Talk:HMCS Bonaventure

Majestic class

The article says

She was acquired in the early 1950s by the Canadian Navy, which was looking to replace its aging WW2-vintage light carriers Magnificent and Warrior which were deemed too small and slow for the jet age.

This makes no sense, because Magnificent and Powerful were both Majestic-class carriers. So if one was too small and slow, why wasn't the other? There needs to be a better explanation here. Gdr 16:14, 2004 Nov 16 (UTC)

Gdr, I believe you may have misread that paragraph. I believe what the author was trying to say was that the Magnificant and Warrior were to small and slow compared to the ships that were in exsistance during that time frame, and the Canadian government wanted them replaced with bigger faster ships [[[Capt.Nero]]

The Bonaventure was a Majestic-class carrier. And so was the Magnificent, its predecessor; the article says that the Canadian Navy wanted to replace its small, slow Majestic-class aircraft carrier with another small, slow Majestic-class aircraft carrier. It has now been rewritten to take account of the angled flight deck, but it's still confusing. -Ashley Pomeroy 16:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It was a modified, souped up Majestic with all the mod-cons: angled flight deck, steam catapult. I've had a brief squiz at the history of the Majestic class while writing up HMAS Melbourne (R21), and have come to the conclusion that it is a class of five unique ships and one pile of scrap. -- saberwyn 09:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Categorization

This vessel is categorized in Category:Cold War aircraft carriers of Canada. As such, it should not be also categorized in that category's parent category (Category:Aircraft carriers of Canada per Wiki's categorization rules. Josh 17:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC) WP:Ships appears to contravene this with their categorization guidelines, so duplicate listings are okay apparantly. Josh 17:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 06:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Rumors of India

There is a long running legend that the Bonnie went to the Indian Navy after decommissioning. The INS also had the INS Vikrant which was also a Majestic Class Air Craft carrier. Does anyone have any sources that confirm or debunk the transfer of the Bonnie? --Clausewitz01 (talk) 23:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely false. If you read INS Vikrant you'd see that the Vikrant was the uncompleted HMS Hercules which was sold to India and completed as the Vikrant. -MBK₀₀₄ 23:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Also the dates don't match up. Vikrant was commissioned in 1961, Bonaventure was decommissioned in 1970. -MBK₀₀₄ 23:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The Vikrant got a mysterious upgrade in 1970, which co-incided with the Bonnie's tow to Thailand, in fact the two ships were in the same patch of ocean at the same time. It is rumoured that the Vikrant ended up being scrapped, and the Bonnie (with the upgrades/refit) went into Indian service. There are photos of Canadian fighter squadron patches decaled to panels in the Vikrant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.200.222.182 (talk) 04:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The Naval Officers Association of Canada official website claims here http://www.noac-national.ca/article/varner/rumoursofasianaircraftcarriers_byjoevarner.html that the well maintained and recently refitted Bonaventure was quietly swapped for the worn out Indian carrier Vibrant in 1971 which was the ship actually scrapped, it quotes Halifax Herald reporter Mike Bembridge and Senator Forrestall who attempted to track down Bonaventure in Japan after it disappeared for two weeks only to reappear already partly disassembled where it was supposed to be scrapped. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.177.65.209 (talk) 09:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

from the above cite:"In a 1989 Oral History Project of the Library of Parliament, Senator J. Michael Forrestall, a former Progressive Conservative Party defence critic in the House of Commons, cast doubt on the Bonaventure's supposed early demise." another quote: "One evening, Forrestall called the Indian Embassy and asked the Military Attache how the Bonaventure was working out. The Attache replied, "splendid, we are quite pleased with it." and then, realizing his slip, immediately hung up the phone." Surprising to see such a conspiracy allegedly entered in to an official Oral History Project of the Library of Canadian Parliament and to see it repeated by the Naval Officers Association of Canada, perhaps worthy of inclusion in this, Vikrant, and Sen. Forrestall pages?79.177.65.209 (talk) 10:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Propose deletion

This is clearly a fringe conspiracy theory with no proper sources to support it. It really diminishes the quality of an otherwise interesting article. The referenced article is no longer online.

Swapping two major warships without it being immediately obvious to observers would be nigh on impossible and would have been widely reported or at least very well known in the naval community during the Cold War. Particularly so when we're talking about a class of ships as heterogeneous as the Majestics. They weren't ever close to being identical except on the original uncompleted plans. Beyond this, the Bonnie was clearly at last partially scrapped since this article itself references the fact that her catapult was salvaged in order to repair the HMAS Melbourne.

An undertaking like replacing an aircraft carrier and sailing it from Japan to India would have left at least one witness willing to speak by now and there would be little motive to cover it up in the first place unless the working theory is that the Indian government simply wanted to steal a Canadian aircraft carrier. It wasn't until Smiling Buddha that Indo-Canadian relations cooled and I have a hard time imagining that a military sale would have been impossible given that Canada was providing nuclear technology and assistance through the 60s.

Beyond these practical considerations, there are other problems with the sourcing. Michael Forrestall was not a senator in 1989, according to WP he was appointed to the Senate in 1990 so while I may be splitting hairs, it seems odd to refer to him as such in the context of the Oral History Project except so as to reinforce an appeal to authority. It's worth noting that no part of this tale is included in the entry for Forrestall himself and I can't find any sources for this story that don't eventually loop back to the same two web pages.

There are no mainstream media or academic sources to support this idea and I don't believe you need to prove the negative on WP, though I'm rusty on the rules these days as I have not been an active editor in a long time. Furthermore it's unclear if the conspiracy theory even has much currency as a rumour, I've certainly never heard it before prior to this article so I'm not even sure it's worthy of treatment as trivia.

In summary, I propose that this section either be removed completely or, if somebody can show that this theory has some currency, significantly reworking it and reducing to a single sentence or two mentioning this as trivia. Gabe (talk) 03:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

I concur, and I've removed the section. Any mention as trivia would of course need to cite verifiable reliable sources. - BilCat (talk) 13:55, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Reverted and edited for cultural/historical significance with the 1968 disbanding of the RCN for the Canadian Forces. The cite link is still good, not sure why you are having a problem with it, it is the Naval Officers Association of Canadia though archived on archive.org. from the Wikipedia Forrestall page: "Forrestall was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1965 federal election as the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was elected the MP for Dartmouth—Halifax East in the 1968 election, and remained in the House for a total of twenty-three years.Forrestall was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1965 federal election as the Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was elected the MP for Dartmouth—Halifax East in the 1968 election, and remained in the House for a total of twenty-three years."79.182.20.133 (talk) 17:52, 8 November 2014 (UTC)Solomon(for now)

I've removed it again. You need to read and understand WP:RS. Simply repeating the bios of the MP and Senator prove nothing to back up the reliability of the source or the veracity of the rumor, or prove that they even participated in the claimed incidents. The Naval Officers Association of Canada site was simply repeating a rumor, and the fact that the page is now gone from that site probably says something about it's significance and veracity. If it's significant to the history of the carrier, then find a published reliable source such as mainstream newspaper that says it's an important legend. Even the original Halifax Herald article by reporter Mike Bembridge, assuming there was such an article, would be a good start. - BilCat (talk) 18:45, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I did a quick double paste, it is a talk page not for production, please don't get hung up on that. The NOAC, an association with a royal charter

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/List_of_Canadian_organizations_with_royal_patronage has split web presence to separate provincial websites so the obviously fictional story(I don't think anyone seriously believes this rumor) showing the cultural impact of the disbanding of the RCN is no longer up and must be retrieved from archive, these cites from are to back up that there was a survival rumor not a real swap.79.182.20.133 (talk) 06:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)Solomon(for now)

