Rebuilding the Queen Margaret

As the aircraft carrier Queen Margaret entered her third decade of service under the Arransian flag, thoughts inevitably turned to a replacement. The ship herself was very soundly built and was expected to be able to continue for another 15 or 20 years, but the Navy were well aware that the new Brunswickian nuclear supercarriers were able to fly the formidable A-21 strike aircraft which totally outclassed the A-17s then carried by the Queen Margaret.

From 1969 to 1976, the Admiral of the Fleet was Theodore MacLeod (1916-77)¹, a visionary intellectual who had previously been Principal of the Royal Naval College, and who had written a book in the 1960s entitled Sea Power in an Age of Unconventional Warfare which continues to be regarded as something of a bible by the Arransian Navy. Some officers were doubtful about putting such a cerebral figure in charge, but he also had a fine record as a frigate captain and there was a strong argument that at the time the Navy needed a leader who could take the long view. In 1974 he commissioned the naval design office to carry out a detailed study for an Arransian carrier that could fly A-21s. The result is always known as the Queen Imogen, although it is certain that if she had been built, she would have borne a different name, probably either Brodie or Triumph. The final design was a formidable vessel of 55,000 tons which approached the capability of the Brunswickian Constitution and also had a much more sleek and handsome appearance. The directors of Caird’s shipyard at Elswick assured MacLeod that they could build such a ship.

MacLeod duly presented the proposal to the government early in 1976, and made the point that in the difficult economic circumstances of the time, it would provide valuable unemployment relief. If begun in 1977 she could enter service in 1984, when the Queen Margaret would have been in service for 30 years. But George Rostron was totally unimpressed, and told the admiral in no uncertain terms that the Navy had acquired a lot of hardware from Brunswick in the early 1950s either free or at knock-down prices, and could not realistically expect to replace it like-for-like, let alone enhance its capability. The government would continue to ensure that Arransia was properly defended, but could make no guarantee of matching what was currently available. MacLeod went away muttering “well, we’ll see about that”. A model of the Queen Imogen, bearing that name, can, however, be seen in the Royal Naval Museum at Beadnell.

Sadly, by this time MacLeod was a seriously ill man, suffering from a rare form of bone cancer. He eventually resigned in September 1976, and sent a letter to Rostron expressing his dismay at the government’s lack of interest in new military hardware, but was too unwell to make anything of it, and indeed his resignation was generally viewed as solely driven by his ill-health. He died in January 1977.

His replacement was the ineffectual Henry Graham (1918-93), and nothing more happened for eighteen months. But Graham found himself increasingly circumvented by his subordinates, and belatedly realised that he had become a government stooge. He stood down in March 1978, and Rostron received a letter signed by every single serving officer of Admiral or General rank stating that they believed that John MacAndrew (1921-2000), the commander of the submarine service, should be appointed as Admiral of the Fleet. The government had no alternative but to comply.

Arransian admirals are not noted for mincing their words, but MacAndrew went far further, and was notoriously blunt and foul-mouthed, even in the company of politicians, even though he came from a well-to-do background. It was clear to him that, if Arransia could not have a new carrier, she would need to upgrade the veteran Queen Margaret to carry A-21s. The Brunswickians were initially sceptical, saying the ship was too small, and muttering about new wine in old bottles, but a demonstration landing and take-off was staged on the carrier, and the detailed designs were given the go-ahead.

MacAndrew went to the stage of arranging draft contracts with both the shipyard and the Brunswickian aircraft manufacturers before presenting his case to the government. The entire project was going to cost in excess of $150m. Rostron was very unhappy with his underhand tactics, but knew that doing nothing was not an option, and that to reject the plans outright would be political suicide. So, in late 1980, he reluctantly signed the contracts, and in March 1981 the Queen Margaret entered the fitting-out dock at Cairds’ for her conversion.

Of course the subsequent general election was won by the Liberals under Adam Sinclair, who were markedly more sympathetic to the Navy, and the Queen Margaret conversion is often wrongly considered to be their decision. Eventually, the ship headed out for sea trials in September 1982. Her flight-deck area had been increased by not far short of 50%, and her bridge and funnel significantly remodelled. Her standard displacement advanced from 37,000 to 44,000 tons. This involved a sacrifice of speed from 31 to 27 knots, but this was acceptable given the kind of engagement she was likely to encounter. While the Mayonnaise had built two larger carriers, they had experienced great difficulty with both mechanical reliability and finding the right aircraft to fly off them, and in 1982 a good case could be made that, Brunswick excepted, the 35-year-old Queen Maggie was the world’s most formidable surface warship. She was a triumph of Arransian shipbuilding expertise, and also of Arransian bloodymindedness.

A demonstration cruise was arranged for the great and good of Arransian politics, and it was noted that Alec Rankine and Martin Fogerty, the two government veterans of the 1960s, now again occupying senior Cabinet positions, were overheard discussing with the elderly Patrick Scullion how the pain of 1968 was being washed away. Scullion later gave a speech in which he said with some pleasure that the 1800 brave men and women who served in the carrier totally gave the lie to the supposed ideals of 1968.

The Navy also at last realised the publicity value of television exposure, and co-operated in an extended documentary about the carrier’s return to service. The sight of the formidable A-21s and sleek F-12s screaming off the catapults and being recovered on the deck by the arrester wires really caught the public imagination, and the ship rapidly assumed the status of a national talisman. The 1987 $10 note of course shows the Queen Margaret, from a point of view behind an A-21 on its final landing approach.

The speed and efficiency of the conversion work was a major factor in Arransia’s rise to eclipse Brunswick’s traditional role as the free world’s leading exporter of new-build warships. An amended version of the Hind class frigates became particularly popular, and Arransia also developed a design of small diesel submarine specially tailored for minor navies. It was always a shock to the system for crews from tropical countries to come to the cold, bleak waters of the Tean to collect their purchases.

¹ MacLeod was married to the daughter of Admiral David Baxter, who had been dismissed in 1946 for proposing the transfer of Mayonnaise warships to Arransian manning. It is generally believed that MacLeod wrote most of Baxter’s controversial book of the 1950s, The Twist of Fate, which argued very convincingly that, if implemented from the start, a combined fleet organisation under the control of an Arransian admiral, could have made the difference in the outcome of the war.

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