HMS Glorious was a bit of an unlucky ship from the get go. Incompetence, however, seems to have been a large part of her downfall in her final battle.

She was built in WWI. Lord Fisher wanted more battle cruisers, but the government had banned building anything larger than a light cruiser (because they felt the Royal Navy had enough battleships to contain the German High Seas Fleet, but wanted to build more light ships for anti-submarine warfare.)

Lord Fisher ordered a compromise. Glorious was built with a light cruiser hull, almost no armor, and a few very large guns (4 15 inch guns).

In her only engagement in WWI she had one of her own shells explode inside one of her own guns, putting her out of the fight.

After WWI she was converted to an aircraft carrier. For this role, she was usefully fast, but rather small. She could originally carry 48 aircraft, but less as naval aircraft became larger.

In 1931, steaming at 16 knots in a fog in the Mediterranean, she rammed the French Ocean Liner "Florida", killing 24 passengers and crew on the Liner and one on Glorious.

During WWII Glorious was being used to ferry land based aircraft across the North Sea to aid in the defense of Norway. She was coming back from Norway, evacuating 20 land based fighters back to the UK (these could not take off from an aircraft carrier) and with carrier capable air of only 10 fighters and 5 torpedo bombers aboard.

She was escorted by 2 destroyers. Unfortunately, this squadron encountered the German battle cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Glorious had no combat air patrol aloft. She had no lookout in the crowsnest. Her two destroyer escorts were close by rather than scouting forward. This is why she didn't see the Germans until they were almost within long gunnery range.

She also had no aircraft on deck or ready to fly. The destroyers were ordered forward to investigate the unknown ships, while the 5 (somewhat outdated) Swordfish torpedo bombers were ordered brought up on deck.

Despite spotting the Germans at slightly after 1600 hrs, by 1638, when the first German shell hit the Glorious, destroying two of the Swordfish, starting a fire, and blowing a hole in the flight deck, so the other planes could not take off, the planes had not been readied nor launched.

The Glorious and both her escorting destroyers were sunk by gunfire. Only 40 men survived. The Germans took two hits from the destroyers guns and a torpedo hit from HMS Acasta, which caused casualties and serious damage to the Scharnhorst.

The Captain of Glorious, had had a good combat record in submarines in WWI, but had only just transferred to Aircraft Carriers. He had fallen out with the Commander of his Air Wing, and left him behind in Scapa to be court martialed.

Admiral Dudley Pound wrote, "Glorious seems to have forgotten that she was a man of war."

Caught unprepared. No lookout. No combat air patrol. (Probably grim relations with the Air Wing.) Destroyers not deployed in scouting positions. Didn't turn away and try to run for it when strange ships sighted (as it turns out, she couldn't have outrun the German battle cruisers, as they were slightly faster than she was, but she didn't know that they weren't pocket battleships - which she could have out run - and she might have bought enough time to get her aircraft away). Didn't get the aircraft deployed rapidly.

Something seems to have been very wrong on the HMS Glorious.

A mystery is why Glorious nor her escorts radioed any contact reports or battle reports.

There is said to be classified material about the battle which will not be released until 100 years (2040).

It may be that this is related to the presence fairly nearby of HMS Devonshire, which was evacuating the Norwegian Royal Family and Norway's gold reserves to the UK.

In the absence of any other information. It seems most likely that the skipper of the Glorious badly blundered.

It is perhaps unlikely that the 5 Swordfish would have sunk or badly damaged the German battle cruisers, but with better preparation and readiness, the Glorious and her escorts could probably have escaped destruction.

Source:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12342