Wiki Warships

HMAS Sydney - Australia


HMAS Sydney in 1940. A spar projecting forward from the bridge and the single 4.0 inch (102 mm) AA guns amidships distinguished Sydney from other ships in her class.

Career
Named after: HMAS Sydney (1912)
Builder: Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited, Portsmouth
Laid down: 8 July1933
Launched: 22 September1934
Christened: HMS Phaeton
Commissioned: 24 September1935
Renamed: HMAS Sydney (II) (before launching)
Status: Sunk by HSK Kormoran 19 November 1941
Homeport: Fremantle, Western Australia

General characteristics
Displacement: 6,830t
Length: 562 ft (171.3 m)
Beam: 56 ft (17.1 m)
Propulsion: 72,000 hp
Speed: 32.5 knots (60 km/h)
Complement: 645
Armament:8 × 6 in (152 mm) guns,
4 × 4 in (102 mm) guns,
3 x .50 machine guns,
12 x .303 Lewis machine guns,
8 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (in 2 quadruple mounts)
Aircraft carried: 1 x Supermarine Walrus

HMAS Sydney was a modified Leander-classlight cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy. The ship had great success in the first years of World War II, but controversy and mystery surrounds the loss of Sydney and her crew in November 1941. Her sinking with all hands represents the greatest ever loss of life in an Australian warship; Sydney was also the largest vessel of any country to be lost with all hands during the war.

It was announced on March 16, 2008 that the wreckage of the German vessel which sank HMAS Sydney, the auxiliary cruiser HSK Kormoran, had been found on the night of March 14, 2008. On the next day, March 17, 2008, the discovery of the wreck of HMAS Sydney was announced by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Sydney was located on March 15, 2008, 150 kilometres (81 nmi) from Shark Bay and 22 kilometres (12 nmi) from the location where the Kormoran was found.

Construction and commissioning
Sydney was laid down by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Limited at Wallsend-on-Tyne, England on 8 July1933 as HMS Phaeton, purchased by the Australian Government in 1934 and renamed in memory of the earlier Sydney. She was launched on 22 September1934 by Ethel Bruce, the wife of S. M. Bruce, High Commissioner to Britain and former Australian Prime Minister, and commissioned at Portsmouth on 24 September1935.

Deployment


Destruction of Bartolomeo Colleoni at Cape Spada

While serving in the Mediterranean under Captain John Augustine Collins, Sydney was credited with the sinking of the ItaliandestroyerEspero and shared honours in the sinking of the destroyer Zeffiro during the Battle of Calabria.

Sydney's crowning glory was achieved on 19 July1940, in the Battle of Cape Spada in the Greek Islands. With a British destroyer squadron in company, she engaged the high-speed Italian light cruisers Bartolomeo Colleoni and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. In the running battle which followed Bartolomeo Colleoni was wrecked and later sunk by torpedoes from the destroyers, while the high speed of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere enabled her to escape a similar fate. This victory had important strategic effects: "...until the fall of Greece some nine months later, Allied control of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean was virtually unchallenged."

On 27 July, while covering a convoy to the Dardanelles, in company with HMS Neptune, Sydney was involved in the sinking of a small tanker, Ermioni, which was carrying fuel to the Italian garrison in the Dodecanese. During August and September, Sydney took part in various operations, including bombardments of Italian positions at Bardia, in Libya, and an airfield at Scarpanto in the Dodecanese. Sydney then returned to Alexandria for repairs, maintenance and leave.

In October, Sydney and another Leander class cruiser HMS Orion, carried out a bombardment of Port Maltesana (Astipalea) in the Dodecanese. In November, Sydney ferried troops and stores to Crete; on the night of 11 November Sydney, Orion, HMS Ajax (another Leander ) and two destroyers attacked an Italian convoy of four merchant ships and two escorts in the Strait of Otranto. All the merchant ships were sunk, although the two escorts escaped.

Sydney was refitted at Malta and departed the Mediterranean for Australia on 12 January1941, performing escort duties en route. Sydney reached Fremantle on 5 February and underwent a further refit in Sydney Harbour, during which Collins handed over command to Captain Joseph Burnett. On 27 February the ship left for its new base of Fremantle, from where she would carry out patrol and escort duties in the Indian Ocean, occasionally venturing into Asian and Pacific waters.

Final battle and disappearance

On 5 November1941 at Albany, Western Australia, Sydney began escorting the troopship Zealandia, which was bound for Sunda Strait, in the Dutch East Indies. Sydney and Zealandia arrived at Fremantle on 9 November. They were delayed by a labour dispute on board Zealandia, but left Fremantle on 11 November. They reached Sumatra on 17 November.

Sydney began the return voyage to Fremantle, and was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon or evening of 20 November. Axis submarines and surface raiders had already been active in the Indian Ocean and Pacific, and it was expected that any Australian naval vessel on such a voyage might have to investigate reported sightings or suspicious vessels.

The 645-strong crew on board HMAS Sydney in 1941

At about 4pm on 19 November, somewhere west of Shark Bay, Western Australia, Sydney sighted a merchant ship about 20 kilometres (11 nmi) away and challenged her. The other ship identified herself as the Dutch ship Straat Malakka. She was, in fact, the German auxiliary cruiserKormoran. According to survivors from Kormoran, Sydney closed to within 1,000 metres, and was surprised and overwhelmed when the crew of Kormoran opened fire with concealed artillery and torpedoes.

Kormoran was also badly damaged in the ensuing battle and had to be abandoned. Survivors from Kormoran reported that Sydney was last seen heavily on fire and down by the bow. The ship and her 645 crew members were never seen again.

Floating wreckage from Sydney


Memorial to HMAS Sydney, in Geraldton, Western Australia.

The Australian War Memorial houses the only substantial trace of Sydney which, up until the discovery of the ship, was ever found: a Carley float, clearly damaged by gunfire, discovered at sea nine days after the sinking.
On or about 6 February1942 another Carley float, containing the body of a white male adult, was found off Christmas Island about 2,500 km from the scene of the battle. Neither the body nor the origins of the float were able to be identified, although it is possible that both came from Sydney. Documents regarding the body and the location of this man's grave appear to have been lost during the Japanese occupation of the island, and several searches in a cemetery failed to locate the remains. In October 2006, an archaeological investigation rediscovered the body of the unidentified man. It was also reported that examination of the remains had revealed a 9 mm bullet or a fragment of shrapnel in his skull. However, the body has not been positively identified and no link with Sydney has yet been shown. Researchers are currently undertaking DNA investigation on the remains and suspected, surviving relatives.

In March 1943, a lifebuoy from Sydney was found near Comboyuro Point, Moreton Island, Queensland, although it is possible that this was lost before the battle with Kormoran.

Discovery of the Kormoran and the Sydney

The Finding Sydney Foundation announced that the wreckage of the Kormoran had been found 15 March2008, during a $3.9 million government-funded search for the Sydney launched at the beginning of March. The search team was headed by David Mearns, a veteran American shipwreck hunter.

On 17 March2008, the wreckage of HMAS Sydney was reportedly found at 26°14′37″S 111°13′03″E / -26.24361, 111.2175 (HMAS Sydney)Coordinates: 26°14′37″S 111°13′03″E / -26.24361, 111.2175 (HMAS Sydney), approximately 100 nautical miles (190 km) west of Steep Point and 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the Kormoran wreckage. However, Chief executive of the Finding Sydney Foundation, Bob Trotter told ABC Radio "Things have yet to be confirmed," and "I'm not in a position at the moment to give an absolute that Sydney itself has been found." Prime Minister Kevin Rudd confirmed the same day that the wreckage was that of the Sydney, at a depth of 2,470 metres (8,100 ft). Vice Admiral Russ Shalders said: "For 66 years, this nation has wondered where the Sydney was and what occurred to her, we've uncovered the first part of that mystery ... the next part of the mystery, of course, is what happened."

The wreckage of the Sydney will be protected under the 1976 Historic Shipwrecks Act and be treated as a war grave.

