The British World War II presence in Pacific naval battles is less often seen in American coverage of the war. Fortunately, American armed forces cinematographers went aboard British ships and captured the action, which resides in the National Archives -- and here on Airailimages.
The dates on the film -- early January 1945 -- plus the presence of Grumman Hellcat fighters and the configuration of the ship suggest this is HMS Indomitable, even though some notes accompanying the footage in the National Archives identified a different ship.
HMS Indomitable gathered an international host of adversaries during World War II, ranging from German Ju-87 Stuka attacks to an unsuccessful stalking by a Vichy French submarine near Madagascar. A torpedo strike from an Italian SM.79 during the invasion of Sicily damaged the carrier. A Japanese kamikaze targeted the ship during May 1945. Indomitable's armored flight deck lessened the damage.
As a result of the 1943 Italian torpedo attack, Indomitable withdrew to the United States for repairs at the Norfolk, Virginia, naval yards that lasted into the spring of 1944. A souvenir of America -- U.S. Navy search radar -- was mounted aboard Indomitable and is sometimes used as a recognition feature for identifying this aircraft carrier in photos.
Indomitable was one of four British carriers in the Illustrious class. Another in the class was HMS Formidable, which embarked some of Indomitable's Hellcats for awhile in the summer of 1945.
We're reasonably satisfied this footage depicts the Hellcats aboard Indomitable due to the January 1945 dates.
Watch for landing mishaps on deck, and bright visible exhaust stack flame coming from some of the Grummans. Avengers and Hellcats are seen.
HMS Indomitable participated in British naval air actions against Japanese-held oil refineries on Sumatra in January 45. The scrapper claimed Indomitable in 1955.
(This is a corrected and edited version of a video we previously uploaded.)
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