HMS Ocean (R68): Home to the First Ever Jet Landing on a Carrier

Built to Be Built Quickly

HMS Ocean was laid down by Alexander Stephen and Sons in Glasgow on 8 November 1942, launched on 8 July 1944 and commissioned on 8 August 1945, a Colossus-class light fleet carrier, part of a class deliberately designed to be built quickly using mercantile rather than full naval hull construction standards, sacrificing armour protection and heavier anti-aircraft weapons in exchange for getting badly needed carriers into service as fast as possible.

The First Jet Ever to Land on a Carrier

HMS Ocean secured a permanent place in aviation history on 3 December 1945, when the celebrated test pilot Eric Winkle Brown flew a De Havilland Sea Vampire onto her deck, the first ever carrier landing by a purely jet-powered aircraft anywhere in the world. It was a genuinely pivotal moment for naval aviation, proving that jet aircraft, already transforming land-based air forces, could realistically operate from a carrier deck as well, opening the door to the jet-powered naval aviation that would dominate every major navy within a decade.

From Malta to Palestine

HMS Ocean transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet that December, disembarked her air group at Malta in June 1946 and was converted for troopship duties to Singapore, before returning to provide firefighting and medical support during the Corfu Channel incident that October, when Royal Navy destroyers struck Albanian mines in a serious international crisis. She went on to support the British withdrawal from Palestine in May 1948, a genuinely delicate and difficult operation carried out amid rising violence between Jewish and Arab communities.

Shooting Down a MiG-15 Over Korea

HMS Ocean deployed to Korea twice, first between May and October 1952, during which her Sea Fury piston-engined fighters engaged North Korean MiG-15 jets, remarkably shooting one down in August 1952, a genuinely striking achievement for propeller-driven aircraft against a jet adversary. Her second deployment ran from May to November 1953, continuing to support United Nations forces through the war's closing months.

The First Large-Scale Helicopter Assault in History

HMS Ocean joined the Home Fleet training squadron in August 1954, before achieving her second genuine milestone during the Suez Crisis of 1956, taking part in what is widely regarded as the first ever large-scale helicopter-borne assault in military history. Whirlwind and Sycamore helicopters operating from HMS Ocean landed 425 Royal Marines along with 23 tons of stores into Port Said in just 90 minutes, a demonstration of helicopter assault capability that would go on to shape amphibious warfare doctrine for decades to come.

A Funeral in Oslo, and a Soviet Protest

HMS Ocean transported the Royal Marines Band and Admiral Lord Fraser to King Haakon VII's funeral in Oslo in October 1957, and had made a visit to Helsinki that September notable enough to prompt a formal Soviet protest, a small but telling reminder of just how closely Cold War tensions shadowed even routine naval visits during that era.

Scrapped at Faslane

HMS Ocean entered extended reserve beginning in 1958 and was scrapped in 1962 at Faslane, closing out the career of a carrier that had, remarkably, played host to two genuinely historic firsts within little more than a decade of each other, the world's first jet carrier landing and the world's first large-scale helicopter assault.