HMAS Sydney (1934) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Richelieu

Class and type: Richelieu class battleship
Named after: Cardinal de Richelieu
Laid down: October 1935
Launched: January 1939
Commissioned: Spring 1940
Decommissioned: 1967
Struck: 1968
Status: scrapped

General characteristics

Displacement:35,000 tons (standard)
47,548 tons (full load)
Length:247.90 m
Beam:35 m
Draught:9.70 mPropulsion:four Parsons geared turbines, 150,000 hp
Speed:30 knots (56 km/h)
Range:8,500 nautical miles (15,740 km)
Complement:70 officers, 1,550 men
Armament:8 x 380mm/45 Modèle 1935 guns in quadruple mounts at bow
9 x 152 mm (6 inch) secondary (3x3 mounted aft)
12 x 100 mm (3.9 inch) Anti-Aircraft guns (6x2)
56 40 mm Bofors Anti-Aircraft (14x4)

48 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannons
Armour:Belt: 343 mm
Decks: 50 to 170 mm
Turrets: 445 mm
Aircraft carried:Three flying boats, two catapults

The Richelieu was a battleship of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was named after the seventeenth-century statesman Cardinal de Richelieu, and served during World War II.

Design

Derived from the Dunkerque class, Richelieu and Jean Bart, as well as the unfinished Clemenceau and Gascogne, were designed to counter the growing threat of the Italian Navy. Their speed, armour, armament and overall technology were state of the art and compared favourably to contemporary rivals. The turret arrangement for the main battery of eight 380 mm guns was unusual, with two 4-gun turrets located forward.
In the context of the Treaty of Washington, the quad arrangement had the advantage of saving weight on turret armouring, compared to four double turrets, while retaining the same firepower. The drawback was that a single lucky shot immobilising one of the turrets would effectively put half the main artillery out of action. On the other hand, the entirety of the main artillery was able to fire forwards, as the ship closed in to her enemy, in an angle where she made the smallest possible target.
The Richelieu class, with their 380 mm main artillery, were the most powerful battleships ever built in France.

The quadruple 380 mm turrets of the Richelieu and the Jean Bart

The keel was laid in October 1935 in Brest. Richelieu was launched in January 1939, and sea trials began in January 1940.

Service entry and Vichy years

After the decisive German offensive in the Battle of France broke through the French defences on the Somme and Aisne, the incomplete Richelieu (Captain Marzin) hastily left Brest, on 18 June 1940, narrowly escaping the advancing German forces. She sailed under her own power, escorted by the Adroit class destroyers Fougueux and Frondeur, arriving at Dakar on 23 June 1940. The local political conditions prompted her transfer to Casablanca two days later, shadowed by a powerful British battle group. She returned to Dakar on 28 June and, although only 95% complete, she was commissioned there on 15 July 1940.
The armistice between France and Germany prompted British anxiety that the French Navy would be taken over by the Axis Powers. This led to attacks by Swordfish torpedo bombers from the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes on July 8, 1940, after the attack on the French fleet at Mers el-Kebir. A torpedo hit below the armoured deck disabled the starboard propulsion shaft on Richelieu and flooding caused her stern to touch bottom. She was pumped out after a few days, however, and made seaworthy for emergencies.
On 24 September, Richelieu fought against Allied naval forces at the Battle of Dakar. There was a gunnery duel between Richelieu and the British battleship HMS Barham: the Barham was hit twice by secondary batteries and the Richelieu was struck by two 15” shells, causing no serious damage. The Richelieu was further damaged in the battle when a 380 mm shell blew back and disabled two guns in the number 2 main turret: this was traced to the use of the wrong type of propellant. The British force was beaten off.
Temporary repairs were completed by 24 April 1941 and Richelieu could sail on three engines at 14 knots (26 km/h), but with only three usable main guns — there had been then another explosion in a 380 mm gun.

Allied service


Richelieu arrives in New York with her damage turret


After French forces in Africa joined the Allies in November 1942, Richelieu sailed for refitting at the New York Navy Yard on 30 January 1943, which was declared complete on 10 October 1943. Significant modifications were made to the anti-aircraft armament; she was re-armed with U.S. pattern anti-aircraft guns: 56-40 mm (14 × 4) and 48-20 mm (48 × 1) instead of the originally fitted 37 mm semi-automatic guns and 13.2 mm Hotchkiss machine guns. A special factory had to be assembled to manufacture ammunition of the appropriate calibre for her main battery. She sailed for Mers el-Kebir on 14 October and thence to Scapa Flow, arriving on 20 November.
Richelieu served with the British Home Fleet from November 1943–March 1944, participating in an operation off the Norwegian coast in January 1944. She was then transferred to the British Eastern Fleet to cover for British battleships undergoing refit. This was despite reputedly strong anti-Gaullist sympathies on board and limitations with her radar and ammunition (only available from US sources). She arrived at Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 10 April 1944, in time to join the attack by Task Force 65 on Sabang on April 19 (Operation Cockpit) and on Surabaya in May 1944 (Operation Transom) and on Operations Councillor and Pedal in June. On 22 July, she sailed to attack Sabang and Sumatra (Operation Crimson) and returned to Trincomalee on the 27th.
Relieved by HMS Howe, Richelieu returned to Casablanca on 7 September for a major refit, arriving back at Trincomalee on 20 March 1945. Now with Task Force 63 of the British East Indies Fleet, she joined in more bombardments of Sabang in April and of the Nicobar Islands in late April to early May. The next operation, to intercept the Japanese cruiser Haguro was abortive.
After a refit at Durban in July and August, the Richelieu arrived back at Trincomalee after the Japanese surrender. She covered the British re-occupation of Malaya, in September. During this task, she was damaged slightly by a magnetic mine.
She was present in Tokyo Bay during the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.

Post-war

In late September 1945, Richelieu escorted a French troop convoy to Indochina to re-establish French colonial rule and bombarded shore targets in the First Indochina War. On 29 December, she sailed for France and arrived in Toulon on 11 February 1946.
There were visits to Britain and Portugal in 1946 and she carried the French President on a tour of French African colonies in April and June 1947. She stayed in home waters until 16 October 1948, when she was withdrawn from active service for refit and subsequent use as a gunnery training ship.
From 25 May1956, she was used as an accommodation ship in Brest, and placed in reserve in 1958. The Richelieu was condemned on 16 January 1968 and renamed Q432. She was scrapped by Cantieri Navali Santa Maria of Genoa in September 1968. One of her guns is on display in the harbour of Brest.

French battleship Richelieu (1939) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

really interesting stuff guys, keep it coming!

 

HMS Glorious

Class and type: Glorious-class aircraft carrier
Name: HMS Glorious
Ordered: 14 March 1915
Builder: Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Laid down: 1 May 1915
Launched: 20 April 1916
Commissioned: January 1917
(completed 14 October 1916)
Reclassified: Converted to aircraft carrier February 1924 to March 1930
Fate: Sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the evacuation from Norway,
8 June 1940.

General Characteristics.

Displacement: 22,360 tons full load as battlecruiser
26,518 tons full load as carrier
Length: 786.5 ft (240 m) overall
Beam: 81.5 ft (27.75 m)
Draught: 24.9 ft (7.5 m)
Propulsion: 18 Yarrow small tube boilers, 235 psi
Four Parsons geared turbines producing
91,195 shp (67 MW) driving four shafts
Speed: 31.42 knots (56 km/h) (trials)
Range: 5,860 nautical miles (10,850 km) at 16 knots (30 km/h)
(11,000 km at 30 km/h)
3,250 tons oil
Complement: 829 as battlecruiser
1,200 as aircraft carrier (including fleet air arm personnel)
Armament: (as built)

• Four × 15 in (381 mm) (2 × 2)
• 18 × 4 in (102 mm) (6 × 3)
• Two × 3 in (76.2 mm) AA
• 14 × 21 in torpedo tubes (4 × 3 on deck, 2 submerged)

(aircraft carrier)

• 16 × 4.7 in (120 mm)
• 24 × 2 pdr (1.5 in) (8 × 3)
• 14 × 50 cal machine guns

Armour: as battlecruiser:

• deck: 1 inch
• belt: 3 inches
• turrets: 9 inch face, 4.25 inch top
• barbettes: 7 inches
• conning tower: 10 inches

Aircraft carried: As battlecruiser: two
As aircraft carrier: 48

HMS Glorious was a warship of the Royal Navy. Built as a "large light cruiser" during World War I, Glorious, her sister HMS Courageous, and half-sister HMS Furious were the brainchildren of Admiral Lord Fisher, and were designed to be "light cruiser destroyers". They were originally intended to be heavy support for shallow water operations in the Baltic Sea, which use ultimately never came to pass. She saw action in World War I, and then was converted into an aircraft carrier. Evacuating British troops, she was sunk in 1940, with the loss of over 1,200 lives.

