SS Normandie

I think the Italians were going to convert a liner to a carrier, maybe the Japanese actually did it.

They did, both Junyo and Hiyo were based on liners specially designed to allow for such a conversion. Both ships were still undergoing construction in December 1941 when the order to complete them as carriers came down.

Not horrible ships, but their aviation complement was on the small side and, worse, their top speed kept them from being used as fleet carriers. They were more suited for independent operations as they couldn't operate with the faster ships.


Shinyo was a conversion of the German liner Scharnhorst which was in Japan at the time.

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German was planning to convert several liners including Gneisneau and Potsdam but these never got started IIRC.
 
There actually was a plan to convert the Normandie into an aircraft carrier, but that was scrapped in favor of converting it into a troopship.

I read that the Queens Mary and Elizabeth shortened the war by a year, add the Normandie to that and perhaps you knock off a few more months. A shorter war means a less economically damaged Britain, the rest writes itself!

A year? Sounds like exaggeration to me. Though, the Normandie had almost as much capacity as the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, so it would have been an important ship.
 
A year? Sounds like exaggeration to me. Though, the Normandie had almost as much capacity as the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, so it would have been an important ship.

Everything shortened the war by a year; enigma did, the queens did and others I`ve read did also. I`m amazed that with all of those years shaved off the war it lasted as long as it did.
 
The Italians began converting the Rex but didn't get very far.

There were never plans for Rex to be converted to a carrier. The liner you're probably thinking of is SS Roma, which became CV Aquila, which actually got pretty far in conversion, but had been halted by the time the Italians surrendered.

-Matt
 
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