ORIGINAL: warspite1
2/2
[4535 Ark Royal - by Robert Jenkins]
.B Engine(s) output: 102,000 hp
.B Top Speed: 30.75 knots
.B Main armament: 16 x 4.5-inch (114mm) guns and 48 x 2-pdr pompoms
.B Aircraft: 54
.B Displacement (full load): 27,720 tons
.B Thickest armour: 4.5-inch (belt)
.P The Ark Royal was the first modern carrier designed for the Royal Navy
(RN). The sole ship of her class, she was laid down in 1935 and completed three
years later. She was to be the only modern carrier avaiable to the RN at the
outbreak of World War II.
.P The 1930 London Naval Treaty allowed carriers of up to 27,000 tons, but the
British designed Ark Royal at 22,000 tons, as they were anticipating getting
agreement for a reduced tonnage at the next treaty. As it turned out, the 1936
treaty ultimately set a 23,000 ton displacement ceiling, but work on Ark Royal
was too advanced to allow her to use the additional allowance.
.P Unlike later British carriers, her flight deck was not armoured, although she
did have a 3.5-inch lower hangar deck that covered her machinery spaces,
magazines and aviation fuel store. This was designed to withstand a 6-inch shell
or a 500lb bomb. Her two hangars were on different levels and her three lifts
were linked to both. She had two catapults that could launch 12,000lb at 66
knots. Although designed to operate 72 aircraft, her actual capacity during the
war was 54 and for these, she carried 100,000 Imp gallons of aviation fuel.
.P Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament was impressive, with eight twin 4.5-inch guns
mounted on sponsons just below the level of the flight deck. This arrangement
stopped the limited arc of fire problems seen in earlier designs.
.P Ark Royal was a well designed ship that could operate effectively in poor
weather. The speed and power figures above are as designed, although she exceeded
both in trials. Her one main weakness however, was to cause her eventual sinking
(see details of her sinking below).
.P Like all British carriers, she suffered from poor quality aircraft at the
beginning of the war. This was thanks in part to the decision to make the Royal
Air Force (RAF) responsible for naval aviation and the consequential lack of
enthusiasm and investment by the RAF in naval aircraft due to their other
priorities.
.P The name Ark Royal stems from the Elizabethan period; the first Ark Royal was
the flagship of Lord Effingham during the engagement with the Spanish Armada in
1588. The second vessel of that name followed over 300 years later, but thanks to
the heroic exploits of the third Ark Royal during the first two years of the
Second World War, the name has been almost ever present within the RN since.
.P HMS Ark Royal was completed in November 1938, and at the outbreak of World
War II, she was deployed in the North Western Approaches, searching for U-boats.
While on one such patrol, she was lucky to escape a torpedo attack by U-39 (see
HMS Courageous) and after the sinking of Courageous in that first month of war,
carriers were no longer used in that role.
.P At the end of that first month of the war she provided air cover for Home
Fleet units escorting the damaged submarine Spearfish back to the UK (see
Submarine Counter 4734).
.P The following month Ark Royal was deployed in Hunting Group K during the
search for two German pocket-battleships at large in the North and South Atlantic
oceans (see HMS Hermes). In December, after one of these, the Admiral Graf Spee,
was engaged by RN units off Uruguay, Force K was sent to the River Plate at the
utmost speed. However, the German raider was scuttled by her crew and Ark Royal
was no longer required (see HMS Exeter).
.P The Ark returned to the UK at the start of 1940 and in February she took part
in the successful search for six German merchant ships that had sailed from Vigo,
Spain, in an effort to get back to Germany (see HMS York). Following this, she
was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean with the carrier Glorious, but the
planned exercises there were soon cut short due to the German invasion of Norway
at the beginning of April. Both carriers were recalled to join the Home Fleet and
Ark Royal was to play a key role in the ill-fated Allied campaign in Norway (see
HMS Curacoa, HMS Glorious and Transport Counter 4720). At the end of the
Norwegian debacle, which had proved costly to the RN in terms of men and ships,
Ark Royal herself was to share in the pain. She was ordered to launch an
airstrike against the battlecruiser Scharnhorst at her mooring in a Trondheim
fjord. On the 13th June, Skuas from 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS) took
off for the mission, unaware that the German defences had already been alerted.
In the ensuing attack, eight of the fifteen Skuas were shot down for just one hit
recorded against the battlecruiser. Even then, the bomb had merely bounced off
Scharnhorst's armour plate. To compound the misery, the destroyers Antelope and
Electra collided in the fog on the voyage home.