Genesis

Glorious was built by Harland and Wolff, Belfast. The design was for a light battlecruiser; while having 15-inch (381 mm) guns, she was actually classed by the British Navy as a light cruiser because of her light armour protection. Her keel was laid down on 1 May 1915, the ship was launched 20 April 1916, completed on 14 October 1916, and Glorious was commissioned in January 1917. She cost £2,119,065 to build.
Her machinery was essentially similar to an earlier light cruiser, HMS Champion, with two sets to drive four shafts. During a test in 1917, Glorious managed to fire a torpedo out of one of her submerged torpedo tubes while moving at full speed. Under normal conditions, the firing of the underwater tubes could be done at speeds of no more than 23 knots (43 km/h), because of potential damage caused by water pressure at higher speeds. Her secondary guns were a new type of triple 4-inch (102 mm) gun, intended to provide a high rate of fire against torpedo boats and other smaller craft. However, as it turned out, the loaders for the guns would get in each other's way, and the rate of fire was far slower than three single mountings. One interesting note is that it was observed that Glorious was actually 1½ knots faster on full load than when in normal loading condition. Because of her light construction and other faults, causing more than average time in the repair yard, she was nicknamed 'Uproarious'.

HMS Glorious as battlecruiser

When Glorious commissioned, she was the flagship of the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron, and later the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron. On 17 November 1917, along with Courageous and Repulse, she engaged light German forces in the Heligoland Bight, sustaining no damage. In 1918, short take-off platforms for aircraft were mounted on both 15-inch turrets. On 21 November 1918, she was present at the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. In 1919, she was attached to the Gunnery School at Devonport as a gunnery training ship. Later, she became flagship of the Reserve Fleet.

Conversion

When the Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1922, Glorious was surplus tonnage as a capital ship, so the decision was made to convert her to an aircraft carrier. The combination of a large hull and high speed, not to mention an unsuccessful original design, made her an ideal candidate for conversion. The vessel was converted to a carrier starting in 1924, and she was re-commissioned 10 March 1930.

HMS Glorious after her conversion in 1934



The conversion started at Rosyth, but when the Rosyth shipyard closed in 1929, she was transferred to Devonport for completion. Her conversion cost £2,137,374. When recommissioned as an aircraft carrier, she had two flight decks: the main flight deck, and at the bow, a lower smaller 'flying off deck'. During a 1935–36 refit, this smaller forward flight deck was converted into a gun deck with anti aircraft guns, and two catapults capable of shooting off aircraft weighing 10,000 lb were installed on the main flight deck. She had two levels of hangars, both 550 feet (168 m) long, both 24 feet (7.3 m) high. She could carry up to forty-eight aircraft; when first recommissioned, she carried Fairey Flycatchers, Blackburn Ripons, and Fairey IIIf reconnaissance planes; later, the Fairey Swordfish and Gloster Gladiator types were carried. Glorious could be distinguished from her sister Courageous by a longer round-down on her flight deck at the stern, and by a different type of mast.
On April 1, 1931 she collided with the French liner Florida, sixty miles from Gibraltar, holing the liner severely; she took passengers on board and towed the other vessel to Málaga. Over thirty lives were lost, one of which was a member of the crew of Glorious.

World War II

She served with the Mediterranean Fleet for a time after World War II broke out. In October 1939, she moved through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean area for a short time to participate in the Indian Ocean hunting group searching for the Graf Spee.

Norwegian Campaign

When the invasion of Norway occurred in April 1940, she was recalled to home waters. On April 23, she and HMS Ark Royal arrived in Britain, and sailed the next day for Norwegian waters. She conducted a series of strikes on German positions in Norway with her Skua and Gladiator aircraft. On April 27, she was detached to return to Britain to refuel, and returned to Norway on May 1 for further attacks. On this return trip, she brought some Gloster Gladiators to Norway to operate off of a frozen lake, but these were soon destroyed by the Germans. On May 28, she delivered a squadron of Hawker Hurricane fighters to Bardufoss, which provided cover for the evacuation. On this voyage, she sailed without escort because there were no destroyers available. On June 2, her aircraft assisted in providing cover in the Narvik evacuation. Starting on June 5, Glorious took part in Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of Allied troops from Norway.

The Sinking

On June 8, the Glorious, under the command of Captain Guy D'Oyly-Hughes (who was a submarine specialist and had only ten months experience in aircraft carrier operations), had taken on board ten Gloster Gladiators and eight Hawker Hurricanes from No. 46 Squadron RAF and No. 263 Squadron Royal Air Force, the first landing of modern aircraft without arrestor hooks on a carrier. These were flown off from land bases to keep them from being destroyed in the evacuation. Glorious left a larger convoy to proceed independently. While sailing through the Norwegian Sea to return to Scapa Flow, the carrier and her two escorts, the destroyers HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent, were intercepted by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The carrier and her escorts were sunk in two hours, roughly 170 nautical miles (315 km) west of Harstad, with the loss of 1,519 men; there were only 45 survivors. The single survivor from Acasta was rescued by the Norwegian steam merchant Borgund which also saved 38 men from one of Glorious' lifeboats. All 39 men saved by Borgund were set ashore at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands on 14 June.
The Scharnhorst was badly damaged by a torpedo from Acasta, and both German vessels took a number of 4.7-inch shell hits. The damage to the German ships was sufficient to cause the Germans to retire to Trondheim, which allowed the safe passage of the evacuation convoy through the area later that day. Bletchley Park had received information and reports that wireless traffic analyses indicated that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were out, but these were disregarded as insufficiently credible.
Lee (page 20) comments that four German radio broadcasts announcing the sinking were intercepted but were not acted on, as the Admiralty duty officer was not aware of the naval movements from Norway (because communications between the operational and intelligence sections were haphazard). The Glorious does not have time to send a radio message.
The 15-inch turrets that were removed from Glorious during the conversion were later installed as A and B turrets in HMS Vanguard.
In 1997, Channel 4 (UK) screened a documentary in its Secret History series entitled "The Tragedy of HMS Glorious" and interviewed one of the surviving RAF pilots. There is a degree of mystery about the sinking of the Glorious because papers relating to the sinking have a "100 year rule" embargo on their release.

Winton's book

Winton quotes opinions that Captain D'Oyly-Hughes was off his head and as mad as a bloody hatter. The Glorious was sailing separately from the main evacuation convoy from Norway with two destroyers, but was not flying any air patrols. And Navy Intelligence had not sent any warnings that German naval forces were in the area, despite warnings from the Navy section at Bletchley Park (from a study of radio traffic, not decoding). D'Oyly-Hughes had left J. B. Heath the Commander (Flying) or Wings at Scapa Flow with a recommendation to court-martial him, and probably Lieutenant-Commander Paul Slessor, the Air Operations Officer as well. But no action was taken.

HMS Glorious (77) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

How can we let this thread die?

