And how many of each type of ship did they have? How did they compare with the US navy?
The US had nearly three times as many ships than the Royal Navy in 1945. (US 6700 UK 2300) The only class of ship the US and UK had in parity were destroyers/frigates with about 800 each. Cruisers were also close: US 72 UK 62. The biggest disparity was in aircraft carriers. The UK had a total of 11, the US more than 100 (28 of which were the large fleet carriers). Subs: US 232: UK: 161. Battleships US 23 UK 14. A sizable chunk of both navies were obsolete and many were sunk a few years later in A-bomb tests.
Trivia question: which country had the third largest navy in the world at the end of WWII?
Is it the USSR?
My guess is Japan.
I would second that guess. Certainly not the Soviet Union, which was mostly fighting on land in WWII, not on the seas.
Trivia question: which country had the third largest navy in the world at the end of WWII?
Click on blurry blue rectangle
According to the following discussion, which links to an article apparently no longer available online, the Soviet navy was the third largest in the world at the end of WWII.
https://historum.com/threads/which-country-had-the-third-largest-navy.86284/
Largest is a bit of a misnomer. Does it mean in vessels? Or in tonnage? Or in personnel?
The Royal Canadian Navy had lots of smaller escort vessel for service in the battle of the Atlantic. It didn’t have much by the way of large surface combatants.
Also, some counts include the Canadian merchant marine, which went from “hardly anything” to “a lot” for the war effort. You were also more likely to be killed in the merchant marine than in the navy
I read recently that US carriers had wooden decks which were easily damaged and hard to repair, while British carriers had armoured steel.
This may sound weird, but they were designed for different wars:
British ships were operating within reach of land-based bombers most of the time, so put up with heavier, slower ships with a smaller capacity so that they could survive moderate damage and keep going.
US ships had gargantuan areas to cover. Much of this area would not have reliable land-based aircraft coverage, friendly or not. American commitments dictated that 9/10 times, the only planes you would have are the ones you brought with you. Therefore, although they would need to cover huge swaths of ocean away from land support, they would likewise not need to worry about mass land-based raids.
Almost all British capital ships which actually fought in WW2, were designed at a time when the Royal Navy considered the IJN to be the most likely adversary.
Royal Navy did not need such a fleet train, not because they did not have gargantuan areas to cover, they did, but since they had bases all over and fleet would move to them as needed.
Just East of Suez, major bases were
- Mombasa
- Karachi
- Bombay
- Trincomalee
- Singapore
Not counting other smaller bases. Royal Navy ships were armoured since the RN knew from long and bitter experience that capital ships would get hit.
Downside was they proved difficult and expensive to modernise after the war, and only one, Victorious, was so modernised. Compare with the Essex/Ticonderoga-class hulls, which remained useful into the 1970s.
Ahem. Try the early 1990s. The USS Lexington was finally and fully retired in 1991. Now, if you mean combat carriers, then yes, the Oriskany was the last of those - decommissioned in '76. Although in 1988, The Lex recorded more launches/traps that any active combat carrier. The USN trains hard.
Parts of the Lex’s deck were still wood when she was decommissioned. I have a small piece of it since I served on her and worked on the decom crew one summer for my active reserve stint.
A grand old lady - the museum in Corpus Christi is worth the visit if you’re a WWII buff.
ABE3 Zakalwe
Here is a list of US and British battleships and battlecruisers that survived the war for those interested.
us battleships
1 arkansas
2 new york
3. texas
4 nevada
5 pennsylvania
6 new mexico
7 idaho
8 mississippi
9 tennessee
10 california
11. colorado
12 maryland
13 west virginia
14 north carolina
15 washington
16 south dakota
17 indiana
18 massachusetts
19 alabama
20 iowa
21 new jersey
22 missouri
23 wisconsin
british battleships
1 queen elizabeth
2 warspite
3 malaya
4 valiant
5 revenge
6 ramillies
7 royal sovereign
8 resolution
9 nelson
10 rodney
11 king george v
12 anson
13 howe
14 duke of york
british battlecruisers
- renown
Ever hear of the USS Robin? Not many have.
When the U. S. was down to one carrier (Enterprise) the Brits lent us one of hers, the HMS Victorious. Modified for our aircraft in NY, it was sent to the Pacific where is was informally known as the USS Robin. Think Robin Hood. Ship’s company was all British. Air Wing was American. Don’t recall how long we kept it.
The Victorious returned to the Pacific during the Okinawa invasion. This time the crew was all British.
FYI, it had a steel deck.
Sort of. HMS Victorious was operating Marlet IVs (the British name for the American F4F Wildcat) and Albacore biplane torpedo bombers before being readied to be sent to the Pacific, and her obsolescent Albacores of the 832 Squadron Fleet Air Arm were replaced with TBF Avenger torpedo bombers before being sent. Operating the Avengers from Victorious proved slightly problematic, so during operations the USS Saratoga swapped 24 of her F4F Wildcats from VF-3 with the 15 British TBF Avengers from 832 Squadron FAA. As a result Victorious became a purely fighter carrier, and both her and Saratoga operated with mixed British/American air groups.
As a result, the US Task Force commanding officers agreed that it would be viable to employ “USS Robin” as a dedicated fighter carrier, with an additional 24 Wildcats of VF-3 aboard and her own Avengers ‘re-based’ temporarily aboard USS Saratoga.
In her role as CAP and fighter carrier, HMS Victorious was operating 60 Martlets and Wildcats.
USS Saratoga retained 12 Wildcats along with her 36 Dauntless and 20 USN Avengers. The 15 FAA Avengers operated from her deck for the whole operations.
Good info. Thanks.
From one of my childhood comic book annuals “For Boys”.
And on it’s return the Royal Navy, an ice cream maker.
Pet peeve-everyone forgets about the Saratoga when they claim this.