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In 1960 the US pulled the plug on Sky Bolt. On reflection it was probably the right decision but it left Britain without a long term nuclear deterrent. This later being filled by Polaris. Britain also had a mostly obsolescent carrier force.
My proposition is that the US gives the mothballed and unmodernised carriers Franklin and Bunker Hill to Britain as compensation for the unilateral cancelation of Sky Bolt.
This is in addition to Britain's Polaris not instead of.
Yes these two ships were WWII ships that had been badly damaged in 1945 but they had been fully repaired in reserve since 1947. Yes they would need converting to modern standards and neither is ideal. What the RN would get however is 2 reasonably sized carriers of a class that had been shown to be capable of operating modern naval aircraft.
As I understand it the conversion would be a lot easier and presumably cheaper than that of HMS Victorious due to the nature of the Essex classes hanger design. It would amount to (and yes I know it would be more complex than I make it sound) shaving off everything above the hanger deck floor, upgrading the steam plant and building a stretched version of Hermes's hanger and flight deck plus upgrading communication and radar suites to R.N standards.
It also leave the possibility however unlikely that later on the R.N. could take on one of the other straight deck Essex class for conversion to replace Eagle and Ark Royal, and allowing them to field a uniform squadron of carriers into the 1980s. Two through deck cruisers could be ordered as replacements for Bulwark and Albion.
Even if everything else remained as otl the RN could have in the 80s 2 aging but still capable carriers and possibly 2 LHA.
The fact that conversion of the 2 carriers would be well advanced should butterfly the abandonment of carrier aviation as the expensive CVA 01 design would likely be postponed until after their completion and never come close to being ordered.