Naval Institute Press. Goldman, Emily O. Jameson, William 1 April []. Periscope Publishing. Lenton, H. London: Greenhill Books.
Lloyd's of London Press. O'Hara, Vincent Struggle for the Middle Sea. Paterson, Lawrence U-boats in the Mediterranean, — Rossiter, Mike []. London: Corgi Books. Sullivan, David M. Warship International. Westwood, J. Williamson, Gordon German Battleships — Oxford: Osprey Publishing. Prewar service Construction took time: The hull spent nearly two years in the yard before the launch, on 13 April on Merseyside.
It was in part due to numerous design revisions. The lauch saw her christened by Lady Maud Hoare in front of a crowd of 60, But its started badly: The bottle of champagne only smashed at the fourth attempt. Nevertheless, Reverend W. Webb, Vicar of St. Mary's, Birkenhead made the traditional old blessing. Fitting out took one more year, completion supervised by her very first commander, Captain Arthur Power, which went on board on 16 November , and prepared her and the crew for a commission on 16 December.
HMS Ark Royal' stern, just completed Initially, the admiralty planned her to be sent in the far east, but the situation in Europe made her stay after commission. The recent Italian invasion of Abyssinia in and the Spanish Civil War in indicated she would be useful in the Mediterranean Fleet. The crew was completed at the end of and started training, while HMS Ark Royal started her sea trials campaign for effective service.
Once done, she was ready for some fixes, and returned for a last campaign of trials, from December to January , on the Clyde. Ermen , which proceeded to the first landings and operations. Between January and March: , she departed for a training cruise to the Mediterranean. HMS Ark Royal entered Valetta Harbour, Malta for the first time the island will took quite an importance in her active life , and went on due east, entering Alexandria to start a serie of exercises with the carrier HMS Glorious.
By the end of March she sailed for home waters, recalled as the international situation was tense. She spent the summer in home waters. On 31 August the outbreak of hostilities was awaited and the aircraft carrier was back sea with the Home Fleet, starting to patrol the waters between the Shetlands and Norway. Just hours after the war was made official, SS Athenia was torpedoed by U Soon in a few days, some 65, tons of shipping were sunk in rapid succession by U-boats.
It was indeed easier for planes to detect submarines underwater. Ark Royal's aircraft scrambled there, but soon after they spotted U in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft carrier. The latter launched two torpedoes, which tracks were followed by outlooks on board, the captain ordering to turn towards those. Both missed and explode astern. F-class destroyers started a depth charge run, and the U-Boat was eventually forced to the surface, badly damaged, while the crew abandoned her, and she sank.
Ark Royal had indirectly scored the first U-Boat kill of the war. They unsuccessfully attacked U, but two crashed, caught by the blast and water plume of their own bombs. The U-boat had time to recuperate its boarding party and torpedoed the unfortunate merchant vessel. Ark Royal was back to base at Loch Ewe later. The ship hosted Winston Churchill which though the U kill was an important morale booster, shadowing the failed attack.
HMS Courageous was torpedoed and sunk on 17 September, convincing the Admiralty her carriers were too exposed, and the hunter-killer concept was abandoned.
She escorted Nelson and Rodney the following day when spotted by Dornier Do 18 seaplanes. Three Blackburn Skuas were in the air, shooting down one of these, the first British aerial kill.
Next, the Germans dispatched four Junkers Ju 88 bombers bomber wing KG 30 : Three were driven away by AA fire, the fourth successfully launched its 1,kilogram bomb after diving on the carrier, which spotted it and turned hard to starboard, heeling over, while the projectile hit the water 30 metres off her starboard bow.
The Germans later incorrectly claimed to have sunk her, conducting Winston Churchill to personally reassur Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and this later became an embarrassment for Goebbels. Ark Royal and Renown were dispatched to join the cruisers outside the harbour but there were far from there. To fool the Germans, an order for fuel for Ark Royal was placed at Buenos Aires, west of Montevideo, voluntarily leaked to the press, and ending in the German embassy in Montevideo, convincing Hans Langsdorff to scuttle his ship.
