Career
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.
Class:	Ark Royal Class
General Characteristics
Displacement:	22,000 tons
Length:	800 ft (244 m) overall 721.5 ft (220 m) waterline
Beam:	94.8 ft (28.9 m)
Draft:	28 ft (8.5 m)
Machinery:	6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers 3 Parsons geared turbines
Speed:	31 knots (57 km/h)
Range:	7600 nautical miles (14,075 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h)
Complement:	1,600 officers and men
Armament:	16 x 4.5 in (114 mm)s (8x2) 48 x 2 pounder (1.5 in) Pom-poms (6x8) 32 x .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns (8 x 4)
Armor:	4.5 in (114 mm) belt 3.5 in (89 mm) deck over boiler rooms and magazines
Aircraft:	60 to 72
Motto:	Zeal Does Not Rest

HMS Ark Royal (91), was the third ship of the Royal Navy to carry the name and the second to be an aircraft carrier. 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. She was the first British aircraft carrier to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier. Image File history File links Ark_Royal-1. ... Image File history File links Naval_Ensign_of_the_United_Kingdom. ... September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... April 13 is the 103rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (104th in leap years). ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... December 16 is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 47 days remaining. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... Unterseeboot 81 (U-81) has been the designation of two submarines of the German Navy. ... November 13 is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 48 days remaining. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... A nautical mile is a unit of length. ... The BAE RO Defence 4. ... 2-pounder multiple pom-pom Mark VIII on 8-barrel mounting Mark VI. A pom-pom is a large calibre machine-gun, used mostly famously as an anti-aircraft gun by the British Royal Navy. ... The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services being the oldest of its three branches. ... An aircraft carrier is a warship designed to deploy and recover aircraft—in effect acting as a sea-going airbase. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Washington Naval Treaty limited the naval armaments of its five signatories: the United States, the British Empire, the Empire of Japan, the French Third Republic, and Italy. ... Cammell Laird logo Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. ... Birkenhead is a town on The Wirral, Merseyside, on the left bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. ...

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. She had 2 levels of hangar decks.

Service history

On 25 September 1939, just weeks after World War II broke out, Ark Royal participated in the rescue of the submarine HMS Spearfish, which was damaged off Horn Reefs. During this operation on 26 September, one of her Blackburn Skua aircraft shot down a German flying boat for her first enemy aerial kill of the war. September 25 is the 268th day of the year (269th in leap years). ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... September 26 is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 96 days remaining. ... The Blackburn Skua was a naval combat aircraft operated by the British Fleet Air Arm and combined the dual functions of dive-bomber and fighter. ... Boeing 314 A flying boat is an aircraft that is designed to take off and land on water, in particular a type of seaplane which uses its fuselage as a floating hull (instead of pontoons mounted below the fuselage). ...

In December 1939, she was sent to the South Atlantic to help in the search for the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. In the spring of 1940, she participated in the Norwegian campaign with HMS Glorious. On June 13, 1940, Ark Royal launched an air attack on Trondheim, Norway. As Ark Royal turned into the wind to launch aircraft in foggy conditions, two destroyers, HMS Antelope and HMS Electra collided, and had to return to England for urgent repairs. For other uses, see Atlantic (disambiguation) The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of its surface. ... Pocket battleship is an English language term for a class of warships built by German Reichsmarine in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. ... Admiral Graf Spee was a pocket battleship (Panzerschiff, later changed to heavy cruiser) launched by Germany in 1934 and named after the World War I Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee. ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... HMS Glorious was a warship of the Royal Navy. ... June 13 is the 164th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (165th in leap years), with 201 days remaining. ... County Sør-Trøndelag District Municipality NO-1601 Administrative centre Trondheim Mayor (2005) Rita Ottervik (A) Official language form Neutral Area  - Total  - Land  - Percentage Ranked 258 342 km² 322 km² 0. ... HMS Antelope (H36) was an A-class destroyer built by Hawthorn Leslie. ... HMS Electra, which carried the pennant number H27, was launched on 15 February 1934 at the Hawthorne Leslie shipyard at Hebburn, Tyneside. ...

