On the 20th of May 2013, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal began her final journey from her Portsmouth base to Turkey where she will be broken up for scrap.
This mighty ship, pride of the Royal Navy was decommissioned as part of the government’s defence review, leaving Britain without a single fleet carrier able to project airpower overseas in the event of future threats to our interests and dependences.
She was the fifth British warship to carry the name, the first being launched in 1587 at Deptford for Sir Walter Raleigh and was originally to be called Ark Raleigh in the convention of the time where ships were given the owner’s name. The ship was then bought by the Crown for the sum of £5,000 and renamed Ark Royal. She had two gun decks, a double forecastle, a quarter deck and poop deck.
She first saw action during the attack of the Spanish Armada where she was flagship of the Lord High Admiral Howard and led the chase of the Spanish ships into the North Sea. She was again Howard’s flagship during the 1596 raid on Cadiz which resulted in the destruction of much of the Spanish fleet and during 1599 when another Spanish invasion was threatened.
When James VI ascended the throne she was renamed Anne Royal in honour of James’ wife, Anne of Denmark. She underwent major refitting in 1608 as a 42 gun royal ship and remained in service until 1636, when she was moved to the River Medway to serve as flagship to Sir John Pennington. Nearing her new station, she struck her own anchor, piercing her hull and sinking in the river. She was raised at great cost, but was found to be damaged beyond repair and finally broken up in 1638.
The second ship to carry the name was launched in September 1914 and was the first ship in history to be designed specifically as a seaplane carrier. This revolutionary design enabled the Royal Navy to project air support to British forces around the world and was quickly taken up by other nations. During the First World War she was involved in the Gallipoli campaign where her planes conducted reconnaissance and observation missions and later supported British troops on the Macedonian Front. In 1916, she returned to the Dardanelles to serve as a depot ship for all the seaplanes operating in the area. In January 1918, her planes launched attacks on the German battlecruiser SMS Goebden when it sortied from the Dardanelles to attack allied ships. She spent the remainder of the war in the Aegean Sea conducting anti submarine patrols.
After the war she served as an aircraft transport and depot ship for the seaplanes in support of White Russians and British forces in operations against the Bolsheviks in the Caspian and Black Seas and later supported RAF aircraft in British Somaliland in the campaign against the Mad Mullah. In 1920, she was placed in reserve.
In 1930, she was recommissioned as a training ship for seaplane pilots and to test aircraft catapult techniques. The old warhorse was renamed HMS Pegasus in 1934 and continued to serve as a training ship until the beginning of World War II, when she was modified to serve as a prototype fighter catapult ship, defending convoys from attacks by German long range Maritime Patrol bombers. She carried out these duties until 1941 and then reverted to her role as a training ship and later a barracks ship.
She was sold off in 1946 to be converted to a merchant ship, but the new owners ran out of money and she was sold for scrap.
The third ship to carry the name was launched in December 1938 at the Cammell Laird ship works in Birkenhead. Her design differed from previous carriers in that she was the first to have hangars and flight decks built as an integral part of the hull instead of being built as add-ons to the superstructure. She came into service at a time that saw the extensive growth of naval airpower and pioneered a number of carrier tactics that were developed and refined in the early days of the Second World War.
Her armaments were designed with anti aircraft warfare in mind, as aircraft were expected to be the main threat; ships and submarines could be outrun or left to her escorts to deal with. She carried sixteen quick firing 4.5 inch guns in eight double turrets, four on each side of the hull, plus six 8 barrelled “pom poms” located on the flight deck in front of and behind the superstructure island, while eight 4 barrelled .52 inch machine guns were installed on projecting platforms at the front and rear of the flight deck. She was powered by three Parsons Turbines that gave her a maximum speed of 30 knots.
She carried five squadrons of aircraft at any one time, ranging from fighter and dive bombing Blackburn Skuas, Fairey Swordfish for reconnaissance and torpedo attacks, Blackburn Roc fighter bombers and Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers.
War was declared between Britain and Germany on September 1939, but Germany had already deployed U Boats to take up position off the British coast in readiness to attack British shipping and within hours of war being declared, the passenger ship SS Athena was torpedoed and sunk by U 30, the first of over 66,000 tons of merchant shipping sunk in the first week of the war.
Ark Royal and her sister carriers Courageous and Hermes were deployed as part of “hunter killer” groups consisting of a flotilla of destroyers and other anti submarine vessels grouped around a carrier who could increase the area for U Boat searches with her planes but did make them tempting targets to the Germans.
