page_title: HMS Formidable (67)
section_title: Pacific operations
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Formidable (67) / Construction and service / Pacific operations
caption_attribution_description: English: The aircraft carrier HMS Formidable (R67) on fire after being struck by a Kamikaze off Sakishima Gunto. Formidable was hit at 1130 hrs, the kamikaze making a massive dent about 3 m long, 0.6 m wide and deep in the armoured flight deck. A large steel splinter speared down through the hangar deck and the centre boiler-room, where it ruptured a steam line, and came to rest in a fuel tank, starting a major fire in the aircraft park. Eight crew members were killed and forty-seven were wounded. One Vought Corsair and ten Grumman Avengers were destroyed.
context_page_description: HMS Formidable was an Illustrious-class aircraft carrier ordered for the Royal Navy before the Second World War. After being completed in late 1940, she was briefly assigned to the Home Fleet before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet as a replacement for her crippled sister ship Illustrious. Formidable's aircraft played a key role in the Battle of Cape Matapan in early 1941, and they subsequently provided cover for Allied ships and attacked Axis forces until their carrier was badly damaged by German dive bombers in May.
  Assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942, Formidable covered the invasion of Diego Suarez in Vichy Madagascar in mid-1942 against the possibility of a sortie by the Japanese into the Indian Ocean. Formidable returned home for a brief refit before participating in Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa in November. She remained in the Mediterranean and covered the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy in 1943 before beginning a lengthy refit.
  Formidable made several attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway in mid-1944 as part of the Home Fleet.
context_section_description: By this time Formidable's air group had a strength of 36 Corsairs and 18 Avengers. She arrived in San Pedro Bay in the Philippines on 4 April to await the return of the BPF from their efforts to neutralise airfields on the Sakishima Islands, between Okinawa and Formosa, as part of the preparations for the landings on Okinawa. Formidable was called forward six days later to join the 1st Aircraft Carrier Squadron (1st ACS) of the BPF on operations as a replacement for Illustrious, which was in poor mechanical shape. She arrived on 14 April and contributed aircraft when the attacks recommenced two days later. The commander of 1842 Squadron was killed on the first day of operations while strafing buildings at Nobara airfield. After refuelling and two more days' attacks, the BPF sailed on 20 April for San Pedro Bay to replenish its ships for further operations.
  The fleet returned to waters off Okinawa on 4 May and renewed its attacks on the airfields on the Sakishima Islands. Vice-Admiral Bernard Rawlings, second in command of the BPF, and his staff had determined that bombardment of Japanese gun positions by the heavy guns of battleships and cruisers might be a more effective method of destroying them than aerial attack. They detached King George V and Howe, as well as five cruisers, that morning to bombard Nobara and Hiara airfields while fighters flew a protective CAP over them and spotted the fall of their shells. The loss of the most effective anti-aircraft ships was more important than anticipated and the Japanese were able to take advantage of the opportunity. The carrier had just launched two Corsairs for bombardment-spotting duties and the deck park of eleven Avengers was being moved forward to allow aircraft to land when an undetected Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter attacked at 11:31. The Zero first strafed the flight deck before any of Formidable's guns could open fire and then turned sharply to dive into the forward flight deck despite the ship's hard turn to starboard. The fighter released a bomb shortly before it would have impacted the deck and was destroyed by the bomb's blast, although the remnants of the Zero struck Formidable.
   The detonation of the bomb put a large dent in the flight deck, around 24 feet (7.3 m) by 20 feet (6.1 m) and 2 feet (0.61 m) deep, with a 2 square feet (0.19 m²) hole in the center and much spalling from the underside. It killed 2 officers and 6 ratings, wounding 55 other crewmen. A fragment from the flight deck armour penetrated the hangar deck armour and passed through the centre boiler uptakes, the centre boiler room itself, and an oil tank before it came to rest in the inner bottom. The fragment severed the steam pipes in the centre boiler room and forced its evacuation, cutting the ship's speed to 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph). The blast on the flight deck blew the Avenger closest to it over the side and set another one on fire. Shrapnel from the blast peppered the island, causing the bulk of the casualties, and severed many electrical cables, including those for most of the ship's radars. The fires on the flight deck and in the hangar were extinguished by 11:55, and seven Avengers and a Corsair which were damaged beyond repair were dumped over the side. The bomb struck at the intersection of three armour plates and dented the plates over an area 20 by 24 feet (6.1 by 7.3 m). The dent was filled by wood and concrete and covered by thin steel plates tack-welded to the deck so that she was able to operate aircraft by 17:00 and steam at a speed of 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph). Thirteen of her Corsairs had been airborne at the time of the attack and they operated from the other carriers for a time. The damage to the boiler room and its steam pipes was repaired so that the centre boilers could be reconnected to the engines at 02:00 the next day.
  The bombardment significantly reduced Japanese aerial activity on 5 May, although several of Formidable's Corsairs, temporarily operating from her sister Victorious, shot down a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft at an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,100 m)
caption: Formidable on fire after the kamikaze hit on 4 May
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