BRITISH AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIPS From Suez to the Falklands and the present day EDWARD HAMPSHIRE ILLUSTRATED BY ADAM TOOBY NEW VANGUARD 277 BRITISH AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIPS From Suez to the Falklands and the present day EDWARD HAMPSHIRE ILLUSTRATED BY ADAM TOOBY CONTENTS BRITISH NAVAL STRATEGY AND AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE 4 LANDING CRAFT AND HELICOPTERS 8 • Large landing craft • Medium landing craft • Small landing craft • Army landing craft • Helicopters LST 3 AND LSH(S) CLASSES 12 COMMANDO CARRIER CONVERSIONS: ALBION, 16 BULWARK AND HERMES FEARLESS CLASS 18 SIR LANCELOT CLASS, SIR GALAHAD (II), SIR LAMARAK 21 AND SIR CARADOC HMS OCEAN 25 BAY CLASS AND LOGISTICS SHIPS 28 ALBION CLASS 32 OPERATIONAL DEPLOYMENTS 33 • The Suez Crisis • The Cold War and ‘End of Empire’: 1957–82 • The Falklands campaign • The late Cold War and after: 1982–2018 DISPOSAL AND FATES 45 BIBLIOGRAPHY 47 INDEX 48 BRITISH AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIPS From Suez to the Falklands and the present day BRITISH NAVAL STRATEGY AND AMPHIBIOUS WARFARE During World War II the United Kingdom developed an enormous amphibious capability, including hundreds of landing ships and thousands of landing craft, as well as an increasingly experienced and well-trained group of servicemen to operate these vessels. Starting with the Torch landings in North Africa in 1942 and culminating in the invasion of France in operations Neptune and Dragoon in June and August 1944, these forces, operating alongside the US, were instrumental in enabling the defeat of Germany in Europe. Allied amphibious operations in East Asia were also crucial in defeating the Japanese. With the end of the war, Britain’s amphibious capability was run down alongside much of the rest of the Royal Navy. Most of the amphibious ships had either been operated under Lend-Lease with the US, so were returned to the US between 1945 and 1946, or had been converted from merchant ships, so were converted back to civilian use. As it became clear that a long- term confrontation with the Soviet Union and its allies was developing in the 1940s, amphibious forces were not considered a key priority. Most resources and attention were given to anti-submarine forces to counter the significant Soviet submarine threat, and modern jet-capable aircraft HMS Reggio, an LST 3 modified as an assault landing ship with davits for six LCA landing craft, enters Malta harbour in the mid-1950s. (Imperial War Museum FL 5486) 4 carrier battle-groups able to gain control of the seas and strike at Soviet naval and land targets. The Korean War of 1950–53 demonstrated to the US government the continuing importance of amphibious forces in providing flanking attacks in land campaigns and, in the case of the landings at Inchon, even to change the course of a conflict. From this point onwards the United States began to invest heavily in both its Marine Corps and its specialized amphibious vessels. The Royal Navy was aware of these developments, but did not devote significant resources to renewing its much-shrunken World War II-era amphibious fleet. Port Said in Egypt immediately However, a low level of active operational capability began to be recreated following the ill-fated British– through the establishment of an Amphibious Warfare Squadron based in French assault to take control of the Suez Canal. The amphibious Malta in 1952. force, including LSTs, LCTs In the early 1950s, the Royal Navy’s amphibious capability largely and destroyers in gunfire remained focused on a number of British or Canadian-built Mark 3 Landing support roles, can be seen in Ships, Tank, or LST 3s, and smaller landing craft, all of which had been the distance. (Imperial War Museum MH 23509) built between 1944 and 1946. However, technology was beginning to change how amphibious assaults would be undertaken. Ship-based helicopters could now transport assault troops to their landing zones extremely rapidly, whilst the threat from new fast submarines meant that amphibious forces would need to be much quicker than the 10–13 knots that the existing LST 3s could manage. A Chiefs of Staff working party in 1954 recommended that amphibious warfare would have a role in raiding operations during wartime, with exercises being undertaken up to battalion level, and some training for brigade-level assaults. The Royal Marines would lead on this form of specialist warfare, as general training across the Army would no longer be required. These recommendations were accepted by the Chiefs and some incremental steps were taken to improve the amphibious capability. Four LST 3s were converted into assault landing ships, carrying a number of small landing craft on davits, and in July 1956 proposals were put forward for what would later be known as a ‘commando carrier’, based ‘East of Suez’, to enable helicopter amphibious assault. The 1956 Suez Crisis was a foreign policy disaster for the United Kingdom: it demonstrated the UK’s financial and political dependence on the United States, and resulted