Free The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth by David Row

insufficient armour making capacity in the UK to allow the armouring of the new ships (the production capability had been heavily run down during the 1920's, and although it is being increased this takes time). Accordingly an additional 8,000t or armour was ordered from abroad (bringing the total up to 20,000t)
     
    For some years the British Government had been trying to get Australia to buy a modern capital ship to strengthen its (admittedly weak) defences, but Australia had always found the idea too expensive. Consideration had been given to 'gifting' them a ship built around the 4 spare 15" turrets still held in stock from WW1 , but even this way it would still cost around £5.5M
    Given the new light carrier design, a different suggestion was made - why not buy a light carrier, plus its airgroup, and a few escorts? This would cost half of what a battleship would cost (the running costs were only slightly smaller, but they didn't stress that point). The function of the RAN was, after all, not to fight the Japanese fleet. It was to supplement RN forces, and provide a reasonable basis for showing Australia was doing enough to justify RN reinforcement. If the Japanese attacked and RN forces were not in place, their job was to buy time for a fleet to arrive from UK waters. A carrier would actually do a better job in many respects than a battleship; it could cover a much greater area with its planes, and discommode light forces over a greater area. If a second was purchased, these and their escorts could cover 2-3 places at once, while only costing the same as a battleship, while together they would be a formidable striking force against anything not supported by its own carriers.
    Secondly, such a purchase would solve the problem of the RAAF, who had no modern fighters. The Gloster Goshawk would be very suitable to the land based role - it could fly off unprepared or primitive strips, it was tough (built to handle carrier landings), fast and capable of outperforming anything in the area, sea or land based. Licenses could be arranged for the aircraft and engine, and the Australians could start to supply their own aircraft in a couple of years (by the time the carrier could be delivered). The naval version would equip their carrier.
    Australia was quite interested in the idea. It still couldn't afford a battleship, but the new war in China made it clear that they couldn't just keep on ignoring Japan, and getting the bonus of a modern fighter, built in Australia made it a very interesting idea to them. It was also a good deal for the UK (who were involved in arranging generous licensing terms), as they were running out of shipbuilding ways (or more accurately the manpower to build ships as fast as required), and orders in hand were already at the limits of the British aircraft industry. The new China-Japan war was the final argument, and a deal was made that a light carrier would be built in the UK for Australia (the indigenous shipbuilding capacity couldn't handle so large a ship), being laid down in September 1937 for delivery in November 1939. A production line for the Goshawk and the Hercules engine would be set up in Australia (although some equipment would, at least initially, have to come from the UK). Two carrier escort destroyers would be built in the UK, and two in Australia (with the assumption that further escorts would all be built in Australia). Australian pilots would be trained as part of the FAA, to gain experience ready for the delivery of the carrier.
     
    The other big development as far as the FAA (an d indeed the rest of the Navy) was concerned was radar. This had now been under development for 2 years, and the results had been very promising. There was an initial parallel development program with the RAF, but this only progressed slowly (which was of increasing worry to the FAA, as they saw it as essential to efficient operation of their new planes and carriers), and it was decided to bring the programs