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HMS Courageous was the lead ship of the Courageous-class cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Lightly armoured and armed with only a few heavy guns, the ship was designed to support the Baltic Project, a plan championed by First Sea Lord John Fisher to invade the German coast north of Berlin. Courageous was completed in late 1916 and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. The ship participated in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in November 1917 and was present when the German High Seas Fleet surrendered a year later. Courageous was decommissioned after the war, but rebuilt as an aircraft carrier during the mid-1920s. The ship could carry 48 aircraft compared to the 36 carried by the similar Furious on approximately the same tonnage. After recommissioning and a new career operating off Great Britain and Ireland, the ship briefly became a training carrier until resuming patrols, a few months before the start of the Second World War in September 1939. Courageous was torpedoed and sunk in the opening weeks of the war, with the loss of more than 500 crew members. (Full article...)
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