History
The ship was built by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, England during the Second World War for the Royal Navy. As a Colossus-class aircraft carrier, she was named HMS Venerable and saw service in the British Pacific Fleet. However Venerable only served three years in the Royal Navy before being sold to the Dutch as HNLMS Karel Doorman.
After a boiler room fire, the carrier was rebuilt, and sold to Argentina. The Argentines already operated a carrier, the ARA Independencia, also a former Royal Navy Colossus-class. After Independencia was decommissioned in 1970, the Veinticinco de Mayo was the sole remaining carrier in the Argentine fleet. It could carry up to 24 aircraft.
The air group started with F9F Panthers and F9F Cougars jets and later these were replaced with A-4Q Skyhawks supported by S-2 Tracker anti-submarine warfare aircraft and Sikorsky Sea King helicopters.
On September 1969, during the voyage of the recently bought 25 de Mayo in the Netherlands, Hawker Siddeley demonstrated their Harrier GR.1 on board the carrier for a possible sale to the Argentine Navy.
Read more about this topic: ARA Veinticinco de Mayo (V-2)
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