HMS Illustrious (87)


Name: HMS Illustrious
Ordered: 13 January 1937
1936 Naval Programme
Builder: Vickers-Armstrongs
Laid down: 27 April 1937
Launched: 5 April 1939
Commissioned: 25 May 1940
Decommissioned: End of 1954
Struck: 3 November 1956
Motto: Vox Non Incerta
("No Uncertain Sound")
Fate: Scrapped at Faslane

Class and type: Illustrious class aircraft carrier
Displacement: 28,661 tons full load
Length: 743.75 ft (226.70 m)
Beam: 95 ft (29 m)
Draught: 28 eet (8.5 m) full load
Propulsion: 6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
3 Parsons geared turbines producing 110,000 shp (82 MW) driving three shafts
Speed: 30.5 knots (56 km/h)
Range: 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)Complement:1,200
Armament: (1940) as laid down
16 × QF 4.5 inch naval gun (8 × 2)
48 x QF 2 pounder naval gun (6 × 8)
(1945) post upgrades
16 × QF 4.5 inch naval gun (8 × 2)
40 x QF 2 pounder naval gun (5 × 8)
3 x Bofors 40 mm gun (3 x 1)
38 x Oerlikon 20 mm cannon (19 x 2), (14 x 1)
Aircraft carried:
1940: 15 Fulmar and 18 Swordfish
1945: 36 Corsair and 21 Avenger

HMS Illustrious (87), the fourth Illustrious of the British Royal Navy, was an aircraft carrier which saw service in World War II, the lead ship of the Illustrious class of carriers which also included HMS Victorious (R38), HMS Formidable (R67), and HMS Indomitable (R92).
Illustrious was built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, launched in 1939, and commissioned in May 1940. She displaced 23,000 tonnes and had the capability to carry up to 36 aircraft, a number greatly reduced by her armoured deck. Perhaps predictably, she was nicknamed "Lusty" by the men who served on her.

Service


Illustrious under Stuka attack


Illustrious joined the fleet in August 1940. Her first assignment was in the Mediterranean, where she was used to provide convoy cover, perform anti-shipping strikes, and raid positions in North Africa.
On 31 August, she was used to launch a strike against airfields at Maritza. On 11 November 1940, she became the first carrier in history to launch a major strike against an enemy fleet in a daring attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto. Twenty-one aircraft from Numbers 813, 815, 819, and 824 Squadrons based on Illustrious attacked the Italian fleet at night. The Italians were caught off-guard, and one battleship was sunk and 2 were heavily damaged.
On 10 January 1941 Illustrious was attacked while escorting a convoy east of Sicily by Axis Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 and Ju-87 "Stuka" dive-bombers, being hit by 8 bombs and suffering extensive damage, destroying her sick bay and ward room, and killing amongst others the England rugby player W. G. E. Luddington. While in Malta receiving repairs for her battle damage she was again bombed, flooding her boiler room. On 23 January she sailed to Alexandria, Egypt for temporary repairs, arriving at noon on 25 January, and then sailed to Virginia for permanent repairs at the safer Norfolk Navy Yard. One propeller shaft had to be cut away and her speed fell to 23 knots.
She returned to service in May 1942, and was immediately dispatched to the Indian Ocean. Later in May, Illustrious and her sister ship Indomitable participated in Operation Ironclad, covering the landings at Diego Suarez in Vichy French controlled Madagascar. In 1943, she returned to the Mediterranean, for operations with Force H, based at the British territory of Gibraltar. She was used to help cover the Allied landings in Sicily in September 1943.
In 1944, she joined the Eastern Fleet, where she participated in raids on the Indonesian islands of Sabang on 22 July 1944 and Palembang on 24 January and 29 January 1945. After this, Illustrious put into Fremantle, Australia, for rest and re-supply. She then sailed with the rest of the British Pacific Fleet on 4 March to Manus, and from there sailed on 19 March to Ulithi. Later in 1945, as part of the British Pacific Fleet, designated Task Force 57 by Admiral Nimitz she covered the landings at Okinawa with her sister ships Formidable and Victorious, where she won her last Battle Honour. While in the Pacific, she was hit by two kamikaze aircraft. Her armoured flight deck absorbed the brunt of some hits, but the hull was progressively warped by damage that would have been confined to the superstructure in her American counterparts.
After the war she was given the role of training and trials ship, with a speed limited to 22 knots due to accumulated wartime damage. She was refitted and modernized from January through August 1948, decommissioned at the end of 1954, sold on 3 November 1956, and finally scrapped, after a successful career, at Faslane. Formidable and Indomitable were also scrapped in the 1950s; Victorious, the last of the class, was scrapped in 1969.

Battle honours

• Taranto 1940
• Mediterranean 1940-41
• Malta Convoys 1941
• Diego Suarez 1942
• Salerno 1943
• Sabang 1944
• Palembang 1945
• Okinawa 1945

HMS Illustrious (87) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Keeping in the theme of British carriers...

HMS Ark Royal

Name: HMS Ark Royal (91)
Builder: Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd.
Laid down: 16 September 1935
Launched: 13 April 1937
Commissioned: 16 December 1938
Fate: Sunk 14 November 1941
after being torpedoed by U-81 on 13 November 1941

Displacement:22,000 tons
Length:800 feet (240 m) overall
721.5 ft (220 m) waterline
Beam:94.8 ft (28.9 m)
Draught:28 ft (8.5 m)
Propulsion:6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
3 Parsons geared turbines
Speed:31 knots (57 km/h)
Range:7,600 nautical miles (14,100 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h)Complement:1,600 officers and men
Armament:16 x 4.5 in (114 mm)s (8 × 2)
48 x 2 pounder (1.5 in) Pom-poms (6 × 8)
32 x .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns (8 × 4)Armour:4.5 inches (110 mm) belt

3.5 in (89 mm) deck over boiler rooms and magazinesAircraft carried:60 to 72

• 1939–40: 26 Fairey Swordfish, 24 Blackburn Skuas
• 1940–41: 30 Fairey Swordfish, 12 Blackburn Skuas, 12 Fairey Fulmars
• 1941: 36 Fairey Swordfish, 18 Fairey Fulmars

Motto:Desire n'a pas Repos - "Zeal Does Not Rest"
Honours and awards:

• Norway 1940
• Spartivento 1940
• Mediterranean 1940 to 1941
• Bismarck 1941
• Malta Convoys 1941

HMS Ark Royal (91) was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that served in the Second World War and was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81. She was designed in 1934 to meet the limits of the Washington Naval Treaty, and was built by Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd. at Birkenhead, England. Construction was completed in November 1938, and after Britain's entry into the war, she served in some of the most active naval theatres of the early stages of the war, seeing a number of notable actions. She survived several near misses in her short career, and had a reputation for being a 'lucky ship'. The Germans reported her as sunk on a number of occasions.
Her design as one of the first purpose built carriers incorporated many new features, and differed in numerous ways from previous designs. Her hull was the maximum length permitted at that time for drydocking. This was also the first time where the flight deck was an integral part of the ship as opposed to an add-on or superstructure deck as on earlier vessels. Designed to carry a maximum number of aircraft, she was fitted with two levels of hangar decks. Not only was her design ground breaking, but so was her career. Serving during the conflict that first saw the extensive use of naval air power, carrier tactics were often developed and refined using Ark Royal. Due to her involvement in the vital Malta convoys and the sinking of the Bismarck, she became one of the most famous ships of the Royal Navy.
Her sinking was critically investigated, as it happened after a long period of attempting to save the ship and tow her to the nearby naval base at Gibraltar. Her final resting place was unknown until December 2002, when it was located further from Gibraltar than had been officially reported after the sinking.

Design

The idea for Ark Royal dated back to 1923, when the Admiralty prepared plans for a ten year building programme, which included an aircraft carrier and 300 aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm. Though a period of economic downturn caused the plans to be postponed, by 1930 they were again being worked upon by the Director of Naval Construction, Sir Arthur Johns. The aim was to increase the number of aircraft that could be carried.
An important consideration in the plans for Ark Royal was in the design of her engines. She was fitted with six boilers, turning three shafts and three bronze propellers 16 feet (4.9 metres) in diameter. This would give her a designed speed of 30 knots, important for several reasons. The development of faster and heavier aircraft meant that even equipped with catapult and arrestor gear, Ark Royal would have to turn into the wind to launch and recover her planes. This meant turning away from the main fleet, requiring a fast run to catch up with them once she had completed flight operations. She was also not heavily armed, relying on her aircraft for her main weaponry, so high speed was needed to outrun enemy warships.

Ark Royal immediately after launching. The elevators on the flight deck, and the anti-aircraft positions on the hull, can be clearly seen.


Dependent on either having escorts to fight enemy ships, or being fast enough to escape them, the main enemy Ark Royal herself was expected to engage was enemy aircraft. She was initially designed with 4.5 inch anti-aircraft guns low on the side of her hull, but Johns later altered the designs to place them higher on the hull, just below the flight deck, to give them a clear arc of fire. They were placed in eight double turrets, four on each side of the ship. In addition, eight machine guns were fitted to the front and rear of the flight deck on small projecting decks, and four 2 pounder (1.5 in) pom-poms were placed on the flight deck itself, to the front and rear of the island.
The Washington and London Naval Treaties, which had placed restrictions on the tonnage of the warships of a number of the Great Powers, were due to expire at the end of 1936. With a potential naval arms race developing between Britain, Japan and Italy, the British government was keen to seek a new treaty with a limit of 22,000 tons on aircraft carriers. Ark Royal would therefore have to fit within this anticipated limit. This was achieved by reducing the amount of armour plating to just that covering the engine rooms and magazines, and the use of large scale welding instead of riveting. About 65% of Ark Royal was welded, saving around 500 tons.
Another major feature was the length and height of the flight deck, which at 800 feet (244 meters) was some 36 metres longer than the hull, and in order to fit two hangar decks, rose 20 metres above the waterline. The length of the hull was limited by the need to access the important Navy ports at Gibraltar and Malta. The increased height resulted in storage space for seventy two aircraft, but meant that fitting protective armour to the deck would have resulted in a top heavy and unstable ship. In order to save weight and prolong fuel endurance, the flight deck was left un-armoured.

Construction


Ark Royal shortly before the outbreak of war. The length of the ship's flight deck causes it to overhang the stern, and its unusual height above the water line is visible in comparison with the tugboat.


The deteriorating international situation by 1933, typified by Germany's rearmament and Japan and Italy's expansionist aims, convinced the British government to allocate funds to resume the long delayed construction programme. The money was announced in the 1934 budget proposals and plans for the new carrier were completed by November 1934. The plans were tendered in February 1935 to Cammell Laird and Company, Ltd. , who proceeded to calculate the costs, with the hull costing £1,496,250 and the main machinery coming to another half a million. Overall the cost was estimated at over £3 million, making Ark Royal the most expensive ship by then ordered by the Navy. Construction began on Job No. 1012 when her keel was laid down on 16 September 1935.
She spent two years in the builder's yard before being launched on 13 April 1937 by Lady Maud Hoare, wife of Sir Samuel Hoare, then First Lord of the Admiralty. The bottle of champagne she threw against Ark Royal’s bows did not smash until the fourth attempt. Ark Royal then spent another year fitting out before being handed over to her first commander, Captain Arthur Power, on 16 November 1938. She was commissioned a month later on 16 December. After her crew joined her at the end of 1938, Ark Royal began an intensive period of trials and tests to prepare her for service with the Home Fleet.

Service history

With the hunter-killer groups

The outbreak of the Second World War on 3 September 1939 had been presaged by Germany's U-boat fleet sailing from their bases to take up positions off the British coast, where they could intercept shipping travelling to and from British ports. They claimed their first kill, the passenger ship SS Athenia, within hours of the start of the war, and would go on to sink 65,000 tons of shipping in the first week. Ark Royal was deployed with the Home Fleet in the North Western Approaches as part of a "hunter-killer" group. These consisted of a flotilla of destroyers and other anti-submarine vessels grouped around an aircraft carrier, in this case HMS Courageous, HMS Hermes or Ark Royal. Being able to deploy a large number of aircraft over a wide area of ocean meant the U-boats had to remain submerged or risk attack, but also made the large, vulnerable aircraft carriers into tempting targets.

The message sent to the ship informing her of the commencing of hostilities on the 3rd of September 1939


On 14 September, Ark Royal received a distress call from the SS Fanad Head, some 200 miles away, which was being pursued by the surfaced U-30, the same submarine that had torpedoed the Athenia. Ark Royal immediately began to launch her aircraft to aid the Fanad Head, but the Ark Royal had herself been spotted by U-39 who fired two torpedoes at her in a surprise attack. Lookouts aboard the Ark spotted the torpedo tracks and alerted the bridge. The captain turned the ship into the direction of the attack, so as to present the smallest possible target, and the torpedoes passed astern and exploded harmlessly. Alerted, the escorting destroyers moved in to depth charge the U-boat, which was forced to the surface before sinking. This became the first U-boat kill of the war. Meanwhile Ark Royal’s aircraft reached the Fanad Head, by now in the hands of a German boarding party. They commenced several unsuccessful attacks on U-30, losing two of their number when they dropped their bombs at such a low altitude that they were caught in the blast and crashed into the sea. U-30 torpedoed the Fanad Head and fled the scene.
Ark Royal returned to her base in Loch Ewe, where she and her crew were inspected by Winston Churchill, and the successful sinking of U-39 was hailed as an important boost to morale. However HMS Courageous's sinking on 17 September and Ark Royal’s near miss convinced the Admiralty that it was too dangerous to continue risking their few aircraft carriers. The practice of carrier centred hunter-killer groups was abandoned.

second near miss

Despite the end of the hunter-killer tactics, Ark Royal continued to deploy with the Home Fleet and on 25 September she participated in the rescue of the submarine HMS Spearfish, which had been attacked by German warships and damaged off Horn Reefs, in the Kattegat. Whilst escorting Spearfish back to port in company with HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney on 26 September, the ships were followed by a group of three Dornier seaplanes. A flight of three Blackburn Skua aircraft was sent to disperse them, and one of the Dorniers was shot down, for the first enemy aerial kill of the war.
With enemy air forces now aware of their position, the air commander aboard Ark Royal ordered the aircraft to be secured, relying on an anti-aircraft barrage rather than aerial interception. The ships soon came under attack by five Heinkel bombers. Intense anti-aircraft fire drove away four of them, but the fifth launched a 1,000 kg bomb at the Ark Royal. By executing a hard turn to starboard, she heeled hard over and missed the bomb, which fell 30 metres off her starboard bow, sending a large spout of water over the ship. She thus narrowly escaped major damage, and the German pilots had not seen whether or not she had been hit. Later reconnaissance flights spotted two battleships, but no aircraft carrier. German propaganda quickly rushed out statements that Ark Royal had been hit and sunk. Instead the Ark Royal returned safely to port.

Hunting the Graf Spee

In October Ark Royal was redeployed to Freetown to operate off the African coast in the hunt for the German commerce raider Graf Spee. She was part of Force K for these duties, and sailed in company with the battlecruiser HMS Renown into the South Atlantic and off the Brazilian coast. On 9 October, aircraft from Ark Royal spotted the German tanker Altmark, which was keeping the Graf Spee supplied with fuel and provisions. The Altmark was disguised as the US tanker Delmar, which fooled the British into passing her by.
She had better luck on 5 November, when she intercepted and captured the German merchant SS Uhenfels. The Uhenfals was later taken into British service and used as a cargo ship. When the Graf Spee had been trailed to Montevideo harbour, Ark Royal and Renown were dispatched to join the forces patrolling off the harbour entrance, waiting for the Graf Spee to emerge. Whilst enroute, the British naval attaché came up with a plan to create the illusion that the British force outside of the harbour was more powerful than it actually was. Ark Royal and Renown were still 36 hours sail away to the north of Montevideo, but an order for fuel for Ark Royal was placed at Buenos Aires, to the south of Montevideo. This information was leaked to the press, and from there it reached the German embassy in Montevideo, followed by the captain of the Graf Spee, Hans Langsdorff. Believing that this meant that Ark Royal and Renown had already arrived contributed to his decision to scuttle his ship.