in a humiliating withdrawal from what had been a successful amphibious operation. However, the landings at Suez, which enabled a combined British, French and Israeli force to defeat Egyptian land and air forces, demonstrated the utility of helicopter amphibious assault and the need for new specialized assault ships to provide the speed and flexibility necessary to make successful landings. In addition, following the 1957 Defence Review, the Royal Navy under Lord Mountbatten’s leadership had 5 managed to forge a role for itself in an environment seemingly dominated by possible nuclear exchanges with the Soviet Union. The Royal Navy would provide intervention forces to support the ‘withdrawal from Empire’ east of the Suez Canal, and to fight or deter ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ wars as Soviet influence percolated into some former European colonies and the Soviet Navy began to venture beyond its traditional local waters. A crucial part of this intervention force would be an enhanced amphibious capability that took advantage of the latest developments in doctrinal thinking. This therefore led to the first great renewal of British amphibious forces after World War II: helicopter-capable ‘commando carriers’ were created from converting the two aircraft carriers Albion and Bulwark, and to provide the ‘East of Suez’ amphibious force, two new Fearless-class Landing Platforms, Dock (LPDs) and a range of new landing craft would be built. In addition Landing Ships, Logistics (LSLs) of the Sir Lancelot class were built to transport equipment worldwide and provide second-line support for amphibious landings. From the late 1950s through to the 1970s, Britain’s armed forces were involved in a series of ‘bush-fire’ wars as the United Kingdom withdrew from its empire, and the Royal Marines and Royal Navy’s amphibious forces were often heavily involved. Naval support was provided for long-running counter-insurgencies in Malaya, Borneo and Aden. Naval forces were also used to pre-empt and deter possible conflicts, such as the use of naval and amphibious forces in Lebanon in 1958 and in Kuwait in 1961. However, the increasing cost of retaining a large sophisticated military based and operating worldwide forced a series of defence economies on the Ministry of Defence. These included the cancellation of planned strike carriers, which would amongst other things have provided the air superiority necessary for the ‘East of Suez’ amphibious forces to undertake their intervention role. Further economies focused on equipment that could have provided credible worldwide capabilities, and pushed the government into accepting that the large-scale ‘East of Suez’ role was no longer affordable. In 1967 it was finally announced that the British military presence east of the Suez Canal would be withdrawn by 1975 (this was later speeded up to 1971). Major bases in Singapore and the Persian Gulf would be closed, and only a small residual force consisting of a handful of frigates and minesweepers would be needed after the withdrawal. Despite performing important duties during the confrontation with the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland as part of Operation Motorman in 1972, the amphibious forces now seemed to lack a major military role. The existing capability was initially repurposed to provide support to the weak ‘flanks’ of NATO in the eastern Mediterranean and in Norway. It was the NATO Mediterranean theatre that provided the justification for converting another aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, into a commando carrier (replacing Albion), but increasingly the focus turned to the Norwegian northern flank. The 1975 Defence Review further shrank the Royal Navy’s sphere of operations, stating that Bulwark would be withdrawn without replacement, a move that announced the end of permanent British naval forces in the Mediterranean. Fearless and Intrepid would operate through to the late 1980s but would not be replaced either. After this point, the Royal Marines would be transported to Norway by means that had not yet been determined – possibly by airlift on chartered civilian aircraft, with roll-on roll-off ferries transporting their military equipment. 6 The 1981 Defence Review initially threatened to speed up the withdrawal of the two LPDs to 1982 and 1984 respectively, even though no practical answer to the question of how the Royal Marines would get to Norway had yet been provided. Intensive lobbying by the United States against the planned cuts to the Navy as a whole, resulted in the then-Defence Secretary, Sir John Nott, offering to keep Fearless and Intrepid in service for some more years.1 This decision to retain the two ships was publicly announced a few weeks before the Argentinians invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. The view from the cockpit The impact of the Falklands conflict, in which the Navy’s assault ships of a Sea King helicopter as were crucial in ensuring success, was to confirm the long-term survival of she lands on HMS Hermes in 1983 during NATO exercises the amphibious force.