HMLS Queen Lafohy (CV-1926)
Two ships of the King Ralambo class were laid down in 1915. The King Ralambo was completed in 1920 as a battleship. The second ship, Queen Lafory was laid down in 1916, suspended after Jutland and then repurposed as a ship to carry wheeled aircraft. Later to be universally known as Aircraft Carriers. The conversion of the Queen Lafory followed closely, Royal Navy practices. The extra flying off deck, forward, was a useful addition also followed by the first Japanese classes of Carrier. The end of it for the Queen Lafory was the Great Typhoon of 1928 that the ship got caught in that virtually ripped the front end off the ship. Returned to the dockyards at Colombo the Queen Lafory received a new bow based on that of the Hermes.
The Queen Lafory was taken in hand for a rebuild in 1939 with completion down
for late 1940. Once war broke out extra shifts at the dockyards brought the
refit completion date back three months. The major work was the fitting of
bulges to improve underwater protection, a new armoured deck, a new bridge
superstructure, new propulsion system, the same single 4" were reused just
resited in better firing positions. The heavy and light AA guns were better
distributed around the deck edges.
The rebuilding process completed in September 1940. The ship was worked up
during its transit from Colombo to Alexandria where the Queen Lafohy joined the
Fleet under Admiral Cunningham. No sooner had the ship arrived than it was off
to the Battle of Taranto. The two other large carriers with the Fleet,
Illustrious and Eagle were to attack the harbour as they had trained for while
the Queen Lafohy would attack all of the surrounding harbour infrastructure,
support airfields and any other targets of opportunity. It was much to the Queen
Lafohy's efforts that little or no enemy aircraft attacked the Fleet the next
day. The airfields they were operating from were still being repaired to allow
flying operations to commence.
I am still debating where to sink the good Queen, either by being torpedoed in
the Med by a U-boat 1942-43 or in action with the Japanese also in the 1942-43
timeline. It will of course be a blaze of glory befitting a Queen!
Aft end of Queen Lafohy shortly after completion.
