Cairnryan is a small Scottish village overlooking Loch Ryan and is notable today for its large modern ferry port, operated by P&O, which links Scotland with Larne in Northern Ireland. The village has been of vital importance in maritime history. Scotland (Alba in Scottish Gaelic) is a country in northwest Europe, occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain. ... A village is a human settlement commonly found in rural areas. ... Loch Ryan is a Scottish sea loch that furnishes a natural sheltered anchorage for ships. ... The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company or P&O is a shipping line which started in 1840 after the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company won the British Admiralty contract to carry the mail overseas in 1837. ... Larne (Latharna in Irish which means the lands of Lathar who was an Irish prince) is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland with a population of approximately 20,000 people. ... Northern Ireland is one of four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. ...

During the Second World War, Cairnryan became No.2 Military Port, and three harbour piers and a military railway linking the village with nearby Stranraer were built by the army. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Stranraer (An t-Sròn Reamhar in Gaelic) is a town in the south of Scotland in the west of the region of Dumfries and Galloway and was formerly in the county of Wigtownshire. ...

Thousands of troops were based locally in military camps. At the end of the war the Atlantic U-Boat fleet surrendered in Loch Ryan and were anchored here before being towed to sea and sunk.

For a period after the war the port was used to load superfluous ammunition onto barges for dumping at sea - a hazardous task, which took the lives of several.

Ship breaking became the main industry; the great British aircraft carriers Centaur, and most famously the Ark Royal were all sent here for decommissioning. As recently as 1990, Russian submarines have been dismantled here for scrap. Ship breaking or ship demolition involves breaking up of ships for scrap. ... An aircraft carrier is a warship whose main role is to deploy and recover aircraft. ... HMS Centaur (R06) was a Centaur-class light fleet carrier of the Royal Navy. ... HMS Ark Royal (R07) in Greenwich dock, London This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... USS Los Angeles A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ...