HMS Ark Royal

The Last Commission

1976 to 1978

 

    

Ark Royal heritage

 

The name ARK ROYAL has a majestic ring, and our present ship is the fourth in the history of the Royal Navy to bear it.    
  The first ship to be called ARK ROYAL was built at Deptford for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1586, who in fact named her ARK RALEIGH as the custom in those days was for ships to bear their owners’ names. Queen Elizabeth I bought the ship in January 1587 for £5000 while it was still on the stocks and she was renamed ARK ROYAL in the following June. When the Armada approached England in 1588, Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral of England hoisted his flag in the 800 ton, 38 gun ARK ROYAL, and she took part in the first encounter with the Spanish off Plymouth and continued in battle until the decisive action at Gravelines. She saw further action against the Spanish, until in 1608 she was rebuilt and renamed the ANNE ROYAL in honour of James I’s wife Anne of Denmark. The ANNE ROYAL was eventually broken up in 1636, after a series of mishaps, including being sunk in the Thames.

Three hundred years passed before the second ARK ROYAL was commissioned. She was a merchant ship being built at Blyth, Northumberland when at the outbreak of war in 1914 she was bought for the Royal Navy and converted into a sea plane carrier of 7400 tons. Launched on 5th September 1914 and commissioned on the 9th December, ARK ROYAL sailed from England early in 1915 with six sea planes and two aeroplanes embarked, and joined the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta. During the war years her main roles were that of conducting reconnaissance, spotting and photographic flights, and she was present at the Dardannelles Campaign and the Gallipoli Landings. During 1920 while operating in the Black Sea, Ark helped with the evacuation of Russian refugees from the Revolution  
 

end of Ark Royal [3]
In 1923 on her return to England, ARK ROYAL went into the Reserve Fleet at Chatham, and in December 1934 was renamed HMS PEGASUS and used as a trials ship for catapults, aircraft recovery and general training. During the early years of the Second World War, PEGASUS was recalled into active service and used as a catapult carrier escorting Atlantic Convoys. In July 1941 she returned to the role of catapult training duties once more, before being sold in 1946 when she was renamed ANITA before finally being broken up in 1950
 
The second ARK ROYAL was renamed HMS PEGASUS after it had been decided to name the aircraft carrier of the 1934 ship building programme ARK ROYAL.
 
The third ship to bear this proud name was laid down on 16th  September 1935 at Cammell Laird’s shipyard at Birkenhead. She was the first in the Royal Navy to be laid down as an aircraft carrier and the 22,000 ton ship was launched on the 13th April 1937. After being commissioned on the 16th November 1938 she became the Flagship of the Vice Admiral Aircraft Carriers, and during the Second World War she had a wide variety of roles.

 
By 14th September she had been attacked by U-Boats, and by the end of the month one of Ark’s Skua aircraft had the distinction of shooting down the first enemy aircraft of the Luftwaffe to be destroyed in the war. Her other roles included the search for the GRAF SPEE in the South Atlantic during 1939, the Norwegian Campaign in April/May 1940, and in June 1940 took part in the attacks on the French Fleet at Oran when France had fallen to the Germans. She then joined the famous Force ‘H’ based on Gibraltar and took part in many successful operations during the following 15 months in the Mediterranean, including convoys to Malta and in the operation which ended in the sinking of the BISMARK. Repeatedly the Germans claimed in their propaganda war that the ARK ROYAL had been sunk, the first time being as early as the 26th September 1939. She finally met her end at 0613 on the 14th November 1941 when, having been torpedoed the previous afternoon by a U-Boat, she turned over and sank within sight of Gibraltar
  There is now a fifth Ark Royal. This is a little teeney weeney boat about the size of one of Ark Royal 4's Captains Boat.

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