Return to the fleet

With the Graf Spee sunk, Ark Royal remained in the Atlantic for a short period before escorting the damaged HMS Exeter back to Devonport Dockyard, where they arrived in February. Ark Royal then proceeded to Portsmouth to take on supplies and personnel, before departing again for Scapa Flow. On arrival, she transferred her Blackburn Skuas to RNAS Hatston to strengthen the anchorage's defenses. She was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet to carry out a series of exercises, departing Scapa Flow for Alexandria on 31 March, with the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. She arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean on 8 April and commenced exercises, but the day before on 7 April, the Germans launched Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway. By 9 April the exercises had been cancelled and the carriers sailed to Gibraltar in readiness for further deployments in the Mediterranean, or a return to home waters.
Meanwhile, the Germans had secured a large part of the Norwegian coast. Attempts by the British fleet to operate in support of their troops led to them being overwhelmed by heavy air attacks, which led to the sinking of HMS Gurkha and the near sinking of HMS Suffolk. Realising that British ships could not hope to operate off the Norwegian coast without air cover, but realising that land based aircraft in the United Kingdom did not have the range for extensive operations that far from their bases, the Admiralty finally recalled Ark Royal and Glorious from the Mediterranean on 16 April.

The Norwegian campaign
Ark Royal and Glorious arrived at Scapa Flow and were almost immediately deployed, sailing on 23 April in company with the cruisers HMS Curlew and HMS Berwick and screened by the destroyers HMS Hyperion, HMS Hereward, HMS Hasty, HMS Fearless, HMS Fury and HMS Juno. These ships were part of Operation DX , the first time the Royal Navy had developed a task force that included an aircraft carrier with the prime purpose of providing fighter protection for warships, and to carry out offensive strikes against shipping and shore targets, as well as anti-submarine patrols. The ships took up position on 25 April, with Ark Royal keeping 120 miles offshore. She commenced a series of anti-submarine patrols, and used her aircraft to provide fighter cover for the other units in the fleet. She returned briefly to Scapa Flow on 27 April to refuel and embark more aircraft, before heading back to Norwegian waters, escorted by the battleship HMS Valiant. Ark Royal came under a series of air attacks from Junkers Ju 88s and Heinkel He 111s flying from bases on the Norwegian mainland. Ark Royal managed to evade damage, and retook her position on 29 April

By now it had been realised by the British high command that they could not hold the Germans in southern Norway. Consequently the evacuation of Allied troops from Molde and Åndalsnes was ordered, with Ark Royal providing air cover from 30 April. On 1 May the Germans made a determined effort to sink the Ark Royal, and numerous air attacks occurred throughout the day. Several bombs fell close to her, but her fighters and a heavy anti-aircraft barrage succeeded in driving off the enemy. By 3 May the evacuation was complete and with German air cover expanding ever further north, the carriers were recalled to Scapa Flow to refuel and rearm. Here Captain Arthur Power left the ship for a promotion at the Admiralty, to be replaced by Captain Cedric Holland. Ark Royal then returned to the Norwegian coast to provide air cover for operations around Narvik, including the landing of additional French troops on 13 May. She was joined on 18 May by the carriers HMS Glorious and HMS Furious.
Despite these efforts, it had become clear by the end of May that French forces were on the verge of collapse and Norway was turning into a sideshow compared to the German advance to the Channel. Operation Alphabet was instigated, to evacuate allied troops from Narvik and return them to Britain. Ark Royal and Glorious, screened by the destroyers HMS Highlander, HMS Diana, HMS Acasta, HMS Ardent and HMS Acheron, sailed from Scapa Flow on 1 June to cover the evacuation, which commenced the next day. Ark Royal carried out air patrols and bombing raids from 3 June to 6 June, before redeploying to Narvik on 7 June. Disaster struck the next day, when HMS Glorious, escorted by HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent, had been detached to return to the UK. The ships were spotted by the German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and were sunk after a short battle. A search by Ark Royal’s aircraft failed to discover the German ships, which by then had returned to Trondheim, and the Royal Navy had lost another aircraft carrier.
By 9 June the last evacuation convoy had left Narvik, but a raid on Trondheim discovered the Scharnhorst. An attack on the ship was organised for Ark Royal’s Skuas and took place at midnight on 13 June. As Ark Royal turned into the wind to launch aircraft in foggy conditions, two of her escorting destroyers, HMS Antelope and HMS Electra, collided, and had to return to England for urgent repairs. The raid itself ended in disaster, with the Scharnhorst escaping damage but eight Skuas being shot down. Ark Royal returned to Scapa Flow the following day. With the Norwegian campaign over, the Admiralty's attention turned to the Mediterranean and it was decided to reassign Ark Royal there.

Mediterranean deployment

Ark Royal left Scapa Flow in company with HMS Hood and three escorting destroyers, arriving at Gibraltar on 23 June. Here she joined Force H under Sir James Somerville. After the capitulation of France there was concern over whether the French fleet, anchored at Mers-el-Kébir, might fall into the hands of the Axis powers, and potentially fatally tip the balance against the Allies. Ark Royal’s captain, Cedric Holland, had previously been the British naval attaché in Paris and was sent to negotiate the surrender or scuttling of the French fleet. Force H deployed outside the harbour, with orders to open fire to sink the French ships if they refused either option. When the French admirals refused to agree to the British terms, and with French reinforcements on the way, the British opened fire. Ark Royal’s aircraft spotted during the brief engagement that became known as the attack on Mers-el-Kébir. The French battleship Strasbourg escaped the harbour, and was attacked several times by Swordfish from Ark Royal, but managed to make it clear. Two days later, Ark Royal again launched her aircraft, to ensure that the French battleship Dunkerque, which had been beached in the initial attack, was put out of action.

A Fairey Swordfish aircraft lands on Ark Royal’s flight deck, whilst a Blackburn Skua circles overhead. Photograph taken from HMS Kelvin after the attacks on the Italian Fleet off Sardinia.


Having successfully reduced the possibility of a French challenge in the Mediterranean, Force H prepared a series of attacks on Italian targets, and sailed from Gibraltar on 8 July. Within eight hours they came under attack from Italian bombers. Though the ships escaped damage, Somerville decided it was too risky to continue, cancelled the raids, and returned to Gibraltar. By now, the island of Malta had begun to come under air attack, and the Admiralty decided to use the old carrier HMS Argus to deliver Hawker Hurricanes to reinforce Malta's air defences. Force H left Gibraltar on 31 July to carry out the operation. As well as covering the fleet, Ark Royal launched a successful air attack on 2 August on the Italian air base at Cagliari. The ships returned to Gibraltar on 4 August after having successfully reinforced Malta.
Ark Royal and the fleet remained at Gibraltar until 30 September, when they escorted reinforcements for Admiral Andrew Cunningham's fleet at Alexandria. Again, diversionary attacks were planned on Italian air bases at Elmas and Cagliari, and these were carried out on 1 September and were largely successful. The fleet was able to reach Alexandria largely untroubled by the Italian airforce. Ark Royal was then briefly detached to travel to West Africa as part of an attempt to encourage the Vichy French colonies to switch their allegiance to the Free French, but this ended in failure when the battle of Dakar broke out. She then returned to the UK escorted by HMS Fortune, HMS Forester and HMS Greyhound, arriving at Liverpool on 8 October where she entered dock for a refit. These included repairs to her machinery and the fitting of a new flight deck barrier. The work lasted until 3 November, when Ark Royal, accompanied by HMS Barham, HMS Berwick and HMS Glasgow, sailed for Gibraltar, arriving on 6 November.

Bombs falling astern of Ark Royal during an attack by Italian aircraft during the Battle of Cape Spartivento. (photograph taken from the cruiser HMS Sheffield)


On arrival, the ships were almost immediately deployed to escort convoys from Gibraltar across the Mediterranean. Force H escorted a number of convoys to Alexandria and Malta, before covering a convoy as part of Operation Collar on 25 November. The Italian fleet, including the battleships Giulio Cesare and Vittorio Veneto, were despatched to intercept the convoy. They were detected by a reconnaissance flight from Ark Royal. A strike force of Swordfish torpedo bombers was immediately flown off the carrier and the capital ships of Force H turned to meet the enemy ships, and the battle of Cape Spartivento developed. A brief engagement followed, after which one of the escorting Italian cruisers was damaged, either by a torpedo from one of Ark Royal’s aircraft or from gunfire from the British warships. Several other air attacks were made, but failed to hit any other ships of the Italian fleet, or to sink the damaged cruiser. In the meantime, the Italian airforce arrived to attack the British ships, and launched several bombing runs on Ark Royal. Despite several near misses, she survived unscathed.

