HMS Ruler (D72): The Borrowed Carrier That Sailed Into Tokyo Bay

Built in Washington State, Flying a British Ensign

HMS Ruler began life as the Bogue-class escort carrier St. Joseph, built by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation and laid down in March 1943. Launched that August, she was transferred to Britain under Lend-Lease arrangements and commissioned into Royal Navy service as HMS Ruler on 22 December 1943, one of a substantial fleet of American-built escort carriers that helped make good the Royal Navy's shortage of aircraft carrier hulls at a critical stage of the war.

Guarding the Atlantic Lifeline

Through 1944, Ruler served in the North Atlantic protecting the vital flow of men and war materiel from the United States to Britain and on to the fighting fronts beyond, the kind of unglamorous, essential convoy protection work that escort carriers like her were purpose-built to provide, screening merchant shipping against the ever-present threat of submarine attack.

A Ferry Service for Fighter Aircraft

Beyond convoy escort duty, Ruler made three dedicated transatlantic ferry voyages in May, June and November 1944, carrying Hellcats, Corsairs, Avengers and other American-built aircraft to RNAS Speke and Greenock, a role that made her, in effect, a floating aircraft delivery service, helping keep the Fleet Air Arm supplied with the modern American fighters and torpedo bombers it increasingly relied on as the war progressed.

Into the Pacific War

In early 1945, Ruler transferred to the Pacific Theatre, supporting major operations including raids on the Japanese base at Truk and the brutal Okinawa campaign, joining the growing British contribution to the war against Japan alongside the United States Navy's own vast carrier fleet.

Present at the Surrender, and a Voyage Home for the Freed

Ruler entered Tokyo Bay on 31 August 1945, present for the immediate aftermath of Japan's surrender, and went on to perform one of the more genuinely moving duties of her entire career, transporting 450 former prisoners of war to Sydney by 27 September, carrying men who had endured years of brutal captivity on the first stage of their journey home to freedom.

Returned to America and Quietly Scrapped

With the war won, Ruler returned to Norfolk, Virginia on 28 January 1946 and was decommissioned the following day, formally handed back to the United States Navy as her Lend-Lease service came to its natural end. She was sold that May and scrapped within the year, a quiet close for a carrier whose brief but genuinely varied career had carried her from convoy escort in the North Atlantic to the very heart of the Pacific victory and the liberation of Allied prisoners of war.