HMRAS Princess Royal (CV-23)

HMRAS Princess Royal was an aircraft carrier in service with the Royal Navy of Albion between 1978 and 1999. Originally commissioned by the United States Navy as USS Oriskany (CV-34), she was transferred to Albion following an extensive service life. Princess Royal served as the flagship of the RCN through most of the back quarter of the 20th century before being replaced by HMRAS Kaigani, a service life longer than any other carrier of the Essex class.

Procurement
Princess Royal's procurement by the Alban Forces emerged from challenges faced during the Guyana War. Albion's existing carrier of the 1960s, HMRAS Kodiak, proved too small to carry a modern combat air wing, limiting the ship to operating as a sea control carrier focused on anti-submarine warfare. This proved virtually useless in Guyana, where submarine warfare was absent and air warfare over the South American jungle was at a premium. Albion was forced to rely on British and Confederate naval air wings to carve out safe beachheads in Guyana from which ground-based aircraft could be stationed.

Following the war, the Ministry of Defence issued a report recommending decommissioning Kodiak and getting out of the carrier business, citing the inadequacy of the current ship and the enormous expense of procuring a new carrier any time in the near future. In the 1973 budget, the government of Leonard Jeffrey slated the decommissioning of Kodiak in 1975 without a replacement, drawing significant criticism from opposition parties and from some voters, though news opinion pages generally backed the move for budget reasons. A few members of the Labour Party also opposed the move, among them Defence Minister Jack Saltyre, who viewed a carrier as necessary for Albion to maintain an effective blue-water navy and to avoid becoming reliant on the United States from a foreign policy standpoint.

The carrier debate was a relatively minor political issue, but Jeffrey found himself pressed on three fronts: by internal criticism from Saltyre, from public skepticism voiced by Navy veterans and from critiques by Liberal Leader Lamar Welland that Jeffrey was weakening the Navy and ceding control of Albion's coastline to the United States. Further embarrassing Jeffrey was a well-publicized interview with World War II-era Alban Forces Rear Admiral William Upton, who had commanded the carrier HMRAS Magnificent during the Liberation of Nusantara. Upton echoed Saltyre's comments concerning Albion's sovereignty and foreign policy in relation to a carrier, but added that Jeffrey would be "a squish" if he left Albion's navy without an adequate flagship. Infuriated by Upton's comments, Jeffrey would later shift to an ambiguous stance on the carrier issue, telling media the government was "considering all the options" regarding the future of the naval air wing. Kodiak's service life was extended for three additional years as Saltyre began seeking options to replace the ship without bankrupting the Navy.

A replacement opportunity finally emerged in the autumn of 1975, when the United States Navy retired the carrier USS Oriskany. The Romney government, intent on disposing of the Big O in a cost-effective manner, offered the ship to Albion at a modest price, along with a lease of surplus F-8J Crusader fighter aircraft to serve as an interim air wing. Negotiations carried on through the autumn and into the winter before Saltyre announced in late January that Albion had agreed in principle to purchase Oriskany with the intent of recommissioning her as a replacement for Kodiak. The ship was towed to Kitsap Navy Yard in February, arriving days before Jeffrey would resign as Prime Minister following an assassination attempt.

Engineers found Oriskany in timeworn but serviceable condition, but undertook to repair and replace aging systems on as tight a budget as possible. Few structural changes were made to the ship, the main ones being the addition of up-to-date radars similar to those used on the British Invincible-class light carriers and some strengthening of the deck. Refurbishment of the ship took two years, at which point she was commissioned as HMRAS Princess Royal.

Service
Princess Royal entered initial service with an interim combat air wing of just 24 F-8J Crusaders, complemented by the fairly eclectic sea control air wing from Kodiak, consisting primarily of AS-121 Trackers, AV-131 Dynaverts and a mix of Sea King and Whirlwind helicopters. The Crusader fleet was considered a stopgap lease while Albion undertook procurement of a modern air wing in the form of the McDonnell-Douglas AF-188 Hornet.

