HMS Atheling (D51): An American Carrier Borrowed to Keep Britain's Air Wings Moving

Born in Washington State as USS Glacier

HMS Atheling began her life as an American ship, built by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation in Tacoma, Washington, under a US Maritime Commission contract. She was launched on 7 September 1942, sponsored by Mrs Richard P.

Luker, and commissioned into the United States Navy on 12 July 1943 as USS Glacier, an escort carrier redesignated CVE-33 just three days later.

Her American service, however, was brief: she was transferred to the Royal Navy under the Lend-Lease programme on 31 July 1943 at Vancouver, converted at the Royal Canadian Navy dockyard in Esquimalt, and commissioned into British service as HMS Atheling on 28 October 1943, part of the Ruler class of escort carriers built specifically to be transferred to Britain.

She measured just over 492 feet in length, could carry up to 24 aircraft, and managed a modest 16.5 knots, entirely adequate for a ship whose war would be fought without ever firing a shot at an enemy.

Turning an American escort carrier into a Royal Navy one took real work: at the Burrard Dry Dock in North Vancouver she underwent around 150 separate alterations over 89 days, from a lengthened flight deck to reworked hangar space, controls and communications gear, before she was fit to fly British aircraft off a British deck.

The Fleet's Delivery Service

From January 1944, Atheling took up the vital but entirely unglamorous role of ferrying entire Royal Navy air squadrons, aircrew and their aircraft eastward.

Her first delivery run carried 18 Corsairs of 1836 Naval Air Squadron across the Atlantic in the 24-ship convoy UT.6, sailing alongside her sister ship HMS Ameer and dropping her aircraft off at Belfast on 9 January 1944 before pressing on to join the Eastern Fleet.

By April she had reached Colombo, and spent the following months in the Indian Ocean with the 21st Aircraft Carrier Squadron, running fighter deliveries and deck landing training for a string of embarked squadrons.

Not every assignment suited her: earmarked for Operation Councillor in June 1944, she turned out to be some 12 knots slower than the ship she was meant to be working alongside, and had to be released from the task, a reminder that even a useful ferry carrier had firm limits.

From December 1944 she was lent outright to the US Navy for ferry work in the Pacific, running aircraft out from San Diego to Pearl Harbor and Guam under American control.

She happened to be at sea in the Gulf of Mexico when Japan's surrender was announced on 15 August 1945, and returned to Plymouth the following month, work for both British and American fleets that never generated headlines but that the whole carrier war effort in the Pacific and Indian Oceans remarkably depended upon.

Back to America, and a Long Merchant Afterlife

With the war won, Atheling was one of six escort carriers, alongside Fencer, Patroller, Queen, Rajah and Ranee, converted for trooping duty, her hangar deck turned into accommodation for around 60 officers and 1,000 ratings at a cost of just over £17,000.

She made three trooping voyages between November 1945 and October 1946 carrying Commonwealth personnel home to Australia and New Zealand; one of them, in the spring of 1946, brought Fijian and Tongan contingents to Britain in time for the Victory Parade in London.

She was returned to the United States and struck from the Naval Register on 7 February 1947.

Sold to National Bulk Carriers and converted into the merchant ship Roma, she made her maiden voyage on the Italy to Australia emigrant route in August 1951, a long civilian career before finally being scrapped at Savona in November 1967, over two decades after her wartime service had quietly, effectively, kept Britain's carrier squadrons supplied with exactly what they needed, exactly where they needed it.