On the 14th September, Ark Royal received a distress signal from SS Fannard Head who was some 200 miles away and being pursued by the surfaced German submarine U 30. Ark Royal launched aircraft to aid the merchant ship, but was then herself attacked by U 39 who launched two torpedoes. The carrier turned towards the attack to reduce her profile and the torpedoes missed. Three of the escorting destroyers dropped depth charges on the submarine, forcing her to surface with the crew just managing to abandon ship before she sank.
U 39 was the first U Boat to be sunk in the war.
The flight of Skuas sent to aid the merchantman which had been boarded by the raider and launched an unsuccessful attack on the U 30, but two of them crashed when caught by the blast from their own bombs. The U Boat quickly recovered the boarding crew, plus the pilots of the two Skuas and escaped.
On the 17th September, the carrier HMS Courageous was patrolling of the west coast of Ireland when it was spotted by U 29. Two of the carrier’s destroyers had been despatched to aid a merchant ship that was under attack, leaving only two to protect Courageous. Captain Schuhart of U 29 launched three torpedoes, two of which struck the carrier on her port side, knocking out all electrical power. She capsized and sank within 20 minutes with the loss of 519 crewmen including her captain.
This sinking, plus an earlier unsuccessful attack on Ark Royal, caused the Admiralty to rethink their strategy and carriers were withdrawn from anti submarine patrols.
On the 25th September, Ark Royal came to the rescue of the British submarine HMS Spearfish which had been damaged in a fight with German warships in the Kattegat. She was returning to England with the submarine, plus the battleships HMS Nelson and HMS Rodney when they were spotted by three German Dornier 18 seaplanes. Ark Royal launched three Skuas who shot down one Dornier and chased the others off. The Dornier was the first British aerial kill of the war.
Ark Royal was aware that the surviving Dorniers would report her location and ordered the anti aircraft gunners to action stations just in time as four Junkers 88 bombers from the Luftwaffe Kampfgruppe 30 appeared overhead. Three were driven off by the gunners, but the fourth launched a 1,000 kg bomb at the carrier. The ship turned hard to starboard, heeling over and avoided the bomb which landed in the water some 30 yards off her starboard bow and sent a huge column into the air. The German pilot was convinced he had hit the carrier and when a later reconnaissance flight found only the two battleships, the German propaganda machine crowed that Ark Royal had been sunk. Britain was concerned that such news could have a negative effect on her allies and Churchill immediately assured Roosevelt that Ark Royal was intact and undamaged and invited the US naval attaché to visit Ark Royal in dock.
The Germans were to claim on a number of occasions that they had sunk Ark Royal and claimed that the British would not confirm her loss. Lord Haw Haw would often ask in his propaganda broadcasts, “Where is the Ark Royal? .These broadcasts were relayed over the ship’s tannoy and the sailors on board would gleefully reply “We’re here!, we’re here!”.
In October 1939, the carrier was deployed to Freetown on the African coast to hunt for the German heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee. The raider was eventually found and badly damaged in the Battle of the River Plate and had put into Montevideo for repairs. Two British cruisers followed her and patrolled outside the harbour and radioed her position to the fleet. Ark Royal and HMS Renown were sent to join the ships outside the harbour, but were 36 hours away. The British naval attaché in Montevideo came up with a plan to make the Germans believe that the two ships had already arrived.
An order for fuel for Ark Royal was placed in Buenos Aires and this information leaked to the press and picked up by the German embassy. Graf Spee’s commander, Captain Langsdorf, believing that a large British force awaited him outside the harbour, scuttled his ship.
Ark Royal saw further active service in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but on 16th April 1940, was recalled to give air support to British troops in Norway fighting to help the Norwegians following the German invasion of April 9th. The Royal Navy, while trying to aid the defenders had come under fierce attack from German air and naval forces that had sunk the destroyer Ghurkha and badly damaged the cruiser Suffolk. The fighting was outside the range of land based aircraft and the carrier was sent to help, together with the cruisers Curlew and Berwick screened by the destroyers Hyperion, Hereward, Hasty, Fearless, Fury and Juno. She took position 120 miles off the Norwegian coast to reduce the chance of air attacks and provided fighter support for other ships in addition to carrying out strikes against shipping and shore targets. She returned to Scapa Flow to refuel and replace damaged aircraft, before returning to Norway with the battleship HMS Valliant. During her return she came under attack from JU 88s and Heinkel 111s, but escaped undamaged, adding to her reputation of being “a lucky ship”.
When it was decided to evacuate allied troops from southern Norway, Ark Royal was sent as part of the air cover for the move and on May 1st, came under intense air attack, and despite a number of near misses, came through unscathed.
Later in the month she was sent together with the carrier Glorious to cover the evacuation of troops from Narvik. She carried out air patrols and bombing raids until early June when Glorious, escorted by the destroyers Acasta and Ardent, were detached to return to Britain. The three ships were found and attacked by the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneinenau and sunk. The carrier sent out air patrols to locate the German ships, but they escaped back to the safety of Trondheim. On the 19th June, she launched an attack on Scharnhorst with fifteen Skuas, but the event became a disaster when her two escorting destroyers collided in heavy fog and eight of the Skuas were shot down in the attack. Scharnhorst was undamaged.
In June 1940, Ark Royal with the battle cruiser Hood, plus three destroyers, set sail for Gibraltar to join Admiral Sir John Summerville’s Force H. The recent capitulation of France raised concerns that the French fleet based at Mers-el-Kebir might fall under Axis control and Cedric Holland, the captain of Ark Royal, a former naval attaché to Paris, was sent to negotiate the surrender or scuttling of the fleet while the British force patrolled outside the harbour. The French admirals refused either option and Force H opened fire on the anchored fleet. During the bombardment, the carrier’s aircraft acted as spotters for the British gunners. The French battleship Strasbourg managed to escape despite attacks from Ark Royal’s bombers.
In July, Force H was deployed to deliver vital supplies and aircraft to the beleaguered island of Malta which was suffering badly from Italian air raids. The carrier Argus carried Hawker Hurricane fighters to assist the island’s air defence, while Ark Royal provided air cover for the force.
Following a refit in Liverpool the carrier returned to the Mediterranean for the rest of 1940, escorting Malta convoys. In November 1940, the hitherto inactive Italian fleet, led by the battleships Giulio Cesare and Vittorio Veneto, was sent to intercept the convoy and was spotted by Ark Royal’s aircraft. Torpedo bombers were despatched and the Italian destroyer Lanciere was damaged. The Italians retaliated with air raids on Ark Royal, but caused no damage and the convoy reached Malta safely. She also took part in the attacks on Genoa and the oil refineries at La Spezia.
In 1941, the carrier was back in the Atlantic searching for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, sent out to raid allied shipping, but was recalled to the Mediterranean when Rommel’s Afrika Korps began driving British forces back towards the Suez Canal. British forces were in urgent need of supplies and a convoy consisting of five large transport ships, escorted by Ark Royal, together with the battleship Queen Elizabeth, the battlecruiser Renown, the cruisers Sheffield, Naiad, Fiji and Gloucester and screened by destroyers, headed for Alexandria.
On the 8th of May, the convoy came under attack by Italian and German aircraft. The carrier’s twelve Fairey Fulmars fought heroically, eventually driving off the attackers, but costing them five of their machines. Attacks continued the next day and the remaining Fulmars bravely defended the merchantmen and the convoy eventually reached Alexandria. The only casualties being Empire Song, sunk when she struck a mine and New Zealand Star, damaged but still able to reach port.
Later in the month, the carrier was ordered to join the Home Fleet in the Atlantic to search for the German battleship Bismarck and on the 26th of May, one of Ark Royal’s Swordfish located the enemy and alerted the British fleet. The German ship was 150 miles from the Home Fleet and it was feared that she would escape to the safety of St Naziare before the British could catch her. Ark Royal launched a number of sorties and on her second raid, hit Bismarck with three torpedoes, two striking the hull while a third struck the port steering room and jammed her rudder. The stricken ship was forced to sail in circles until she was caught by the British fleet and destroyed.
Meanwhile, British naval strength in the Mediterranean was starving the Afrika Korps of vital supplies and Hitler ordered U Boats into the area to sink allied shipping. On the 10th of November, Force H and the carrier were returning to Gibraltar after ferrying more Hurricanes to Malta. Also at sea was the U Boat U 81 which had received reports of the enemy’s position. At 15.40 on the 13th of November, the U Boat launched a torpedo which struck Ark Royal amidships between the bomb store and fuel bunkers, causing a huge explosion and killing Able Seaman Edward Mitchell, the only casualty. The ship took on a severe list and the captain gave the order to abandon ship and Legion came alongside to take off her crew. The speed of her sinking prompted an investigation by a naval Board of Enquiry and a Court Martial for her captain. The captain was cleared, but faults in the ship’s design and construction were identified, particularly weaknesses in the boiler intakes and bulwarks. Two carriers currently under construction, Illustrious and Implacable, were modified to include the Board’s suggestions.