In July, she joined the attack on the French Navy's base at Mers El Kébir, Algeria with HMS Hood, Valiant, Resolution, Arethusa, and Enterprise. The following September, Ark Royal took part in a second attack on the (Vichy) French Navy, this time at Dakar. Her torpedo planes attacked the French battlecruiser Strasbourg, but no hits were scored, and the French ships made it safely to Toulon. On July 9 1940, she was attacked by Italian aircraft with no damage. On August 1, aircraft from the Ark Royal attacked the Italian base at Cagliari, while the carrier HMS Argus delivered 12 Hurricane fighter aircraft to Malta. While covering a Mediterranean convoy in late November, her planes attacked Italian battleships, though without making any hits. In return, she was attacked by enemy aircraft with no damage. Combatants United Kingdom France Commanders James Somerville Marcel-Bruno Gensoul Strength 3 battleships, 1 carrier, 2 cruisers, 11 destroyers 4 battleships, 6 destroyers, 1 seaplane tender Casualties — 1 battleship sunk 2 battleships damaged 1,297 killed The Destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir, French North Africa (now... Mers-el-Kébir is a port town in northwestern Algeria, located by the Mediterranean Sea near Oran, in the Oran Province. ... HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. ... HMS Valiant was a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship of the Royal Navy built at the Fairfield shipyards in Glasgow and launched in November 1914. ... HMS Resolution was a Revenge-class battleship of the Royal Navy. ... The seventh HMS Arethusa of the Royal Navy was the name ship of her class of light cruisers. ... HMS Enterprise was an Emerald-class light cruiser designed and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, who laid her keel down on June 28, 1918. ... The Opera in Vichy. ... Combatants United Kingdom, Free France, Australia, Netherlands Vichy France Commanders Andrew Cunningham Pierre François Boisson Strength 2 battleships, 1 aircraft carrier, 4 cruisers, 10 destroyers 1 battleships, 2 cruisers, destroyers, coastal emplacements Casualties 2 battleships and 2 cruisers damaged >2 destroyers damaged, 2 submarines sunk {{{notes}}} The Battle of... A torpedo bomber is a bomber aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with torpedoes, but they could also carry out conventional bombings. ... HMS Hood (left) and the battleship HMS Barham (right), in Malta, 1937. ... The Strasbourg was a warship of the French Navy, labeled as fast battleship. Larger and more powerful than a mere battlecruiser, yet not a full battleship, they were designed to counter the threat of the German Pocket battleships. ... Location within France Coat of Arms of Toulon Toulon (Tolon in Provençal) is a city in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. ... July 9 is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 175 days remaining. ... August 1 is the 213th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (214th in leap years), with 152 days remaining. ... Càgliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. ... Argus in harbour in 1918, painted in dazzle camouflage, with a Renown class battlecruiser. ... The Hawker Hurricane is a fighter design from the 1930s which was used extensively by the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain. ... An A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-86 Sabre, P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang fly in formation during an air show at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... HMS Victory in 1884 given to the most powerfully gun-armed and most heavily armored classes of warships built between the 15th and 20th centuries. ...

