These Are the Five Worst Aircraft Carriers Ever Put to Sea

By Robert Farley, The National Interest

Building an aircraft carrier is difficult business. Many of the world’s great navies started by converting other ships into carriers, a practice that resulted in a few successes, and more than a few failures. Other navies worked their way up by experimentation. With China recently launching its first domestically built carrier, and Japan considering the conversion of its Izumos into fleet carriers, it’s worth considering some of the more egregious failures in world aircraft carrier construction.

HMS Eagle

HMS Eagle, originally Almirante Cochrane, was designed as a battleship. Intended to fill out a battle squadron in the Chilean Navy, work on Almirante Cochrane ceased at the beginning of World War I. After the war, the Chileans no longer wanted the battleship, leaving a large hulk without much to go for it. The Royal Navy had already experimented with several conversions, and decided to use the battleship hull to construct another aircraft carrier.

The results were not particularly satisfactory. On a displacement of 23,000 tons, Eagle could make twenty-four knots and carry twenty-five aircraft. These specs left her uncompetitive with Japanese and American aircraft carriers, and even with the other conversions in the Royal Navy; the three Courageous-class carriers were faster and could carry more planes. Commissioned in 1924, she was updated during the interwar period, but not extensively reconstructed.

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