Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Unicorn

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TypeLight carrier (CVL)
HullI72
BuilderHarland and Wolff, Belfast
Launched1941-11-20
Commissioned1943-03-12
FateAfloat. Survived. Decommissioned in January 1946, recommissioned in 1949 for Korea, listed for disposal in 1958 and scrapped from 15 June 1959. Pacific service: supported the British Pacific Fleet in 1945.

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

Unicorn
HMS Unicorn (I72) underway in the Atlantic in 1943, some 700 km west of Gibraltar. The photograph is from before her Pacific service. Imperial War Museums photograph FL 6449, via Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons File:HMS Unicorn (I72) underway in the Atlantic 1943.jpg. Public domain.

HMS Unicorn was an aircraft repair ship and light aircraft carrier built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast, launched on 20 November 1941 and completed on 12 March 1943. She provided air cover over the Salerno landings in September 1943. She supported the fleet carriers until the British Pacific Fleet was formed in November 1944.

She was transferred to Australia in early 1945 to support the fleet's operations during Operation Iceberg, the Okinawa invasion. To shorten the time to replenish the fleet's carriers she was based in the Admiralty Islands and the Philippines until the Japanese surrender. She was decommissioned when she returned to the UK in January 1946. She was recommissioned in 1949 and served in the Korean War, was listed for disposal in 1958 and was scrapped in 1959.

Sources: Wikipedia (ship articles) and Wikimedia Commons (photograph records).

The pictures on this page are the originals.