Airfix Kit HMS Victorious 1:600

HMS Victorious joined the Home Fleet in May 1941 after its commissioning. Just nine days later, its pilots encountered the German battleship Bismarck and launched an attack. On May 26, 1941, the new aircraft carrier HMS Victorious succeeded in sinking a torpedo into the midship of the battleship and opening a fuel tank of the Bismarck, despite the crew's inexperience.

After the sinking of the Bismarck, HMS Victorious continued its operations with the Home Fleet. The Fairey Albacore aircraft from Victorious were involved in an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in March 1942. They provided cover for the Russian convoys PQ-15 and PQ-17 in May and June 1942. Subsequently, it participated in Operation Pedestal and was involved in the landings in North Africa at the end of 1942. HMS Victorious sailed to Pearl Harbor to join the task group of USS Saratoga, Task Force 14. It arrived on May 17, 1943, and took on duties under Task Force 14 in the Southwest Pacific. It embarked US aircraft and crews and patrolled the Solomon Islands alongside Saratoga.

Throughout that year, this busy ship supported the US Pacific Fleet in many operations, mostly with British and US Wildcat fighter planes. HMS Victorious secured Russian convoys from January to March 1944 and then participated in Operation "Tungsten," an airstrike on the German battleship Tirpitz on April 3, 1944. After another overhaul, it joined the British Eastern Fleet on its way to the Far East. In July 1944, it conducted an attack on Palembang alongside HMS Illustrious and on July 25, an attack on the Andaman Islands with HMS Indomitable. In October 1944, it was assigned to the British Pacific Fleet and served in some of the last fiercely contested operations at the end of the war.