The many careers of HMS Cavendish

Warship, cruiser, training and repair ship were some of the conversions HMS Cavendish underwent over 30 years.

It is not unusual for a warship to have two different ‘careers’ during service, but one Royal Navy vessel had no less than six separate operational uses, and even a name change, during its 30 years.

HMS Cavendish started out as a unit of the Hawkins class of cruisers designed in 1916 to track down German surface raiders.  By the time they were completed, the surface raiders had largely been intercepted so the role of the Hawkins had to change.

First change

In the case of Cavendish, renamed Vindictive after the famous cruiser in the Zeebrugge raid of April 1918, the decision was taken to convert her into an aircraft carrier in a similar way to HMS Furious.  

Three of the main guns were removed, and a large hangar was installed abaft the two funnels with a 58.5m long by 17m wide flight deck on top, and a 23m long flying off deck and hangar arranged forward of the bridge.

Unfortunately, this arrangement had the same failings as those of Furious, as it proved almost impossible to land planes on the aft deck because of smoke and disrupted air flow caused by the funnels. Vindictive was able to operate seaplanes by lifting them over the side, and also acted as an aircraft ferry during the Baltic intervention of 1919.

Service in China

Following a period in reserve, interspersed with some trooping, the aft flight deck, hangar and forward flight platform were removed, and a prototype, compressed-air, aircraft catapult installed on the hangar roof – the first British cruiser to mount such a system. Armament was increased to six main guns, and the ship became a cruiser as originally designed, serving on the China Station for a couple of years.

On return from China, Vindictive trialled various catapult systems for warships and carried out occasional troop operations before being fully demilitarised as required by the 1930 London Naval Treaty. This included the removal of the after boilers and rear funnel and reduced speed to 24 knots. It made it pointless to consider reactivating and re-arming as a cruiser in case of war.

Training role

It is why the decision was taken to convert Vindictive into a training ship and which completed in September 1937. As a training ship Vindictive had a limited armament of two 4.7-inch guns and accommodation for 200 cadets.

Two years later and it was time for another conversion, this time into a fleet repair ship. The armament was removed and replaced with six, 4-inch guns, and the forward superstructure extended over the former hangar roof. The aft superstructure was extended to be flush with her sides and slightly lengthened, and a large deckhouse built on the quarterdeck.

Vindictive was back in service by the spring of 1940 in time to participate as a troopship in the disastrous Norwegian Campaign. She then served in the South Atlantic and the Mediterranean before one final metamorphosis.

In 1944 she was converted into a depot ship for destroyers, with alterations carried out in Malta. Vindictive then returned to the UK to serve as flagship of the four Home Fleet destroyer flotillas, numbers 2, 6, 17 and 23, and flying the flag of Commodore Reginald Hutton.

Sold for scrap

The end of this multi-faceted career came in 1946 when she was finally sold for scrapping in Blyth, UK, ending 30 years of a service.

John Barnes is a journalist and author specialising in maritime.