; Naval VICKERS RESEARCH LTD Weybridge; Sunningdale IOCO LTD Glasgow Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne; Hebburn; Jarrow; St Albans ABC MOTORS LTD Walton-on-Thames METROPOLITAN-CAMMELL CARRIAGE AND WAGON CO LTD VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS (TRACTORS) LTD (and subsidiary ROBERT BOBY LTD Bury St Edmunds (and subsidiary Companies) Birmingham; Wednesbury; Company) Scotswood; Bilston; Montreal; Toronto; CANADIAN VICKERS LTD (and subsidiary Companies) London; Johannesburg Vancouver Montreal; Quebec JACK GLUING AND CO LTD (and associated Companies) VICKERS-ARMSTRONGS INC Arlington COOKE, TROUGHTON AND SIMMS LTD (and subsidiary Hatfield; Coupar Angus AN INTRODUCTION by Admiral Sir Peter Reid KCB CVO Controller of the Navy IT gives me great pleasure to write a foreword to would have dreamed of the remote control of her this issue of The Vickers Magazine, as Hermes is main machinery. Her first aircraft were Parnell the first new aircraft carrier to join the Fleet for Panthers (wooden land planes) and Fairey Fly- some years. I have been able to watch her trans- catchers, both far removed from the Scimitars formation from almost a bare hull into the fine and Sea Vixens of today. She did have one great ship she is today. advantage, however, over the new Hermes; she Hermes is the first aircraft carrier we have built was, not unnaturally, a lot cheaper to build and to operate the modern aircraft now coming into run! the Fleet. She is equipped with the latest flight This issue of The Vickers Magazine gives some deck machinery and deck landing aids. Her radar idea of the immense complexity of a modern and air direction equipment are the most up-to- aircraft carrier and the concerted effort needed by date in the world today and we believe that it is the whole team of designers, shipbuilders, en- also the best. The accommodation for the whole gineers and suppliers of equipment to enable her ship's company is up to the latest standards; to take shape as the fine fighting ship she is. every man has his own bunk and the hammock, Nevertheless, over two years ago Vickers gave in this ship, is a thing of the past. me the assurance that they would finish Hermes It is of some interest that the old Hermes, by the end of October 1959; in the next two years completed in 1923, was the first ship ever to be there were times when more than 2,000 men of designed and built as an aircraft carrier. She was, Barrow, to say nothing of sub-contractors, were of course, much smaller and had a complement working on board or for this ship. Hermes sailed of under 700 compared with nearly 2,000 in the from Barrow on 1st November 1959. I congratu- new Hermes, to whom she bore little resemblance. late all those whose efforts have contributed to a Radar had not even been thought of and no-one splendid result. Above: One of the highlights of the eventful life of the fourth `Hermes' was the running down of the French privateer `La Mouche', depicted in this aquatint by J. Clark after an original by Captain P. Brown, in command. Below: A protected cruiser, the eighth `Hermes' served in many parts of the world and towards the end of her career was used as a seaplane carrier. The ninth `Hermes', launched in 1919, was the first ship to be designed by the Admiralty purely as an aircraft carrie captured a 201 ton Dutch sloop rigged as ships to bear this famous name - the 512 T EN ships bearing the name Hermes have joined the Royal Navy through a brig off the Texel. She was the Mercuri- ton Sixth Rate built at Portsmouth and the years. The name is apt enough for ous and it was natural enough that when launched in 1811. Commanded by Cap- a ship; it is particularly so for Britain's the ship joined the Royal Navy she should tain (afterwards Vice-Admiral) Philip newest aircraft carrier. For was there not be renamed Hermes, which is another Brown, the fourth Hermes, with her St Hermes (alias St Elmo), the curious name for the god Mercury. twenty guns and 121 men, captured an phenomenon of light seen occasionally on The first Hermes foundered at sea, with American ship laden with naval stores, ships' masts, of which De Loier wrote in all hands, in 1797 and in the following and two vessels from New