MV ''Gadila'' was one of nine Anglo Saxon

Royal Dutch/Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

oil tankers converted to become a Merchant Aircraft Carrier (MAC ship). The group is sometimes collectively known as the ''Rapana'' class. MV ''Gadila'' was built at the Howaldtswerke,

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

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and completed 11 April 1935 as an oil tanker for the

line. She was converted at Smith's Dock,

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between April 1943 and 1 February 1944. She entered service as a MAC ship in March 1944, and operated under the Netherlands Mercantile Marine flag. As a MAC ship, she had no aircraft hangar, and continued to carry normal cargoes with a mercantile ship's crew, although operating under British Royal Navy control. Only her air crew and the aviation support staff were Naval personnel. In the case of the ''Gadila'', these were provided by the Royal Netherlands Navy and served as elements of

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860 (Dutch) Naval Air Squadron. The ''Gadila'' and her sister MV ''Macoma'' were the first aircraft carrying vessels with a flight deck to be operated under the flag of the Netherlands. At the end of the war, ''Gadila'' was reconverted to an entirely mercantile oil tanker and served in this capacity until broken up for scrap in Hong Kong in 1958.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gadila Oil tankers Gadila 1934 ships