Mayday for the HMS Vengeance

An aircraft carrier that played a key role in the liberation of Hong Kong at the end of the second world war is heading for the breakers' yard unless a buyer can be found this weekend.

HMS Vengeance, which sailed into Victoria Harbour with 1,400 troops on board as the Japanese surrender began and served as a base for the allied forces, is in dry dock in Brazil, where it is being offered for US$6.5 million.

The vessel is one of the last surviving second world war aircraft carriers and was used by the Brazilian navy until just over two years ago.

At least three potential buyers - including a South American navy and a United States-based entertainment company - are to be asked to table final bids by today after the vessel was advertised for sale on the eBay internet auction site. Failing a sale, a tug boat is standing by to tow the vessel to a breaker's yard in India, where it will be sold for scrap to avoid the huge cost of docking and maintenance.

The eleventh-hour search for a buyer follows the failure of a campaign by ex-servicemen to raise enough money to buy the vessel and turn it into a floating museum to be moored along England's south coast.

The fund-raising drive reunited hundreds of former shipmates who served together on Vengeance during its four months in Hong Kong, where one of their first missions was to liberate the Royal Yacht Club from the Japanese. Ron Davis, 50, whose father served on board in Hong Kong and who runs a website dedicated to the vessel, said from his home in Northern Ireland: 'My personal feeling is that it is lost now. I think that she will just go to be broken up.'