York and his Treatise to Spectres `They shall see the year an armed vessel of about 330 tons Baltimore carrying tobacco and ivory. fire which saylors call St Hermes, fly (her armament was twenty-two guns) was This fourth Hermes ran down La Mouche, uppon their shippe, and alight upon the bought. This, the second Hermes, was a French privateer, and assisted at the toppe of the mast'; and was there not sold in 1802. Again within a year the capture of the American privateer Sword Hermes Trismegistus, to whom was name was perpetuated when a sloop, built Fish. In 1814, then commanded by Cap- ascribed a host of inventions? Yet, at Whitby and named Majestic, was pur- tain (later Rear-Admiral) the Hon. curiously, the first use of the name Hermes chased and renamed Hermes. Her career William Henry Percy, Hermes, in an by the Royal Navy was more or less seems to have been a quiet one. She fin- unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer, fortuitous. It so happened that in 1796 ished Naval service as a store ship in the Mobile, USA, was grounded. Disabled, Commander (afterwards Vice-Admiral Mediterranean and was sold in 1810. she was burnt by Captain Percy to prevent Sir) John Chambers White of the Sylph Then came one of the more spectacular her falling into enemy hands. 3 THE VICKERS MAGAZINE It was sixteen years before another Chatham in 1816, was renamed Hermes then became part of the South Atlantic Hermesjoined the Royal Navy. She was a forty years later and was employed as a hunting group covering convoys. steam vessel of some 730 tons, built at cholera ship at Gravesend. She was broken After the fall of France she was ordered Blackwall in 1824 and originally named up at Sheerness in 1869 and it was as long to keep a watch on the French fleet at George the Fourth. Bought by the Navy, as twenty-eight years before another Dakar. In July 1940 action was taken she did nothing more exciting than packet Hermes was laid down. This was the 5,600 against the battleship Richelieu at Dakar. service, became a coal depot ship at ton twin screw protected cruiser (eleven A motor boat from Hermes succeeded in Woolwich under the new name of Charger, guns, 477 men) commissioned in the last getting through the boom and four depth and was broken up at Dartford in 1854. year of the nineteenth century. She served charges were dropped under the battle- Presumably her name was changed - in for fifteen years in many parts of the ship's stern with the object of damaging 1834 - to make way for a new Hermes, a world and for many purposes. She was, her propellers and steering gear. paddle wheel steam sloop whose career at least for a short part of her life, the This first-ever genuine British aircraft was in marked contrast to that of her first `aircraft carrier' Hermes. Immediately carrier came under the orders of the immediate predecessor. before the first World War she was the Commander-in-Chief East Indies in 1941 This sixth Hermes, built at Portsmouth Depot Ship of the Naval Wing of the and did a great deal of valuable hunting, and launched in 1835, served five years on Royal Flying Corps and when war came escorting and intercepting in the Indian the Mediterranean Station, four years on she was used as a seaplane carrier in Ocean. In 1942 she was ordered to sail the North American Station and four par- operations off the Belgian coast. In Oct- from Trincomalee harbour, Ceylon, ticularly exciting years, commanded by the ober 1914 she was torpedoed and sunk off because of expected Japanese air attack. gallant and resourceful Commander Calais. Unfortunately she was spotted by a Jap- Edmund G. Fishbourne, on the Cape of It was 1919, however, when the first anese reconnaissance plane and, attacked Good Hope and East Indies Station. vessel specially designed by the Admiralty by some fifty aircraft, she was sunk off Commander Fishbourne, sailing for the as an aircraft carrier was launched. And Batticaloa. Her commanding officer, Cape of Good Hope, `united in the hostil- once again,when she was commissioned in Captain R. F. J. Onslow, eighteen other ities of 1851 against the Kaffirs, and 1924, there was a Hermes in the Royal officers, and 268 ratings were lost. rendered services to the value of which the Navy.