Bombing the Italian mainland

On 14 December Ark Royal and Force H left Gibraltar and headed into the Atlantic to operate off the Azores in search of commerce raiders. She briefly returned to the Mediterranean on 20 December to escort HMS Malaya and several merchant ships from Malta, before returning to the Azores on 27 December to resume the searches. Force H then became involved in Operation Excess, a complicated plan to move convoys through the Mediterranean to support the Eighth Army. Following the entry of the Luftwaffe into the Mediterranean theatre and the near loss of HMS Illustrious, British control of the Mediterranean was seriously weakened. Needing to demonstrate British strength to the Spanish, and relieve the pressure on the Mediterranean Fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean, a plan was formulated by the Admiralty and Admiral Cunningham to carry out a series of bombing raids on Italian targets, supported by heavy fleet units. The first raid was targeted on the Tirso Dam in Sardinia, and was carried out on 2 January by Ark Royal’s Swordfish bombers. The attack ended with the dam unscathed. Better luck came on 6 January, when she bombed targets in Genoa, and covered HMS Renown and HMS Malaya whilst they shelled the port. On 9 January Ark Royal launched aircraft to bomb an oil refinery at La Spezia, and to lay mines in the harbour. Both operations were successful.

The search for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

In early February, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau headed into the Atlantic on the orders of Admiral Erich Raeder. They were to disrupt allied shipping, and force large numbers of capital ships to be assigned to hunt them, taking them away from other theatres of operations. Their tactics were effective, and on 8 March Force H and Ark Royal were ordered to the Canary Islands to begin to search for the Germans, and to provide cover for inbound convoys crossing the Atlantic. Her aircraft also searched for captured ships headed to Germany under the control of prize crews. They eventually located three such ships on 19 March. Two scuttled themselves, but one, SS Polykarp, was retaken.
Two days later on 21 March, a Fairey Fulmar from Ark Royal stumbled across the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau underway at sea, but due to a radio malfunction was forced to fly back to Ark Royal to report. By the time other aircraft were despatched to attack the German ships, they had slipped away under the cover of fog. Ark Royal then suffered damage when launching a Fairey Fulmar. A malfunction in the catapult launch system caused the aircraft to disintegrate on launch, flinging the fuselage into the sea ahead of the ship, which then ran over it. The depth charges the aircraft carried then detonated at their pre-set depth as Ark Royal passed overhead. Meanwhile Scharnhorst and Gneisenau escaped detection long enough to reach safety in the port of Brest. Ark Royal returned to Gibraltar on 24 March to refuel and carry out temporary repairs.

Malta convoys and Operation Tiger


An intense anti-aircraft barrage is visible during an attack by Italian torpedo bombers on Force H. Ark Royal is on the left, with an Italian aircraft over her bows, and to the right is HMS Renown.


Ark Royal spent April alternating duties covering convoys and delivering aircraft to Malta with forays into the Atlantic to hunt commerce raiders. By May 1941, Rommel's Afrika Korps were driving through North Africa towards the Suez Canal, pushing the Eighth Army before them. With British forces close to collapse and vital strategic locations threatened, the British High Command decided to risk a convoy across the Mediterranean to Alexandria, to reinforce the troops. The convoy consisted of five large transport ships, escorted by Ark Royal, the battleships HMS Renown and HMS Queen Elizabeth, the cruisers HMS Sheffield, HMS Naiad, HMS Fiji and HMS Gloucester, and screened by destroyers of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. Prior to its departure, Captain Holland left the ship to recuperate after an illness, and was replaced by Captain Loben Maund. The convoy left Gibraltar on 6 May and was soon detected by Italian reconnaissance aircraft. The presence of the large convoy, limited to 14 knots and escorted by so many capital ships, provided a tempting target for the Italian and German airforces, which quickly mobilised to attack.
The ships came under heavy air attacks on 8 May, at first by the Italian airforce, and then by the Germans. Ark Royal’s Fulmars, directed to their targets by HMS Sheffield’s radar, managed to disrupt the enemy formations and, in conjunction with heavy anti-aircraft fire from the convoy escorts, succeeded in driving them off. Despite several near misses, the convoy made it through. A maximum of 12 Fairey Fulmars had successfully defended the ships against around 50 enemy aircraft. She survived another aerial attack on 12 May whilst making the return journey, and later that month made another delivery of Hurricanes to Malta with HMS Furious.

Hunting the Bismarck

On 18 May, the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen had commenced Operation Rheinübung by breaking out into the Atlantic to raid allied shipping. After sinking HMS Hood and damaging HMS Prince of Wales in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Bismarck shook off her pursuers and headed for the French Atlantic coast. Ark Royal, Renown and Sheffield, accompanied by the destroyers HMS Faulknor, HMS Foresight, HMS Forester, HMS Fortune, HMS Foxhound and HMS Fury, were dispatched into the Atlantic on 23 May to search for the elusive Bismarck. On 26 May, a Swordfish from Ark Royal made contact with the Bismarck and began to shadow her.

One of Ark Royal’s Fairey Swordfish returns at low level over the sea after making a torpedo attack on the Bismarck.


The pursuing ships of the Home Fleet were still 130 miles away, and it was clear that unless the Bismarck could be slowed, she would reach the safety of the French port of Saint-Nazaire before the British ships could engage her. A flight of Swordfish bombers were armed with torpedoes and sent to attack the Bismarck. Unbeknownst to them, the cruiser HMS Sheffield was shadowing Bismarck, and at that time was between the Ark Royal and the German ship. The torpedo bombers launched an attack on the supposed enemy, but fortunately, their torpedoes had been fitted with the then new magnetic exploders. Eleven of the fourteen torpedoes were dropped, but most exploded on contact with the water, and the rest were evaded by Sheffield. One of the pilots signalled 'Sorry for the kipper' to Sheffield.
Torpedoes with the older contact exploders were then fitted to Ark Royal's Swordfishes and another attack was made just before sunset. In the second attack, her torpedo planes fired several torpedoes at the Bismarck, with three hitting the ship. Two struck forward of the engine rooms, whilst another hit the port steering room, damaging her rudder machinery, and jamming her rudders in a turn to port. This brought the Bismarck around in a circle, and she began to head back into the Atlantic and into the paths of the oncoming British warships. The British capital ships came within range of the Bismarck several hours later and succeeded in sinking her.

Escorting the Malta convoys

Ark Royal and the ships of Force H returned to Gibraltar on 29 May. Despite the morale boost from sinking the Bismarck, the war in the Mediterranean was going badly. Greece and Crete had fallen, and the Afrika Korps was preparing to launch a final push into Egypt. Malta remained an important stronghold in the Mediterranean, but was coming under increased pressure from Italian and German air attacks, and could no longer be supplied from the east since the fall of Crete. Ark Royal was pressed into service, making aircraft deliveries throughout June and on 21 July, and escorting the convoys of Operation Substance and later Operation Halberd. Despite heavy losses, the convoys succeeded in keeping Malta supplied and fighting. The continued existence of Allies at Malta was a considerable problem for Rommel in Africa, who was losing as much as a third of his supplies from Italy to submarines and bombers based at Malta. Adolf Hitler decided to send a flotilla of U-boats into the Mediterranean, against the advice of Admiral Raeder.

Final voyage and sinking

On 10 November Ark Royal ferried more aircraft to Malta, before making the return voyage to Malta. Admiral Somerville had been warned of U-boats operating off the Spanish coast and reminded the ships of Force H to be vigilant. Also at sea was U-81, which had received an intelligence report that the ships of Force H were expected to soon be returning to Gibraltar. At 15.40 hours, the sonar operator aboard the escorting destroyer HMS Legion detected an unidentified sound, but assumed it was the propellers of a nearby destroyer. One minute later, Ark Royal was struck by a single torpedo.