She struck the port of Genoa, Italy, in early February 1941, during a British Naval raid deep into Italian-controlled waters. During March 1941, Ark Royal pursued the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the last phase of their Atlantic sortie. In late May, whilst serving in the Mediterranean as part of Force H along with HMS Renown and the cruiser HMS Sheffield, she was called upon to search for the Bismarck in the Atlantic. On 26 May, her scout planes found the battleship. Later that day, her torpedo planes made attacks on the Bismarck. During the first attack, her planes mistakenly attacked the Sheffield, as the pilots had not been informed that Sheffield had been sent ahead to shadow the Bismarck. Fortunately, the torpedoes had been fitted with the then new magnetic exploders (which, after this event, were subsequently deemed to be unreliable and withdrawn from use by the RN) and exploded upon hitting the water, and Sheffield managed to evade the rest; no major damage was incurred, and one of the pilots signalled 'Sorry for the kipper' to the Sheffield. Torpedoes with the older contact exploders were then fitted to her Swordfish planes and another attack was made just before sunset. In the second attack, her torpedo planes hit Bismarck, damaging rudder machinery, making the enemy battleship virtually unmanoeuvrable, and allowing other British warships to close and sink her on the morning of 27 May. No planes were lost in either of these attacks (contrary to the storyline of the movie Sink the Bismarck!). Location within Italy Genoa (Italian Genova, Genoese (dialect of Ligurian) Zena, French Gênes, German Genua, Spanish Génova, Galician Xénova) is a city and a seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. ... HMS Hood (left) and the battleship HMS Barham (right), in Malta, 1937. ... Scharnhorst was a 31,500 tonne Gneisenau class battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine, named after the Prussian general and army reformer Gerhard von Scharnhorst and to commemorate the World War I armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst. ... Gneisenau was a 31,100 ton Scharnhorst class battlecruiser of the German Kriegsmarine. ... Sortie is a term for deployment of one military aircraft or a ship for the purposes of a specific mission, whether alone, or with other aircraft or vessels. ... Force H was a British naval squadron during World War II. It was formed in 1940 to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean that had been removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany. ... HMS Renown was the lead ship of the three 26,500-ton Renown class battlecruisers of the Royal Navy, the other two were HMS Repulse and the cancelled HMS Resistance. ... USS Port Royal (CG-73), a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, launched in 1992. ... HMS Sheffield (24) was a Southampton class cruiser in the Royal Navy during the Second World War. ... The German battleship Bismarck is one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. ... May 26 is the 146th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (147th in leap years). ... A torpedo in Rail terminology refers to a small explosive device strapped to the top of the rail to alert an approaching train of immediate danger ahead. ... In physics, magnetism is a phenomenon by which materials exert an attractive or repulsive force on other materials. ... A detonator is a device used to trigger bombs, shaped charges and other forms of explosive material and explosive devices. ... Binomial name Xiphias gladius Linnaeus, 1758 Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) are large, highly migratory, predatory fish characterized by a long, flat bill in contrast to the smooth, round bill of the marlins. ... A torpedo bomber is a bomber aircraft designed primarily to attack ships with torpedoes, but they could also carry out conventional bombings. ... The German battleship Bismarck is one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. ... The worlds oldest depiction of a rudder. ... May 27 is the 147th day (148th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 218 days remaining. ... Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white war film based on the book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by C. S. Forester, and recounts the true story of the Royal Navys attempts to find and sink the famous German battleship during World War II. It...

HMS Ark Royal at sea

Ark Royal was also very active in the Mediterranean Sea during 1941. On several occasions, she ferried planes to the beleaguered base at Malta and covered Malta-bound convoys. The Germans reported her as sunk several times. While returning to Gibraltar from one such mission on 13 November 1941, Ark Royal was hit by one torpedo from the German submarine U-81. Progressive flooding choked the boiler uptakes; since she had no diesel backups, all power was lost, including power to the pumps. HMS Legion was ordered to take aboard 1487 officers and crew to transport to Gibraltar. After several hours, already listing heavily while under tow towards Gibraltar, the carrier capsized to starboard and sank on 14 November 1941.^[1] Only one crewman was lost during the evacuation of the ship. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1990x1536, 274 KB) Summary Description: HMS Ark Royal from the air Source: From collection of Wiki-Eds great uncle, possibly taken by someone else and then traded Date: 1940s Author: Arthur Conry (digitised and edited by Wiki-Ed) Permission: GFDL... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1990x1536, 274 KB) Summary Description: HMS Ark Royal from the air Source: From collection of Wiki-Eds great uncle, possibly taken by someone else and then traded Date: 1940s Author: Arthur Conry (digitised and edited by Wiki-Ed) Permission: GFDL... Satellite image The Mediterranean Sea is a part of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land, on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. ... November 13 is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 48 days remaining. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... Unterseeboot 81 (U-81) has been the designation of two submarines of the German Navy. ... Diesel or Diesel fuel is a specific fractional distillate of fuel oil (mostly petroleum) that is used as fuel in a diesel engine invented by German engineer Rudolf Diesel. ... HMS Legion, a British navy L-class destroyer launched in 1939. ... November 14 is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 47 days remaining. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ...

Her exact location remained unknown until mid-December 2002, when the BBC announced that a film crew had located the wreck in 900 metres of water some 30 statute miles (50 km) off Gibraltar. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, sometimes also known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, founded in 1922. ... A mile is any of several units of distance, or, in physics terminology, of length. ...

Battle honours

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

The Battle of Cape Spartivento, known as the Battle of Cape Teulada in Italy, was a minor engagement between naval forces of the British Royal Navy and the Italian Regia Marina on 27 November 1940, during World War II. The battle ended in a draw, but served to convince the... Battle of Mediterranean Conflict World War II Date Place Mediterranean Sea Result Allied victory The Naval Battle of the Mediterranean was waged during World War II, to attack and keep open the respective supply lines of Allied and Axis armies, and to destroy the opposing sides ability to wage... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... The German battleship Bismarck is one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. ... The Malta Convoys were a series of supply convoys to sustain the Mediterranean island of Malta during World War 2. ...

Account of the sinking

HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed by U-81 on November 14th, 1941. A single g7e torpedo struck the ship on the starboard side, abreast of the Island. This position was the worst possible: being dead amidships, it was where the list caused would be greatest, and its position relative to the transverse bulkheads was such that four main compartments, plus over 106 feet of the ship's starboard bilge, were immediately subject to flooding.

The enemy torpedo was running very deep, and at the time there was some speculation that it might have used a non-contact (magnetic) exploder. This was later discounted on the grounds that the damage inflicted by the hit was not as extensive as would have been expected for an under-the-keel hit, nor was it of the type typical of such hits.

The explosion opened a hole 130 feet long by 30 feet 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.

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, which explains the delay in bringing the ship to a halt. At this point the Captain decided to evacuate the 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 armored hatches were left open, allowing the flooding to spread further than otherwise would be expected.

As the ship listed further, water came in through the uptakes of the starboard boiler room, flooding over into the centreline, and later into the port, boiler rooms. This flooding further reduced the area through which the funnel gasses could escape, causing severe local overheating and fires.

One hour and 19 minutes after the torpedo hit, all power within the ship failed. Meanwhile, most of the crew had been ordered to evacuate the ship. Those that left the ship included the entire staff of shipwrights and key members of the electrical staff, depriving the damage control crews of much-needed expertise. There were still further delays before the repair crews returned to the machinery spaces and attempts at counter-flooding started.

Only half of the available compartments on the port side were flooded (which reduced the list to 14 degrees), because there was a lack of specialist expertise in the damage control parties. To make matters worse, the flooding valves were not then closed, so the water in the counterflooded units was gradually expelled as more water entered the starboard side of the ship.

Flooding and the loss of feedwater had already shut the ship's power-plant down. Since all the generators were steam-powered, this deprived the ship of electrical as well as motive power. The ship's engineers fought to get the plant back on line despite the rising floodwaters. They won that battle five hours and 34 minutes after the torpedo hit when the portside boiler room was lit off.

However, by that 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.

After the Second World War, the loss of Ark Royal was investigated. The conclusion drawn was that, on a target of 22,000 tons, the provision of an effective anti-torpedo scheme was difficult. However, when a comparison with the Yorktown was held, it was demonstrated that it was possible, and that the Yorktown had only sunk when all her reserve buoyancy had been exhausted. The primary cause of the loss of Ark Royal was therefore held to be the inexperience and poor judgement of those responsible for damage control. Proper measures were not undertaken in good time, nor was action to tow the ship to Gibraltar, less than 25 miles away, undertaken promptly.

The Investigation also concluded that there were a variety of design factors contributing to the loss:

• The uninterrupted boiler room flat was a significant error: it was immediately rectified in the Illustrious and Indefatiguable classes.
• The adoption of a double hangar had forced the use of cross-deck uptakes low in the ship, adding to vulnerability.
• The reliance on steam generators was also an error: diesel generators were retrofitted to the armoured carriers.
• The power train design itself was strongly criticised.

References

1. ^ Fleet Air Arm Archive entry on HMS Ark Royal II

• Roger Chesneau, Aircraft Carriers of the World, 1914 to the Present; An Illustrated Encyclopedia (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1984)
• Ernle Bradford, The Mighty Hood (World Publishing Company, Cleveland, 1959)

See HMS Ark Royal for other ships of the same name. HMS Ark Royal (R07) in Greenwich dock, London This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

External link

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

HMS Ark Royal

• Maritimequest HMS Ark Royal photo gallery