HMS Ranee

British Escort Carrier HMS Ranee

British Escort Carrier HMS Ranee D03

Originally ordered as USS Niantic (CVE-46), a Bogue-class escort carrier, she was allocated to the Royal Navy under the Lend-Lease agreement and renamed HMS Ranee, of the Ruler-class.

Launched on 2 June 1943 and commissioned on 8 November 1943, she was used as an aircraft transport until October 1944. From From November to January 1945 HMS Ranee acted as the deck landing training carrier. During this time she operated a number of aircraft, mostly from 768 Deck Landing Training Squadron.

From February to April 1945 HMS Ranee operated under US Navy control ferrying aircraft in the Pacific.

On her return to Royal Navy control, HMS Ranee underwent a conversion to a replenishment carrier. However, the Japanese surrender saw the conversion incomplete, so she was finished as a troop carrier instead.

She was returned to US control on 21 November 1946, where she was converted to a merchantman and sold to Rotterdam Lloyd line in 1948 and renamed SS Friesland. Before being sold again to Panama in 1967 and renamed SS Pacific Breeze. She was scrapped in Taiwan, beginning in May 1974.