HMS Ark Royal (91) was a British aircraft carrier which was used by the Royal Navy during the first two years of World War II. Being the only ship of her class, she had been launched in 1937 and commissioned on December 16, 1938. She was the Royal Navy's first carrier in fifteen years, transporting on her flight deck and storage areas 26 Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bombers and 15 Blackburn Skua bombers as her anti-submarine and anti-ship flying artillery. Despite her impressive might, she would be sunk by a German submarine in late 1941.
During her short life, HMS Ark Royal gave excellent service to the Royal Navy, taking part in the Allied campaign against the German forces that had invaded Norway in April 1940. During this year, she provided carrier protection to British surface warships operating off the Norwegian coasts. In this theater of operations, she and HMS Glorious evacuated British and French troops from Narvik, Norway, to the United Kingdom after they had failed to liberate this Scandinavian country.
After the German invasion of France in May/June 1940, the Ark Royal (91) was assigned to the Mediterranean Theater of Operation as part of the British fleet. On November 11, 1941, she and HMS Argus launched a total of 34 Hurricane aircraft to reinforce the British garrison of Malta, which was being besieged by the Germans and Italians. On her way back to home port , and before reaching the Gibraltar Strait, she was hit by a single torpedo fired from the German U-Boat U-81 in the afternoon of November 13. The explosion tore a huge hole low down in her hull on the starboard side. In the early hours of November 14, a great amount of water had poured into the her bowels as she listed heavily to one side. She would finally sink at 06:40 hours.
Technical Characteristics
HMS Ark Royal (91) had a 240-m (800-ft) long flight deck, which was 17 m (56 ft) above the water line. She had a squared off bow and a very long stern overhang. She was fitted with two hydraulic, steam-powered catapults and three rectangular lifts, which had two platforms, with one platform operating between the lower and upper hangar and the other between the upper hangar and the flight deck. She also had a cross-deck arrester gear on the rear portion of flight deck.
Specifications
Type: aircraft carrier
Displacement: 27,700 tons (full load)
Length: 240 m (800 ft)
Beam: 28.9 m (95 ft)
Draft: 8.5 m (28 ft)
Power Plant: 3 Parsons geared steam turbines, with three shafts, fed by 6 boilers, generating 102,000-SHP.
Maximum Speed: 31 knots
Range: 7,600 nautical miles (14,100 km), sailing at 20 knots.
Aircraft: 60
Compliment: 1,580 officers and sailors
Below, the flight deck of HMS Ark Royal crowded with Fairley Swordfish aircraft in 1939.
The characteristic square bow of this British carrier.
The Ark Royal sailing on the North Sea in 1938, just before being commissioned.