.P After the French surrender at the end of June, and with the French navy no
longer available to guard the Western Mediterranean, Ark Royal was transferred to
Gibraltar to join the newly formed trouble-shooting Force H. Ark Royal was to be
synonymous with Force H over the course of the next year and a half.
.P Ark Royal was central to the attack on the French Fleet at Oran (see HMS
Enterprise) at the start of July and then at the end of the month, she assisted
the delivery of aircraft to Malta in Operation Hurry (see HMS Argus). During this
operation, Force H were detached to launch a diversionary air attack on Cagliari,
Sardinia, and indeed, Ark Royal's aircraft were to re-visit the island on a
number of occasions in the coming months.
.P Her next operation was HATS, a complex, and successful mission to reinforce
the Mediterranean Fleet, supply Malta and attack Italian targets (see HMS
Calcutta).
.P In September, Ark Royal left the Mediterranean and took part in another ill-
fated operation; this time the attack on Vichy-French Dakar (see HMS Resolution).
After the British aborted the Dakar operation, Ark Royal returned to Gibraltar to
rejoin Force H, escorted by the battleship Barham and the cruisers Berwick and
Glasgow. Force H then took part in Coat; another operation designed to reinforce
the Mediterranean Fleet and re-supply Malta (see HMS Barham). This operation was
closely followed by a tragic aircraft delivery mission to Malta named Operation
White (see HMS Argus).
.P Two more operations were to be undertaken by Force H before the end of the
year. Firstly the supply operation, Collar, which led to the inconclusive Battle
of Cape Spartivento (see HMS Despatch), and secondly, at the end of the year,
Force H provided escort for Hide, an operation designed to get the battleship
Malaya to Gibraltar (see HMS Malaya).
.P At the conclusion of Hide, Ark Royal briefly left the Mediterranean to take
part in the search for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper after the German cruiser
had attacked convoy WS5A (see ASW Counter 4699).
.P The New Year 1941 saw Force H covering an important convoy to Malta; Operation
Excess (see HMS Southampton), and followed this with raids against the Tirso Dam
on Sardinia and the Italian port of Genoa (see HMS Malaya). Upon return from the
Genoa operation, Force H were taken out of the Mediterranean once more, this time
for a six week deployment in the Atlantic. They were required there for convoy
protection and to search for German surface raiders (see HMS Nelson).
.P April saw Force H back in the Mediterranean, where their next operation was
Winch, a successful aircraft delivery operation to Malta (see HMS Argus). Force
H then headed back into the Atlantic to briefly patrol in the Bay of Biscay (see
HMS Fiji) as it was wrongly thought that Scharnhorst and her sister Gneisenau
were preparing to leave the French port of Brest. Force H returned to Gibraltar
to carry out further aircraft delivery missions; Operations Salient and Dunlop
(see HMS Dido).
.P In early May, they escorted the important Tiger convoy that was bringing
reinforcements to the Commonwealth troops in Egypt on the first part of its
journey to Alexandria (see Transport Counter 4729). This was followed by
Operation Splice, another Malta delivery operation (see HMS Furious).
.P No sooner had Force H returned from Splice than they were ordered into the
Atlantic to take part in the search for the German battleship Bismarck. Ark
Royal`s aircraft played perhaps the crucial role in the ultimate destruction of
the battleship; it was a torpedo from one of her Swordfish that caused the
Bismarck's rudder to jam and send her on a collision course with the chasing
battleships of the Home Fleet (see HMS Rodney).
.P Upon their return to Gibraltar, and with the British effort to keep Malta in
the war coming under increasing pressure, Force H spent June taking part in four
Malta aircraft delivery operations: Rocket and Tracer (see HMS Argus) and Railway
I & II (see HMS Hermione). Sandwiched between these operations were two sorties
into the Atlantic in search of enemy supply vessels (see HMS Hermione).
.P In July, Force H escorted the second successful Malta relief convoy of 1941,
codenamed Substance (see HMS Manchester), and the follow-up Style operation (see
HMS Arethusa). These were followed in August by the covering of a minelaying
operation, code-named Mincemeat (see HMS Hermione). In September, two more
aircraft deliveries to Malta were completed (see HMS Furious) and at the end of
that month, Ark Royal sailed with Force H for the third large Malta relief convoy
of that year, Operation Halberd (see HMS Edinburgh). Ark Royal and Force H could
be proud that all three major supply operations that year had been completely
successful.
.P October saw Force H involved in another aircraft delivery mission to Malta;
Operation Callboy. This operation was to provide Malta with additional torpedo
bombers. The old carrier Argus was used for the initial transfer of twelve
Albacore aircraft, and she sailed to Gibraltar as part of military convoy WS12.
