HMS Victorious (R38) was the second Illustrious-class aircraft carrier ordered under the 1936 Naval Programme. She was laid down at the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1937, and launched just two weeks into World War II in 1939. Yet she was not commissioned into the Royal Navy until 1941 due to an urgent and more pressing need for escort vessels for service in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Five ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Victorious.
The first HMS Victorious was launched at Blackwall, London in 1785. She was a third-rate ship of the line, with an armament of 74 guns. The Victorious participated in the capture of the Dutch colony of Cape Town, in which an invasion had been caused due to fears of France's expansion across the world.
The second HMS Victorious (the first being HMS Victorious (1785)) was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was launched at Portsmouth in 1808, just five years after the first of the lineage was broken up. Her first action came the year after her launch, as part of the Baltic Squadron, in which she assisted in the bombardment of the port of Flushing (Vlissingen) in what is now the Netherlands. the naval bombardment was just a part of a much larger operation.
The third ship to be named HMS Victorious had the most quiet of careers. She was one of nine Majestic-class pre-Dreadnought battleships, that had an armament of 4 × 12 inch guns and 12 × 6 inch guns. She was built at Chatham Dockyard.
HMS Victorious (S29) is the second Vanguard class submarine of the Royal Navy. Victorious carries the Trident ballistic missile, the UK's nuclear deterrent.