The ship's early service history was troubled, mostly due to the age of the ship. A small fire aboard the ship in 1982 injured seven crew members and resulted in Princess Royal being temporarily drydocked for repairs. When she redeployed in early 1983, she was restricted to near-shore training exercises as her air wing transitioned from the tricky-to-land leased Crusaders to the more modern AF-18s. The Hornets proved somewhat easier to land, mostly due to better nose wheel design and the addition of a better catapult during Princess Royal's refurbishment. The Hornet fleet would be complemented in 1988 by the newly-arrived Dynavert AV-158 Vertigull, replacing the Tracker in the ASW role.

Princess Royal saw action as part of NATO operations in Latin America in the 1980s, providing presence flights in the face of fresh provocations from Colombia and Centroamerica against Guyana and other NATO allies in the Caribbean. The ship would transfer to the Pacific later in the 1980s, notably taking part in a large-scale hunt in August 1989 for a suspected Soviet submarine sighted off the Aleutian Islands. The interloper was never positively identified, but aircraft from Princess Royal would shadow the Akula-class submarine K-263 in the North Pacific later that year as she passed by the Line Islands.

In 1990, Princess Royal would deploy to the Mediterranean Sea as part of Operation Retain Open, the NATO effort to maintain peace in the airspace over Catalonia following the breakup of Spain and subsequent Spanish-Catalan tensions. Alban aircraft did not see active combat in this theatre, but two Hornets flown by Colonel Leah Booth and wingman Captain Moses Nahbexie engaged in a notable intercept of two fully-loaded Spanish F-175 Thunderhawk fighters over the Balearic Sea. The intercept saw Booth and Nahbexie lock weapons on the Spanish aircraft, which were bound for Catalan airspace and ignoring radio warnings. At the last moment, the two Spanish aircraft turned back, and the Alban aircraft shadowed them back to Spanish airspace.

Final missions
In 1994, with the purchase of USS Ranger for conversion, Princess Royal was slated for decommissioning at the time of the new ship's readiness. The exact timing of the transition was unclear, but refurbishments to the future Kaigani would take long enough that it would be Princess Royal which would carry Albion's flag during Operation Dawning Freedom in South Africa. The emerging racial uprising saw a multinational coalition emerge to enforce an end to Apartheid following a series of atrocities against the rising black liberation movement, transforming the South African government into an international pariah.

Aircraft from Princess Royal and HMS Invincible were instrumental in bringing an end to South Africa's use of aircraft to suppress protests in the former Bantustans. Most notably, Alban Hornets provided air cover for British Harriers as part of a strike that knocked out the bulk of South Africa's remaining Blackburn Buccaneer force. The mission saw Alban Hornets score victories over three South African Atlas Cheetahs. Combat operations ended within a couple of weeks of the mission as South Africa agreed to stand down the use of military weapons against the protestors, though NATO forces continued to maintain a no-fly zone over South Africa to guarantee peace during the transition to free elections.

Following Operation Dawning Freedom, Princess Royal embarked on a final world tour, notably making stops in Tokyo, Singapore, Nouméa, Surabaya, Diego Garcia, Salonika, Portsmouth, New York City and Prince Edward before returning to Kitsap Navy Yard in 1999. The ship undertook a last sail alongside HMRAS Kaigani following the newer ship's launch and commissioning, then drydocked at Kitsap for disposal.

Disposal
The government of James Glen arranged for the sale of Princess Royal to a shipbreaking firm at the time of her decommissioning. However, subsequent years revealed that not only was nothing being done, the firm didn't have anything close to the staff or facilities it had claimed in the original request for proposals. The deal was chalked up by the Liberal government of Eugene Woloshyn as another example of Glen's numerous corruption scandals and swiftly cancelled under terms of the contract. Princess Royal was repossessed, and the government went back to the market in search of buyers.

The ship was ultimately sold in 2004 to an unlikely buyer: The Confederate state of Florida, backing an effort to purchase the ship and sink her as an artificial reef. A private firm towed the rusting Princess Royal out of drydock at Kitsap later that year, towing the hulk to the Caribbean Sea to be docked at Pensacola pending her sinking.