That was another famous indirect victory for Ark Royal. HMS Ark Royal and her air group src naviearmatori. She headed for Portsmouth to take on supplies and personnel, then for Scapa Flow. However the exercises were cancelled and order came to rush back to Gibraltar. Air cover was urgent so Ark Royal and Glorious were eventually recalled on 16 April. Both arrived at Scapa Flow on 23 April They took up position on 25 April off the Norwegian coast, nautical miles km offshore.
Their air groups commenced anti-submarine patrols, and fighter cover for the fleet. They also started strikes against German shipping and shore targets. Ark Royal refuelled on 27 April in Scapa and took on new planes to replace losses.
She took several near-misses though, but only slight splinter damage. One the evacuations done on 3 May, she rushed back to Scapa Flow to refuel and rearm. They made the first of several runs from Scapa Flow, on 1 June; Ark Royal's air group was very active, bombing advancing German troops on 3—6 June, and above Narvik itself on 7 June.
On the 8 however, Glorious, was sunk by the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, looked for later by the Ark Royal's aircraft. The last convoy back to UK started on 9 June. The same night however, the escort destroyers Antelope and Electra collided while Ark Royal in heavy fog while on site, the raid proved a fiasco, with eight of fifteen Skuas shot down.
KMS Scharnhorst escaped, unscaved. He was naturally chosen by Cunningham to negociate with Admirak Buno Gensoul. Under pressure of Churchill Operation Catapult , it was asked a surrender or scuttling of the French fleet. Force H deployed outside the harbour while negociation soon met a standstill, Gensoul refusing the proposals. Despite of this, Strasbourg escaped, attacked on her way by Swordfish from Ark Royal.
Two days after, Dunkerque, beached, was badly damaged by Swordfish. Nevertheless, Somerville cancelled the raids against Italian coastal objectives. Malta soon came under attack by the Italian air force, Hawker Hurricanes were carried to reinforce the island's air defences. The attack on Dakar Force H remained at Gibraltar until 30 September, later escorting a reinforcement fleet to Alexandria, attacking Italian air bases at Elmas and Cagliari en route, also as a diversion.
Indeed a new supply convoy was soon sailing to Malta, on 1st october. Negociating aircrews were arrested and negotiations so the air group of Ark Royal targeted military installations but ultimately failed to take Dakar by force. Ark Royal as soon back in home waters for maintenance in dockyard and a refit in Liverpool. This went on from on 8 October until 3 November, including machinery repairs and the installation of a new flight deck barrier.
Battle of Cape Spartivento 27 Nov. After several runs, Ark Royal participated in Operation Collar , a strong convoy to Malta one of 35 until on 25 November. A battlefleet led by Giulio Cesare and Vittorio Veneto was scrambled to intercept it, detected by a reconnaissance aircraft from Ark Royal. Immediately, the carrier launched a squadron of Swordfish torpedo bombers while battleships took positions.
The Italian destroyer Lanciere was damaged, mistook for a cruiser but after erroneous reports, the Italian commanders folded up, not before ordering a retaliatory attack by the Italian air force.
HMS Ark Royal was strafed and bombed but escaped damage. The ended as a draw. The goal was to operate from the Azores, patrolling in search of German commerce raiders. Ark Royal's air group however potted none. She escorted merchant vessels arriving from Malta.
The crews rested in Gibraltar in December, while Force H was prepared for Operation Excess : The plan was to bring a large reinforcement convoy through the Mediterranean, to support the Western Desert Force trying to chase off Italian forces from Egypt into Libya. However the presence of the Luftwaffe, and soon the arrival of the Africa Korps, threatened British control of the Mediterranean. Soon, the aircraft carrier Illustrious was badly damaged and out of the game for some time.
The Eastern Mediterranean Fleet Alexandria was especially weak, while Hitler attempted to draw into the war. Against the whole Spanish army, fleet and air force, Gibraltar would have stood little chance. So to relieve the Mediterranean Fleet and as a show of strength towards the Spanish, the Admiralty confered with Admiral Cunningham about the use of Ark Royal bombers for a serie of raids against Italian objectives, supported the surface fleet battleship and cruisers shelling.
