Was the armored flight deck of British carriers a good choice? Would the RN have been better off with an unarmored flight deck like the US and Japanese used?

In his book "The Kamakazes", Edwin Hoyt, states that the Royal Navy carriers suffered less damage through being hit by Kamakazes because of their armoured flight decks. The problem that the Americans had was that the Kamakazes would break through their wooden flight decks and their bombs and explosives would detonate in the decks below. These being the aircraft hangers.

April 1st 1945:
"Then a Kamikaze crashed into the deck of HMS Indefatigable. If the pilot lived, he must have been surprised; the deck of the British carrier was made of steel, and the damage was limited to injuries to personnel."

Compare that to the USS Franklin, a carrier that recieved two bomb hits on 19th March 1945.

"One bomb pierced the flight deck and exploded on the hanger deck, which was filled with planes that were gassed and armed with bombs fo the air strike. The bomb exploded among the planes, set them to burning and exploding, and started huge fires. The disaster was dreadful: every man on that part of the deck was killed. The fires spread down to number three deck. The second bomb struck the other end of the flight deck, exploding on the hanger deck among planes that were tuning up to be launched and set them to burning and exploding. Both the elevators were smashed. Through those openings rose clouds of smoke and flame. The smoke from the fires quickly enveloped the carrier and she could no longer be seen beneath the pall"....."Six seperate explosions could be heard aboard the task-force flagship Bunker Hill, which was fifty miles away"

The Kamikazes by Edwin P. Hoyt. Burford Books
ISBN 1-58080-031-9

On the down side, the Illustrious class proved highly vulnerable to conventional attacks. In fact, the armored flight deck and side armor on the hanger actually contributed to greater damage by containing the explosion of penetrating bombs (Kamikazes had little penetration power).
In the case of the Illustrious in the Med she was nearly sunk by 1000 lb bomb hits which buckled her flight deck and jammed both elevators as part of the damage. Similar hits on an Essex would have been damaging but it would have been possible for the crew to repair the damage sufficently to allow limited flight ops.
The use of an armored deck so high in the ship also limited the size of the air wing substancially. Was the smaller size of an Illustrious class carrier (about half that of an Essex, Yorktown or, Zuikaku class) worth the trade off?

That's the interesting question; the weight of the armoured deck essentially cost the British carriers an extra hangar deck and all the planes it could have contained.

This choice resulted from prewar tactical considerations. Before radar, it was assumed that a carrier would have had too little notice of air attack to launch defending fighters. Therefore the carrier had to be able to defend itself against air attack by means of guns and armour; the planes were expected to remain safely under the armour until the attack was over.

A difference between the RN and American/Japanese strategic situations at the time was that the RN expected to have to operate its carriers sometimes within range of land bases, making serious air attacks a bigger problem.

The choice is a difficult one to call. Radar early warning made a big difference in getting planes aloft, so made defence by fighter (the best method) feasible. However, that alone wouldn't have been enough; the British deck handling procedures were slower than the USN/IJN so they couldn't launch so many aircraft in a short time.

Al in all, the USN/IJN choice was, for the most part, the right one IMO. However, the armoured decks did come in useful from time to time.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

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Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website

All of you have quite valid points and I agree with them.

But if we evaluate the situations and actual performance of those ships then their strategic theory is not that right.

In the last stages of the Pacific War, the fact that American heavy and scort aircraft carriers had wood decks made them mobile lighters.

Kamikazes might have not had a lot of piercing power. But they certainly could pierce the main deck and get to the hangars. This couldn't happen in a British armoured-decked carrier. Therefore, here is where the deadliest touch of the Kamikazes acts: they were huge fire-bombs. A plane at full-dive-speed, with full-tanks and a 500 kg high-explosive bomb causes an enormous fire when it hits. So, if the plane managed to get into the hanger, the fire will very easily expand towards the fuel-tanks, weaponry, planes and the very wooden deck in a domino-effect.

That is why a single hit from a Kamikaze could spread a huge fire within an ship and leave it completely out of action. This couldn't happen with any other war ship in the Pacific War —perhaps a little destroyer or corvette.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

I think that the Kamikaze arguement, while valid, is too narrow a definition of the problem. I think that history shows that carriers must have the maximum number of aircraft reasonably possible in their air wing. The British choice to limit their air wing in favor of greater protection worked doubly against them most, if not all, of the time.
First, by limiting their air wing they were far less capable of putting up an effective CAP and launching effective strikes. The Illustrious class by late war was really capable of doing only one or the other due to the small size of the air wing.
Then, the lack of aircraft made it more likely that a strike would get through and damage the ship in the end. Certainly, in the case of Kamikazes this damage was limited. In a more conventional attack like the case of the Bunker Hill, the Illustrious would have been just as heavily damaged and it too would have been put out of action.
Overall, on a smaller carrier armor protection makes little sense. A bigger air wing is a better choice. With the large post war US carriers there was sufficent volume and displacement to have it both ways, but this was only possible on a very large hull.

I see your point, T. A. And my statement about armoured deck would only apply to Kamikaze attacks. Conventional bombing —which the British suffered in the Mediterranean and Atlantic as well as the Pacific— still caused them a lot of damage and it limited their defensive and offensive capabilities. You're right.

And I don't think the US Navy ever thinking about their carriers being subjected to something like Kamikaze attacks...

But I think that the British carriers had more than limited fire power in terms of quality, but of quality as well.

Swordfishes worked when used against the incompetent Regia Marina and chasing the 'awesome' German ships, but when they were faced with the Japanese Imperial Navy, it was very different. Not only the Japanese had much better equipment —larger carriers and the best sea-based fighter in the world at the time— and more experience in combined operations. That's why in 1942 the British were almost annihilated in the Indian Ocean —is that the correct name? They simply couldn't match the Japanese in any way.

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

We will get to see that little Swordfish doom the Bismarck tonight as the History channel is showing"Sink The Bismarck" at 8:00pm. Oh Boy!

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