Argus departed the UK on October 1st and after detaching from WS12, she arrived
at Gibraltar on the 8th. The aircraft were loaded onto Ark Royal, which then
sailed for Malta with a reinforced Force H; which also contained the battleship
Rodney, the cruiser Hermione and seven destroyers. The force reached the flying-
off position on the 16th and eleven Albacores and two Swordfish took off, with
one Swordfish failing to arrive. As part of this operation, Force H also covered
the cruisers Aurora, Penelope and two destroyers that were being sent to Malta
to form Force K (see HMS Penelope). To complete the mission, Argus joined her
fellow carrier Eagle at Gibraltar and returned to the UK at the end of October.
.P Sadly, the following month was to be the last for this famous carrier that had
served the RN so well and proved such a thorn in the side of the Axis. Her last
mission was an aircraft delivery operation to Malta, Operation Perpetual (see
Transport Counter 4721). On her return journey, she was hit by a torpedo from
U-81. She took on a heavy list and then lost all power as her boilers were shut
down. Crucially, she had no back-up generators. The order to abandon ship was
given, perhaps prematurely, and the engineers had to be put back on-board once
she had stopped listing further. Limited power was supplied from the destroyer
Laforey, and her boilers were fired up thanks to water pumped into them by the
destroyer. Still listing heavily, she was taken under tow to Gibraltar. The
progress was slow and it was clear that she would not make it home before she
capsized without more power to pump out the water. What ultimately led to her
demise was the decision to try and get the port propeller working. Although this
was achieved, the rotating machinery simply added to the pressure on the
bulkheads that were already straining to hold back the flood water. The rising
water eventually blocked the vents from the boiler and fire broke out. Smoke in
the engine and boiler rooms forced the abandonment of those vital areas and meant
Ark Royal's time was up. On the 14th November 1941, the Ark Royal rolled over and
sank. Thankfully, only 1 life had been lost in the initial blast but her loss was
a bitter blow for the RN. For her role in sinking the Bismarck and for the
contribution to keeping Malta supplied, particularly with aircraft, her value
during that period had been incalculable.
(1) Histories should be chronological. Please place the origin of the ships name after the ship specifics.
(2) Use American English spelling. When an American company develops a game then the write-ups should be in American English.
(3) Spell check your work. I’ve underlined some of your misspelled words.
(4) Have someone else proofread your work. You will not notice your errors but someone else will.
[4535 Ark Royal - by Robert Jenkins]
.B Engine(s) output: 102,000 hp
.B Top Speed: 30.75 knots
.B Main armament: 16 x 4.5-inch (114mm) guns and 48 x 2-pdr pompoms
.B Aircraft: 54
.B Displacement (full load): 27,720 tons
.B Thickest armour: 4.5-inch (belt)
.P The name Ark Royal stems from the Elizabethan period; the first Ark Royal was
the flagship of Lord Effingham during the engagement with the Spanish Armada in
1588. The second vessel of that name followed over 300 years later, but thanks to
the heroic exploits of the third Ark Royal during the first two years of the
Second World War, the name has been almost ever present within the RN since.
.P The Ark Royal was the first modern carrier designed for the Royal Navy
(RN). The sole ship of her class, she was laid down in 1935 and completed three
years later. She was to be the only modern carrier
available to the RN at the
outbreak of World War II.
.P The 1930 London Naval Treaty allowed carriers of up to 27,000 tons, but the
British designed Ark Royal at 22,000 tons, as they were anticipating getting
agreement for a reduced tonnage at the next treaty. As it turned out, the 1936
treaty ultimately set a 23,000 ton displacement ceiling, but work on Ark Royal
was too advanced to allow her to use the additional allowance.
.P Unlike later British carriers, her flight deck was not
armored, although she
did have a 3.5-inch lower hangar deck that covered her machinery spaces,
magazines and aviation fuel store. This was designed to withstand a 6-inch shell
or a 500lb bomb. Her two hangars were on different levels and her three lifts
were linked to both. She had two catapults that could launch 12,000lb at 66
knots. Although designed to operate 72 aircraft, her actual capacity during the
war was 54 and for these, she carried 100,000 Imp gallons of aviation fuel.
.P Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament was impressive, with eight twin 4.5-inch guns
mounted on sponsons just below the level of the flight deck. This arrangement
stopped the limited arc of fire problems seen in earlier designs.
.P Ark Royal was a well designed ship that could operate effectively in poor
weather. The speed and power figures above are as designed, although she exceeded
both in trials. Her one main weakness however, was to cause her eventual sinking
(see details of her sinking below).
.P Like all British carriers, she suffered from poor quality aircraft at the
beginning of the war. This was thanks in part to the decision to make the Royal
Air Force (RAF) responsible for naval aviation and the consequential lack of
enthusiasm and investment by the RAF in naval aircraft due to their other
priorities.
.P HMS Ark Royal was completed in November 1938, and at the outbreak of World
War II, she was deployed in the North Western Approaches, searching for U-boats.
While on one such patrol, she was lucky to escape a torpedo attack by U-39 (see
HMS Courageous) and after the sinking of Courageous in that first month of war,
carriers were no longer used in that role.
.P At the end of that first month of the war she provided air cover for Home
Fleet units escorting the damaged submarine Spearfish back to the UK (see
Submarine Counter 4734).
.P The following month Ark Royal was deployed in Hunting Group K during the
search for two German pocket-battleships at large in the North and South Atlantic
oceans (see HMS Hermes). In December, after one of these, the Admiral Graf Spee,
was engaged by RN units off Uruguay, Force K was sent to the River Plate at the
utmost speed. However, the German raider was scuttled by her crew and Ark Royal
was no longer required (see HMS Exeter).
.P The Ark returned to the UK at the start of 1940 and in February she took part
in the successful search for six German merchant ships that had sailed from Vigo,
Spain, in an effort to get back to Germany (see HMS York). Following this, she
was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean with the carrier Glorious, but the
planned exercises there were soon cut short due to the German invasion of Norway
at the beginning of April. Both carriers were recalled to join the Home Fleet and
Ark Royal was to play a key role in the ill-fated Allied campaign in Norway (see
HMS Curacoa, HMS Glorious and Transport Counter 4720). At the end of the
Norwegian debacle, which had proved costly to the RN in terms of men and ships,
Ark Royal herself was to share in the pain. She was ordered to launch an
airstrike against the battlecruiser Scharnhorst at her mooring in a Trondheim
fjord. On the 13th June, Skuas from 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS) took
off for the mission, unaware that the German
defenses had already been alerted.
In the ensuing attack, eight of the fifteen Skuas were shot down for just one hit
recorded against the battlecruiser. Even then, the bomb had merely bounced off
Scharnhorst's
armor plate. To compound the misery, the destroyers Antelope and
Electra collided in the fog on the voyage home.
.P After the French surrender at the end of June, and with the French navy no
longer available to guard the Western Mediterranean, Ark Royal was transferred to
Gibraltar to join the newly formed trouble-shooting Force H. Ark Royal was to be
synonymous with Force H over the course of the next year and a half.
.P Ark Royal was central to the attack on the French Fleet at Oran (see HMS
Enterprise) at the start of July and then at the end of the month, she assisted
the delivery of aircraft to Malta in Operation Hurry (see HMS Argus). During this
operation, Force H were detached to launch a diversionary air attack on Cagliari,
Sardinia, and indeed, Ark Royal's aircraft were to re-visit the island on a
number of occasions in the coming months.
.P Her next operation was HATS, a complex, and successful mission to reinforce
the Mediterranean Fleet, supply Malta and attack Italian targets (see HMS
Calcutta).
.P In September, Ark Royal left the Mediterranean and took part in another ill-
fated operation; this time the attack on Vichy-French Dakar (see HMS Resolution).
After the British aborted the Dakar operation, Ark Royal returned to Gibraltar to
rejoin Force H, escorted by the battleship Barham and the cruisers Berwick and
Glasgow. Force H then took part in Coat; another operation designed to reinforce
the Mediterranean Fleet and re-supply Malta (see HMS Barham). This operation was
closely followed by a tragic aircraft delivery mission to Malta named Operation
White (see HMS Argus).
.P Two more operations were to be undertaken by Force H before the end of the
year. Firstly the supply operation, Collar, which led to the inconclusive Battle
of Cape Spartivento (see HMS Despatch), and secondly, at the end of the year,
Force H provided escort for Hide, an operation designed to get the battleship
Malaya to Gibraltar (see HMS Malaya).
.P At the conclusion of Hide, Ark Royal briefly left the Mediterranean to take
part in the search for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper after the German cruiser
had attacked convoy WS5A (see ASW Counter 4699).
.P The New Year 1941 saw Force H covering an important convoy to Malta; Operation
Excess (see HMS Southampton), and followed this with raids against the Tirso Dam
on Sardinia and the Italian port of Genoa (see HMS Malaya). Upon return from the
Genoa operation, Force H were taken out of the Mediterranean once more, this time
for a six week deployment in the Atlantic. They were required there for convoy
protection and to search for German surface raiders (see HMS Nelson).