The first raid was mounted on 2 January against the Tirso Dam, Sardinia. But it was largely unscaved. The Swordfish on 6 January bombed Genoa with more success and covered Renown and Malaya shelling the port. On 9 January, Force H bombed and shelled the oil refinery at La Spezia while laying mines in the harbour. HMS Ark Royal under air attack Searching for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau In early February , Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were signalled into the Atlantic, in a mission to disrupt Allied shipping, drawing away British capital ships, both as a diversion and offering targets of opportunity for U-Boats.
They were also scrambled to cover convoys coming from the United States. HMS Ark Royal deployed her air group in a large search pattern area, and three prize crew German ships were located on 19 March: Two which scuttled themselves and a third, the SS Polykarp, which was was recaptured. On late 21 March , one of the carrier's Fulmar at last located Scharnhorst and Gneisenau underway. Fate would have the info was never sent due to a radio malfunction.
By the time the plane landed to deliver their report, both German ships had vanished in the fog, while the next day, new air patrols were sent, hoping to relocate them. Then bad luck stroke when after a catapult malfunction the Fairey Swordfish plunged into the sea, juste ahead of the carrier's prow, which ran over it when its depth charges exploded, damaging her bow. Meanwhile, the German battleships were back in Brest. Ark Royal was the first ship to be constructed with an angled flight deck and steam catapults, as opposed to having them added after launching.
These innovations allowed aircraft to land and take off from the carrier at the same time. Her flight deck as built was by feet by 34 m. About a year after commissioning, her forward port 4. Four years later, the port deck-edge lift and the forward starboard 4.
After the refit only one twin 4. From to February , she underwent a refit which was a major rebuild to her structure, but only an austere update to her electronic equipment, and was confined to changes needed to operate the RN's version of the Phantom. Like Eagle her modifications included a full 8. Twelve hundred miles of new cabling was installed, but the ship was not completely rewired and retained old DC electrics.
A modified island with a different arrangement from Eagle and a partially new electronic suite were also added, though some of her original radars, such as heightfinders were retained and she did not receive the 3-D air-search radar set that her sister had fitted, instead two double array versions of the standard RN long range system were fitted and one of the new sets.
Her flight deck size was increased port aft however, giving her extra deck-park space for her airgroup that Eagle did not have. She was also fitted for four Sea Cat missile launchers, but they were never installed, so she emerged from this refit with no defensive armament.
Significantly, there was little more than an overhaul of her steam turbines and boilers; meaning that mechanically she was very dated, however the stripping out of Eagle meant that for a time essential spares were available. Ark Royal was then scheduled for at the most only five years more service by a new government policy to scrap the carriers by Intensive maintenance as well as a new programme of continuous servicing and repair with RN maintenance ships always in her task groups , was able kept her going until late , though increasing mechanical and electrical failures lead to her decommissioning in early Initially on entry into service, the ship had a complement of up to 50 aircraft comprising Sea Hawks, Sea Venoms, Gannets, Skyraiders and various helicopters.
As later aircraft types grew in size and complexity, her air group fell to below 40 when she left service in Its crew work alongside airmen and women to keep the vessel and its aircraft running, and it is also capable of carrying a so-called Embarked Military Force of approximately Royal Marines or Army personnel ready for deployment.
A range of aircraft - including Lynx, Apache, and Sea King helicopters, and Harrier jets - use it as their base. At metres feet long, Ark Royal is larger than its sister ships Illustrious and Invincible, and also has a steeper flight ramp to assist take-offs.
But it is just as versatile, able to operate almost anywhere in the world. Aircraft carriers are key to modern defence strategy, allowing for early reconnaissance, the landing of special forces and land attack from the air. Ark Royal took part in the invasion of Iraq in and in June this year, Ark Royal took part in celebrations marking the centenary of the Canadian Navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in the presence of the Queen. In July, the carrier celebrated its silver jubilee while on operations off the US east cost.
Crew members formed the shape of the number 25 on deck for a special aerial photograph.
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