HMS Empress (D42): Reconnaissance and Raids Across the Bay of Bengal

Built in Seattle, Transferred Under Lend-Lease

HMS Empress began life as USS Carnegie, an Ameer-class escort carrier built by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation in Seattle, Washington. She was laid down on 9 September 1942, launched on 31 December 1942, and commissioned into the United States Navy on 9 August 1943, only to be transferred to the Royal Navy under the lend-lease programme just days later, becoming HMS Empress.

At 492 feet long with a beam of nearly 70 feet, she was a purpose-built escort carrier rather than a converted merchant hull, one of a considerable number of American-built escort carriers that supplemented the Royal Navy's own carrier strength through lend-lease, giving Britain access to a class of ship it simply did not have the shipyard capacity to build for itself in sufficient numbers during the war.

Commander Thomas Neville Masterman took command upon her transfer, serving until November 1943, when Acting Captain Henry Austin Traill assumed command, remaining in charge through to April 1945, overseeing the carrier during her most active period of the war.

Across the Atlantic and Into the Indian Ocean

HMS Empress's early movements took her across the Americas and Atlantic before she found her way to the theatre where she would do her most significant work.

In March 1944, she departed Cristobal in the Panama Canal Zone on the 11th, escorted by destroyer escorts and corvettes, arriving at Norfolk, Virginia on 17 March, part of the constant shuffling of ships and convoys that characterised the Allied war effort's logistical backbone.

It was in the Indian Ocean theatre during 1945 that HMS Empress found her real purpose, supporting the British campaign to reclaim Burma and Malaya from Japanese occupation, a theatre that received considerably less attention at the time, and has received considerably less attention since, than the more famous Pacific island-hopping campaign, despite involving remarkably large fleets and hard-fought operations of its own.

Reconnaissance, Raids, and Rangoon

HMS Empress flew Operation Stacey between 22 February and 7 March 1945, a photographic reconnaissance mission covering Penang, the Kra Isthmus and northern Sumatra, vital intelligence-gathering work ahead of planned amphibious operations further along the coast. Vice Admiral H. C. T.

Walker established his flag aboard HMS Empress on 12 February that year, giving her a role as a command platform alongside her reconnaissance duties.

HMS Empress then took part in Operation Bishop between 27 April and 9 May 1945, carrying out carrier raids and bombardment against Car Nicobar and Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, while also providing air cover for the amphibious landings at Rangoon, part of the successful campaign to recapture Burma's capital from Japanese forces, an operation commanded during this stage by Captain J. R.

S. Brown. She followed this with Operation Livery between 19 and 30 July 1945, combining minesweeping operations off Phuket with air strikes against targets on the Kra Isthmus, her aircraft destroying three small ships and damaging railway infrastructure supporting the Japanese war effort in the region.

A final operation, Carson, was planned for 10 August 1945, intended as a further round of attacks on shipping and airfields near Penang and Medan, but was postponed as Japanese surrender negotiations overtook events, HMS Empress's war ending not with one last strike but with the news that no further strikes would be needed.

Returned to the United States

HMS Empress's service with the Royal Navy came to an end on 4 February 1946, when she was formally returned to United States Navy custody as USS Carnegie once more, in keeping with the terms of the lend-lease arrangement under which so many American-built ships had served British colours for the duration of the war without ever changing permanent ownership.

She was struck from the American naval register on 28 March 1946 and sold for scrap on 21 June that year, a quiet administrative end to a carrier whose brief but properly useful service had helped keep the British campaign in Burma and Malaya supplied with intelligence, air cover and offensive striking power at exactly the moments it was needed most.