The Ruler class of escort aircraft carriers served with the Royal Navy during the Second World War. All twenty-three ships were built by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation in the United States as Bogue-class escort carrier escort carriers, supplied under Lend-Lease to the United Kingdom. They were the most numerous single class of aircraft carriers in service with the Royal Navy. As built they were intended for three types of operations, "Assault" or strike, convoy escort, or aircraft ferry. After the Second World War some of the escort carriers were scrapped, while others had their flight decks removed and were converted to merchant ships (and all eventually scrapped by the 1970s).

Design and description

These ships were all larger and had greater aircraft capacity than all preceding American built escort carriers. They were laid down as escort carriers and were not converted merchant ships. All the ships had a complement of 646 men and an overall length of 492 ft, a beam of 69 ft and a draught of 25 ft. Propulsion was provided by one shaft, two boilers and a steam turbine giving 9350 shp, which could propel the ship at 16.5 kn. Aircraft facilities were a small combined bridge–flight control on the starboard side, two aircraft 43 by lifts, one aircraft catapult and nine arrestor wires. Aircraft could be housed in the 260 by hangar below the flight deck. Armament comprised: two 4 in/50-calibre dual purpose guns in single mounts, sixteen 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in twin mounts and twenty 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannon in single mounts. They had a maximum capacity for twenty-four carrier-based aircraft which could be a mixture of Grumman Martlet, an American carrier-based fighter aircraft, or Vought F4U Corsair, another type of American carrier-based fighter aircraft, or Hawker Sea Hurricane fighter aircraft (a navalised Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft), and Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, or Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber / anti-submarine aircraft.

Ships

First group

Second group