Career
Ordered:
Laid down:	18 March 1915
Launched:	5 February 1916
Commissioned:	4 November 1916
Converted to aircraft carrier:	June 1924 to May 1928
Fate:	Sunk by U-29 on 17 September 1939
General Characteristics
Displacement:	26,518 tons full load
Length:	786.5 ft (240 m)
Beam:	81 ft (25 m)
Draught:	27.75 ft (8.5 m)
Propulsion:	18 Yarrow small tube boilers, Parson geared turbines producing 90,000 shp driving four shafts
Speed:	30.5 knots (57 km/h)
Range:	5,860 miles at 16 knots (9,400 km at 30 km/h)
Complement:	1,200
Armament:	Sixteen 4.7 inch (120 mm) guns Four single 4-pounders
Aircraft:	48

HMS Courageous was a warship of the Royal Navy. She began her career as a large light cruiser (officially a battlecruiser) of 18,600 tons, launched in 1916 along with her two sister ships of the Courageous class, Furious and Glorious.

In World War I she served with the First Cruiser Squadron in the North Sea. On November 17, 1917, she was briefly engaged with German light cruisers in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight and sustained minor damage.

Between the wars, Courageous was converted to an aircraft carrier.

Courageous served with the Home Fleet at the start of World War II. On 17 September 1939 she was on an anti-submarine patrol off the coast of Ireland, when she was torpedoed by U-29 , commanded by Kapitanleutnant Otto Schuhart . Courageous sank quickly with the loss of 518 crew. She was the first British ship to be lost in the war.

After the sinking of Courageous, the Royal Navy withdrew its fleet carriers from anti-submarine patrol.

See HMS Courageous for other ships of this name.