Why prewar merchant-carrier plans did not mature

Britain considered subsidizing or preselecting merchant hulls that could become escort carriers quickly in wartime, an approach with parallels in Japan. The proposal had to survive Treasury restraint, cabinet doubts about treaty compliance, and the risk that preparation would leak to the press. Although the Ten Year Rule ended in 1932, meaningful rearmament funding arrived only later in the decade, leaving too little time to establish a conversion reserve before war. Admiralty papers from the period of First Sea Lord Charles Madden nevertheless show that auxiliary merchant aviation support had been considered long before the MAC name settled into use.