This is more or less an appeal to authority though, the NOAC itself is more of a social group than a historical society. I agree that nobody believed the story, but I think to qualify as a bona fide rumour worthy of an encyclopedia article we need to have more than one sketchy article. There are rumours of all kinds of wacky things that really don't deserve mention here, even if they are "real" rumours. I suggested the deletion in the first place, not so much because the rumour wasn't interesting but because WP seems to be a bit of a collecting ground for wacky conspiracy theories in some of its less popular articles (my personal favourite was the article on Japan's atomic weapons programme where at one point there was an editor claiming that there had been a cover-up and that Japan had actually detonated a small bomb or at least a dirty bomb near the end of WWII). There was even a book published (I think), but it didn't deserve much coverage in an encyclopedia unless the topic of the article was about the conspiracy theories themselves. The point of this digression is just that the article itself is the beginning of a good one and HMCS Bonaventure is certainly significant in the history of the RCN as well as the history of naval air power and its relationship to NATO's control of the North Atlantic during the Cold War and the effects of politics and budgets on these requirements. I'd hate to see the rest of the article cast into doubt because of very poorly sourced trivia. So for those reasons I really think it would be better for the overall article if it was left out. Gabe (talk) 02:24, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, not to mention the unlikeliness of such a switch happening with or without witnesses or anyone noticing that the Indian carrier suddenly had a lot of weird changes from one year to the next. NiD.29 (talk) 06:38, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Image removal

I have had to remove the title image of the anchor monument as it does not fit well up there. The image needs to be one of the actual ship itself (which we do not have anywhere in this article). The anchor image should rather be placed somewhere further down the page perhaps in a section on monuments (or something like that). trainfan01 7:02, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Naval Ensign

The convention is to show the flag last flow when ships flew more than one ensign during their service in any one navy. In this case the Bonnie flew the Canadian naval ensign after 1965 until she was decommissioned in 1970.

Well, as I said before the page simply says "most articles display the final ensign flown". And as I had pointed out the majority of articles on ships of that period, between the RCN and CFMARCOM dates, have both flags displayed. Not my idea, but I think it is a good one. Many of these vessels pictures have the White Ensign displayed, so by showing both it serves to explain that reason. And as you had commented previously on the Bonnie not being commissioned into the RN, it should serve as explaination to those not familar with the history of the RCN.

The other thing is according to the WikiProject Ships/Ensigns, Jacks are not to be displayed, and unfortunately, it is the CFMARCOM/RCN Jack you have displayed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.228.104.146 (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

As per BRD you should refrain from re-applying your change until a consensus for the change has been established. Continuing to re-apply your change without that consensus is likely to be construed as edit warring.

Regarding the flag being displayed, if the template is displaying the incorrect flag, then that is a problem for the template and you should take that up there. - Nick Thorne ^talk 00:43, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but what consensus do you have? I pointed out several problems and reason as to why the changes, yet your position, if I understand it correctly is simply based on what you feel is appropriate? You are displaying the Jack used by the RCN, not the Ensign. You maybe a former aviator with the RAN and believe me I respect that deeply, many of my relatives are ex RCN Fleet Air Arm. But I do not think it reasonable to simply say it's your way, or I am 'edit warring'. Plus I am simply following a design originated by someone else, though it is one I agree with, and for good and logical reasons. I do believe though, that your behaviour regarding this violates the ideals the wiki is trying to promote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.228.104.146 (talk) 02:20, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

This was discussed centrally at WP:SHIPS, (specifically here) which examined the issue of the way flags are used in infoboxes, their purpose, and how many should be displayed. The consensus was for a single one. If there are vessels that span the 1968 divide between ensign usage that are showing more than one ensign, it is those that need to be changed to come into line with that consensus and the guidelines we have written to ensure standardisation across the ships of all navies, not just the Canadian one. As to edit warring, Nick Thorne is quite right. WP:BRD is quite clear, having been bold, and been reverted, you need to enter into a discussion that results in a new agreement for reinstating your change. Not simply posting a message at the talk page, and then immediately reverting, which you have done twice now. A third time will leave you in a unsafe position with WP:3RR. Finally, you may well be right that the template is in error and is transcluding the wrong flag for the period. That needs to be looked at and discussed on the template's page, and can't be used here as a justification for overruling the consensus on the number of flags in the infobox. Benea (talk) 11:48, 9 August 2012 (UTC)