 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "HMS Pretoria Castle" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 HMSPretoria Castle | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name | Pretoria Castle |
| Port of registry |  London |
| Builder | Harland & Wolff |
| Yard number | 1006[1] |
| Launched | 12 October 1938 |
| Completed | 18 April 1939[1] |
| Identification |
|
| Fate | Requisitioned forRoyal Navy October 1939 |
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | HMSPretoria Castle |
| Commissioned | 28 November 1939 |
| Decommissioned | August 1942 |
| Refit | Converted fromarmed merchant cruiser toescort carrier |
| Identification | Pennant number F61 |
| Commissioned | 29 July 1943 |
| Decommissioned | 26 January 1946 |
| Fate | Sold back to theUnion-Castle Line 1946 |
| |
| Name | RMMVWarwick Castle |
| Port of registry | London |
| Acquired | 1946 |
| Fate | Scrapped July 1962 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Ocean liner |
| Tonnage | 17,392 GRT |
| Displacement | 23,450 tons |
| Length | 594 ft (181.1 m) |
| Beam | 76 ft (23.2 m) |
| Draught | 29 ft (8.8 m) |
| Installed power | 16,000 bhp (12,000 kW); 3,284 NHP |
| Propulsion | Diesel engines, twin screw |
| Speed | 18knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Aircraft carried | 21 |
HMSPretoria Castle (F61) was aUnion-Castleocean liner that in theSecond World War was converted into aRoyal Navyarmed merchant cruiser, and then converted again into anescort carrier. After the war she was converted back into a passenger liner and renamedWarwick Castle.
.jpg)
Harland & Wolff builtPretoria Castle in Belfast, launching her in 1938 and completing her in April 1939.[2] TheAdmiralty requisitioned her for the Royal Navy in October 1939, and had her converted into an armed merchant cruiser with eight 6-inch (152 mm) and two 3-inch (76 mm) guns, entering service in November 1939. In this role she served mainly in theSouth Atlantic.
In July 1942 the Admiralty bought her outright for conversion to an escort carrier bySwan Hunter onTyneside. For her new role her armament included tenOerlikon 20 mm cannon.[3] She was commissioned in her new role in July 1943. She operated as a trials and training carrier, seeing no active combat service.
In 1945 she twice became part of aviation history, firstly when Britishtest pilotCaptainEric "Winkle" Brown landed aBellAiracobra Mk. 1 on her flight deck – the first carrier landing made using an aircraft with a tricycle undercarriage, when Brown declared an emergency and was given permission to make a deck landing; a ruse which had previously been agreed with the carrier's captain,Caspar John, during initial trials forrubber deck landings planned for future carriers, and then by hosting the first ever landings and take-offs by a glider, performed by John Sproule in aSlingsby T.20 as part of research into "round-down" turbulence. On 11 August 1946, while moored on the Clyde, aGloster Meteor was used for deck handling trials which later led to flight trials on other carriers.[4]
After the war the ship was sold back to the Union-Castle Line in 1946 and converted back to a passenger liner, restored to its route between England andSouth Africa but renamedWarwick Castle. She was sold and scrapped inBarcelona in July 1962.
Media related toHMS Pretoria Castle (F61) at Wikimedia Commons
{{cite web}}:|archive-url= is malformed: timestamp (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)