.P April saw Force H back in the Mediterranean, where their next operation was
Winch, a successful aircraft delivery operation to Malta (see HMS Argus). Force
H then headed back into the Atlantic to briefly patrol in the Bay of Biscay (see
HMS Fiji) as it was wrongly thought that Scharnhorst and her sister Gneisenau
were preparing to leave the French port of Brest. Force H returned to Gibraltar
to carry out further aircraft delivery missions; Operations Salient and Dunlop
(see HMS Dido).
.P In early May, they escorted the important Tiger convoy that was bringing
reinforcements to the Commonwealth troops in Egypt on the first part of its
journey to Alexandria (see Transport Counter 4729). This was followed by
Operation Splice, another Malta delivery operation (see HMS Furious).
.P No sooner had Force H returned from Splice than they were ordered into the
Atlantic to take part in the search for the German battleship Bismarck. Ark
Royal`s aircraft played perhaps the crucial role in the ultimate destruction of
the battleship; it was a torpedo from one of her Swordfish that caused the
Bismarck's rudder to jam and send her on a collision course with the chasing
battleships of the Home Fleet (see HMS Rodney).
.P Upon their return to Gibraltar, and with the British effort to keep Malta in
the war coming under increasing pressure, Force H spent June taking part in four
Malta aircraft delivery operations: Rocket and Tracer (see HMS Argus) and Railway
I & II (see HMS Hermione). Sandwiched between these operations were two sorties
into the Atlantic in search of enemy supply vessels (see HMS Hermione).
.P In July, Force H escorted the second successful Malta relief convoy of 1941,
codenamed Substance (see HMS Manchester), and the follow-up Style operation (see
HMS Arethusa). These were followed in August by the covering of a
mine laying
operation, code-named Mincemeat (see HMS Hermione). In September, two more
aircraft deliveries to Malta were completed (see HMS Furious) and at the end of
that month, Ark Royal sailed with Force H for the third large Malta relief convoy
of that year, Operation Halberd (see HMS Edinburgh). Ark Royal and Force H could
be proud that all three major supply operations that year had been completely
successful.
.P October saw Force H involved in another aircraft delivery mission to Malta;
Operation Callboy. This operation was to provide Malta with additional torpedo
bombers. The old carrier Argus was used for the initial transfer of twelve
Albacore aircraft, and she sailed to Gibraltar as part of military convoy WS12.
Argus departed the UK on October 1st and after detaching from WS12, she arrived
at Gibraltar on the 8th. The aircraft were loaded onto Ark Royal, which then
sailed for Malta with a reinforced Force H; which also contained the battleship
Rodney, the cruiser Hermione and seven destroyers. The force reached the flying-
off position on the 16th and eleven Albacores and two Swordfish took off, with
one Swordfish failing to arrive. As part of this operation, Force H also covered
the cruisers Aurora, Penelope and two destroyers that were being sent to Malta
to form Force K (see HMS Penelope). To complete the mission, Argus joined her
fellow carrier Eagle at Gibraltar and returned to the UK at the end of October.
.P Sadly, the following month was to be the last for this famous carrier that had
served the RN so well and proved such a thorn in the side of the Axis. Her last
mission was an aircraft delivery operation to Malta, Operation Perpetual (see
Transport Counter 4721). On her return journey, she was hit by a torpedo from
U-81. She took on a heavy list and then lost all power as her boilers were shut
down. Crucially, she had no back-up generators. The order to abandon ship was
given, perhaps prematurely, and the engineers had to be put back on-board once
she had stopped listing further. Limited power was supplied from the destroyer
Laforey, and her boilers were fired up thanks to water pumped into them by the
destroyer. Still listing heavily, she was taken under tow to Gibraltar. The
progress was slow and it was clear that she would not make it home before she
capsized without more power to pump out the water. What ultimately led to her
demise was the decision to try and get the port propeller working. Although this
was achieved, the rotating machinery simply added to the pressure on the
bulkheads that were already straining to hold back the flood water. The rising
water eventually blocked the vents from the boiler and fire broke out. Smoke in
the engine and boiler rooms forced the abandonment of those vital areas and meant
Ark Royal's time was up. On the 14th November 1941, the Ark Royal rolled over and
sank. Thankfully, only 1 life had been lost in the initial blast but her loss was
a bitter blow for the RN. For her role in sinking the Bismarck and for the
contribution to keeping Malta supplied, particularly with aircraft, her value
during that period had been incalculable.
. They will soon be no more [;)]