The next ship to carry the name was commissioned in February 1955 and was the first British carrier to be constructed with both an angled flight deck and steam catapults. Throughout her service she was constantly undergoing refitting and modification. One year from her commission she had her forward 4.5 inch guns removed to improve flight deck layout and four years later her starboard guns were also removed. Her remaining guns were removed in a 1964 refit and Sea Cat launchers were installed, but without missiles, leaving her without defensive armament. She carried twelve Buccaneer strike aircraft and fourteen Phantoms for air defence.
In 1965, she was part of the Beira Patrol enforcing the naval blockade of Rhodesia and later carried out trials for a new type of Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing (Vistol) aircraft which later developed into the Harrier.
In 1972, her Buccaneers took part in a long range strike operation over British Honduras shortly before its independence to deter a possible Guatemalan invasion.
The ship also received much attention from the media including an episode of the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s show, “Not only, but also”, when a piano was fired into the sea from the ship’s catapult.
She was also the subject of the BBC documentary “Sailor”, showing life on board ship.
She was decommissioned in February 1979, leaving the navy with no fixed wing aircraft at sea. In September 1980 she was towed to Stranraer to be broken up.
The last of her name was launched on the 2nd of June 1981 at the Swan Hunter shipyard on the Tyne, She was originally to be called Indomitable, but following public resentment at the loss of the Ark Royal, scrapped in 1980, her name was changed. Even before her completion, the armchair generals at the MOD were offering her for sale to the Australian navy, but in the face of a public outcry, the offer was withdrawn.
She followed her sister ships Invincible and Illustrious into service in 1985 and was affectionately known as “The Mighty Ark”.
She served in the Adriatic during the Bosnian War and also in the Persian Gulf during the allied invasion of Iraq. She later assisted in trial landings of army WAH 64 Apache helicopters, the success of which greatly increased her attack capability.
During the Icelandic volcano eruptions in 2010 and the disruption in air travel, she was used to ferry stranded British tourists across the Channel from Europe and in June of that year she sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to take part in the Royal Canadian Navy Centennial Celebrations. In October 2010, it was announced that, as part of the never ending defence cuts, she would be decommissioned early, to be replaced in the long term by the proposed new carrier, Prince of Wales and a campaign was begun to have one of the new carriers named Ark Royal, but in December 2010, it was announced that the amphibious warfare ship HMS Albion was to take the place of the carrier as the Royal Navy’s flagship.
She sailed to Loch Long to have her munitions removed and then began her last trip, visiting North Shields and then on to Hamburg. She launched her remaining Harrier GR9s for the last time on the 24th of November. A farewell parade by her captain and crew was held in Guildhall Square in Portsmouth in January 2011 and another in Leeds, the latter being a Freedom of the City parade. She was docked at Portsmouth in March with the last of her crew leaving in May.
The government had typically failed to make any proper plan for her disposal and various ideas were put forward, including turning her into a museum, a hotel, a casino and even a hospital ship. One suggestion was to sink her off the Devonshire coast as an artificial reef!
In March 2011, the MOD announced that it would be sold by auction and a year later it was confirmed that it had been bought by Leyal Ship Recycling of Turkey and, on the 20th May 2013, sailed to her final destruction.
In today’s once mighty Royal Navy, there are just 78 ships, of which just 18 are major surface combatants (five guided missile destroyers and eleven frigates) and eleven are nuclear powered submarines. It also has one aircraft carrier, the helicopter assault ship HMS Illustrious, and two amphibious transport docks, the rest being patrol ships, mine hunters and icebreakers. Compare this to the outbreak of the war in 1939, when the Royal Navy could muster fifteen battleships, seven aircraft carriers, sixty six cruisers, one hundred and eighty four destroyers and sixty submarines.
The improvements made in aircraft and missile technology of course dictates that we no longer need a huge fleet to protect our national interests, but common sense requires that we, as an island nation, still need the ability to defend ourselves against threats such as the Argentine invasion of the Falklands or the Icelandic “cod wars” of recent history.
Successive governments have nibbled away at our armed forces to a degree where morale is at rock bottom. God help us should we need to call on them to save us in the future as they have so often done in the past.
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