HMS Legion moves alongside the damaged and listing HMS Ark Royal in order to take off survivors


Captain Maund attempted to order the engines to full stop, but the telegraph system had been destroyed and a runner had to be sent to the engine room. By the time the Ark Royal came to a stop, she had shipped a considerable amount of water and begun to list. One man, Able Seaman Mitchell was killed in the initial explosion, which had occurred between the fuel bunkers and the bomb store, directly under the bridge.[93] This position, being dead amidships, meant that the list caused would be greatest, and its position relative to the transverse bulkheads was such that four main compartments, plus over 106 feet (32 m) of the ship's starboard bilge, were immediately subject to flooding.
The explosion opened a hole 130 feet (40 m) long by 30 feet (9.1 m) deep, the size being increased by the time taken to bring the ship to a halt, which resulted in additional hull plating being peeled off. The starboard boiler room, air spaces, and oil tanks were flooded, as were the main switchboard and the lower steering position. The starboard power train was also knocked out by the hit, but the port and centreline trains kept functioning. Flooding entered the electricity switch room and the telegraph exchange, causing the rear half of the ship to lose power. Progressive flooding choked the boiler uptakes; since she had no diesel backups, all power was lost, including power to the pumps.
Some of the torpedo blast vented upwards through a bomb trunk forward of the Island. The ship whipped violently with the explosion, which caused the fully-loaded torpedo-bombers on the flight deck to be hurled into the air; however she showed very little shock damage internally, and her masts remained standing. She immediately took on a 10 degree list that increased to 18 degrees within 20 minutes. Due to the flooding of the switchboard, communications within the ship were lost. With the ship leaning over alarmingly, and the rapid sinking of HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious in mind, Captain Maund gave the order to abandon ship. All personnel were withdrawn from the machinery spaces and assembled topside in order to determine who should leave the ship and who should remain on board. As a result of this action, damage control measures were only initiated 49 minutes after the hit, the flooding having been uncontrolled for this period. During this critical period, the centreline boiler room started to flood from below. During the evacuation of the machinery spaces several covers and armoured hatches were left open, allowing the flooding to spread.

Another photograph showing the degree of the list


HMS Legion came alongside and began to take off members of the crew. The evacuation proceeded calmly, and half an hour after the torpedo struck, the list seemed to have stabilised and the watertight bulkheads were holding. Somerville was determined to save the Ark Royal, and headed at full speed to Gibraltar aboard HMS Malaya to organise salvage efforts. Damage control parties were recalled from HMS Legion, but were hampered in their efforts in the loss of power. The destroyer HMS Laforey came alongside to provide power and additional pumps, whilst Swordfish from Gibraltar arrived to supplement anti-submarine patrols around the stricken carrier. At 20.00 hours the tug Thames arrived from Gibraltar and attached a tow line to Ark Royal. The damage control teams managed to relight a boiler and used it to power a generator. With some electrical power, they were able to get a few pumps working.
However, by this time, the list had increased to 18 degrees and the flooding was starting to spread across the ship's boiler room flat. This was an uninterrupted compartment running across the whole width of the ship, making the entire area of the machinery spaces vulnerable. The efforts made by the engine room crews to restore power were futile. The boiler room flat flooding forced the plant to be shut down again. Progressive flooding now caused the list to increase rapidly. The list reached 20 degrees 11 hours and 4 minutes after the hit and touched 27 degrees an hour and a quarter later. At this point, the abandon ship order was again given. All crew were off the ship at 0430hrs, 12 hours 19 minutes after the hit, at which time the list had reached 35 degrees. HMS Ark Royal capsized and sank at 0619hrs, after the list reached 45 degrees. The last eyewitnesses on the scene reported that she rolled on to her beam ends, paused for about three minutes, before rolling right over. She then appeared to break in two, with the aft section sinking first, followed by the bow, all in the space of a couple of minutes. All but one of the crew survived the torpedoing and sinking and 1487 officers and crew were transported to Gibraltar aboard HMS Legion.

Investigation of the sinking

Immediately after the sinking, a Board of Inquiry was set up to investigate the loss of Ark Royal, and a standard court-martial was held of her Captain, Loben Maund. On the evidence gathered, he was charged with negligence and the court-martial began in February 1942. He was subsequently found guilty on two counts: one of negligence in failing to ensure that properly constituted damage control parties had remained on board after the general evacuation, and one of failing to ensure the ship was in a sufficient state of readiness to deal with possible damage. The board tempered their judgement with an acknowledgement that a very high standard was being expected of Maund, and that he had been primarily concerned with the welfare of his crew.
Meanwhile the Bucknill Committee, which had been set up to investigate the loss of major warships also produced a report on the sinking. Their report highlighted the main failing in their eyes, the failure to provide alternative sources of power once the boilers and steam generators had been knocked out. The modern design of Ark Royal depended on electricity for much of its operation, which once it had been lost, made damage control measures particularly difficult. The committee also recommended improved designs to the bulkheads and the boiler uptakes of future carriers, to reduce the risk of rapid flooding entering the boiler rooms and machine spaces. Similarly the uninterrupted boiler room flat was criticised and was immediately rectified in the Illustrious and Implacable classes.
The inquiry closed the report with the observation that Ark Royal had sunk 22 miles due east of Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar. This location was widely accepted and remained the believed wreck site of the Ark Royal for the next sixty years.

Rediscovery

The exact location of the wreck remained unknown until mid-December 2002, when the BBC announced that a film crew, working aboard a number of boats including the luxury yacht Octopus, had located the wreck in 900 metres of water some 30 nautical miles (55 km) off Gibraltar. This was further away from Gibraltar than the inquiry had claimed, and the researchers initially thought that the submerged wreck had been caught in the currents that flow through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. This would have caused the wreck to drift eastwards from the point of her sinking before settling on the seabed. However debris found alongside the wreck, including the remains of a Swordfish bomber that had been photographed on the flight deck before the sinking proved that the ship had come to rest close to where she had sunk, or the aircraft would have slid off the flight deck as the Ark Royal capsized and would have been in an entirely different location. She had also made little progress towards Gibraltar before sinking, despite having been under tow for several hours.
The wreck lies in two main sections, twenty metres of the bow section having separated from the main hull and come to rest upside down south of the main section. North of the bow section are the remains of the funnel and bridge superstructure, and north of that is the main hull. Analysis of the damage revealed that the port side of the ship had struck the seabed first. A large field of debris, made of parts of the ship that came loose as she broke up and including the remains of the fighters stored in the hangars, lies between the separated portions of the ship.
These findings seemed to absolve Ark Royal’s captain of blame for failing to save her. The strong currents flowing into the Mediterranean had negated the effect of the tugboat. Attempts to start the Ark Royal’s engines to bring her into port only increased the stress on the damaged hull and caused further leaking. The engines ran for 20 minutes before the boiler room was put out of action, and by then the battle to counter the flooding had been lost as the pumps stopped working. The sinking of the Ark Royal was shown to be only a matter of time once the damage had been done. Though the sinking had highlighted a number of design faults, her eventual sinking was not necessarily the fault of her captain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)#ref_Fnone

 

Some interesting facts on the technical side of Ark Royal

This carrier had the largest hanger bay area of any carrier serving in WW 2. But, this wasn't necessarily useful because of the way the elevators were arranged. Each elevator had two platforms. One ran between the flight deck and upper hanger bay. The other between the two hanger bays. So, to put an aircraft on the lower hanger bay or transfer one from there to the flight deck took two seperate lifts on the elevators and required the aircraft to be moved off between the lifts.
This left the lower hanger bay largely unused except for long term maintenance.

The elevators themselves were also an issue. These were 'letterbox" in shape. That is, they were fairly long but narrow. Aircraft that did not have folding wings could not be stuck down to the hangers because of this. This was to limit the Ark Royal's utility as an aircraft transport. RAF aircraft that could fly off the carrier could not be struck down due to their not having folding wings. This meant that the air wing had to go in the hanger and would be unable to defend the carrier in transit and until the aircraft cargo flew off.
The rounded down end of the flight deck was the result of wind tunnel testing that showed this design significantly lowered turburlence on approach for aircraft. But, it also made almost 10% of the flight deck useless for deck parking aircraft. This was later ajudged to be a bigger penality than the decreased turbulence problem.

 

Ever thought about becoming a Wikipedia editor?

 

Do I get paid? By the by, most of the sources they list on ships are horrible ones.....

 

No, you do it out of the good of your heart.
It is; "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Or something like that.