HMS Ranee (D03)

The USS "Niantic" (CVE-46), was a US escort aircraft carrier, that served in the Royal Navy as HMS "Ranee" (D03).

"Niantic", originally given the designation "AVG-46", was redesignated as "ACV-46" on 20 August 1942. She was laid down by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation of Tacoma, Washington on 5 January 1943; launched 2 June 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Ray V. Blanco. She was redesignated again to CVE-46 on 15 July 1943; transferred to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease 8 November 1943; and commissioned into the Royal Navy.

As one of the 38 converted C3 escort carriers transferred to the United Kingdom, "Ranee" joined the merchant aircraft carriers guarding the Atlantic convoy routes. Assigned to the Western Approaches, her aircraft helped to turn the tables on foraging U-boats in the North Atlantic and also assisted in operations to close their northern transit into the Atlantic and track them down in the Bay of Biscay. Serving with Training Squadron, Western Approaches, at the end of 1945, she was returned to U.S. custody at Norfolk, Virginia, 21 November 1946. Declared not essential to the defense of the U.S., she was struck from the Navy List, 22 January 1947 and sold into merchant service 9 June 1947 to the Waterman Steamship Corporation, Mobile, Alabama as "Friesland" (later "Pacific Breeze"). She was sold for scrap in Taiwan in 1974.

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