HMS Ark Royal (1914)

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For other ships with the same name, see HMS Ark Royal and HMS Pegasus.
Ark Royal around 1918
History
United Kingdom
NameArk Royal
BuilderBlyth Shipbuilding Company, Blyth, Northumberland
Laid down7 November 1913
Launched5 September 1914
AcquiredMay 1914
Commissioned10 December 1914
Out of serviceFebruary 1944
RenamedPegasus, 21 December 1934
FateSold, 18 October 1946
Panama
NameAnita I
OwnerR. C. Ellerman
OperatorCompania de Navigation Ellanita
Acquired18 October 1946
FateSeized for debts, 16 June 1949
NotesSold for scrap, October 1950
General characteristics
Type
Seaplane carrier
Displacement7,080 long tons (7,190 t) (normal)
Length366 ft (111.6 m) o/a
Beam50 ft 10 in (15.5 m)
Draught18 ft 9 in (5.7 m)
Installed power
  • 3 ×
    boilers
  • 3,000 
    kW
    )
Propulsion
Speed11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Range3,030 nmi (5,610 km; 3,490 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement180
Armament4 × single 12 pdr (3 in (76 mm)) guns
Aircraft carried8 × floatplanes

HMS Ark Royal was the first ship designed and built as a

Macedonian Front in 1916, before she returned to the Dardanelles to act as a depot ship for all the seaplanes operating in the area. In January 1918, several of her aircraft unsuccessfully attacked the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben when she sortied from the Dardanelles to attack Allied ships in the area. The ship left the area later in the year to support seaplanes conducting anti-submarine patrols over the southern Aegean Sea
.

After the end of the war, Ark Royal mostly served as an aircraft transport and depot ship for those aircraft in support of

Mohammed Abdullah Hassan in 1920. Later that year, the ship was placed in reserve. Ark Royal was recommissioned to ferry an RAF squadron to the Dardanelles during the Chanak Crisis
in 1922. She was reduced to reserve again upon her return to the United Kingdom the following year.

The ship was recommissioned in 1930 to serve as a training ship, for seaplane pilots and to evaluate aircraft catapult operations and techniques. She was renamed HMS Pegasus in 1934, freeing the name for the aircraft carrier ordered that year, and continued to serve as a training ship until the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. Assigned to the Home Fleet at the beginning of the war, she took on tasks as an aircraft transport, in addition to her training duties, until she was modified to serve as the prototype fighter catapult ship in late 1940. This type of ship was intended to defend convoys against attacks by German long-range maritime patrol bombers by launching fighters via their catapult to provide air cover for the convoy. Pegasus served in this role until mid-1941 when she reverted to her previous duties as a training ship. This lasted until early 1944 when she became a barracks ship. The ship was sold in late 1946 and her conversion into a merchant ship began the following year. However, the owner ran out of money during the process and Anita I, as she had been renamed, was seized by her creditors in 1949 and sold for scrap. She was not broken up until late 1950.

Design and description

The Royal Navy had conducted trials in 1913 with a modified

tramp steamer was purchased in 1914 that had just begun construction at the Blyth Shipbuilding Company so it could be easily modified to suit its new role.[2]

Ark Royal was

launched on 5 September 1914. The ship was commissioned on 10 December 1914.[3]

Extensive changes to the ship were made in converting her to a seaplane tender, with the superstructure, funnel, and propulsion machinery moved aft and a working deck occupying the forward half of the ship. The deck was not intended as a flying-off deck, but for starting and running up of seaplane engines and for recovering damaged aircraft from the sea.[4] The ship was equipped with a large aircraft hold, 150 feet (45.7 m) long, 45 feet (13.7 m) wide and 15 feet (4.6 m) high along with extensive workshops. Two 3-long-ton (3.0 t) steam cranes on the sides of the forecastle lifted the aircraft through the sliding hatch of the hangar onto the flight deck or into the water. She carried 4,000 imperial gallons (18,000 L; 4,800 US gal) of petrol for her aircraft in standard commercial 2-imperial-gallon (9.1 L; 2.4 US gal) tins.[5]

She could carry five

floatplanes and two to four wheeled aircraft. The seaplanes would take off and land in the water alongside the carrier, lifted on and off the ship by cranes; the other aircraft would have to return to land after launch. Her original complement of aircraft consisted of a Short Folder, two Wight Pushers, three Sopwith Type 807 seaplanes and two to four Sopwith Tabloid wheeled aircraft.[6]

Ark Royal had an

boilers generated enough steam to produce 3,000 indicated horsepower (2,200 kW) from the engine.[8] The ship had a designed speed of 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph); she made a speed of 10.64 knots (19.71 km/h; 12.24 mph) during her sea trials with 2,675 shaft horsepower (1,995 kW) in December 1914.[9] Ark Royal carried 500 tonnes (490 long tons) of fuel oil, enough to give her a range of 3,030 nautical miles (5,610 km; 3,490 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).[7]

The ship was armed with four

mizzen to help keep her head to the wind; she remains the only aircraft carrier to have been fitted with a sail."[11]

Service

First World War

The ship proved to be too slow to work with the

propeller of one of her Sopwiths splintered into pieces at 3,000 feet (910 m). Both of the aircraft's crewmen were recovered by the destroyer HMS Usk.[12]

Later in the month, the ship's aircrew learned to spot

Short Type 166, all two-seat floatplanes, as replacements. The ship had no room for all these aircraft and she used the collier Penmorvalt to store them and for additional workshop space. Her aircraft resumed reconnaissance and observation missions over the Dardanelles; aircraft discovered a large ammunition dump on 12 April, and provided corrective data to direct gunfire from HMS Lord Nelson onto the target.[13]

Ark Royal's aircraft provided support to the Australian and New Zealand troops at

Gallipoli Peninsula. Two days later, the ship was taken under fire by the Ottoman predreadnought Turgut Reis, firing across the peninsula, and she had to move in a hurry to avoid being hit. A month later, the battle on the peninsula had bogged down and the success of the German submarine U-21 in sinking two British predreadnoughts forced Ark Royal to move to a safer anchorage at Imbros at the end of May. There she became a depot ship for all the seaplanes in the area, while her own aircraft continued to support operations at Gallipoli. On occasion, aircraft were loaned out to other ships for reconnaissance or observation missions.[14]

The ship left Imbros on 1 November for

Mudros to serve as a depot ship for all the seaplanes assigned to No. 2 Wing RNAS, which controlled all RNAS aircraft in the area. By the end of 1917, she operated a mixture of Short Type 184 and Sopwith Baby aircraft.[15]

On the morning of 20 January 1918, the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavûz Sultân Selîm, together with the light cruiser Midilli (formerly the German Goeben and Breslau, and still with German crews), sortied from the Dardanelles to attack British warships based at Mudros. Yavuz struck a mine shortly after they exited the mouth of the Dardanelles so they switched targets and sank two British monitors off Imbros Island.[16] As they were returning to the Dardanelles, the two ships were attacked by two of Ark Royal's Sopwith Babies with 65-pound (29 kg) bombs. One Baby was quickly shot down and the other was forced to make an emergency landing with engine problems off Imbros; the pilot was able to taxi the aircraft onto a beach and it was recovered several days later.[15] Midilli struck five mines and sank on the return whilst Yavuz struck two more mines and then ran aground inside the Straits. Ark Royal's Short 184s attempted to bomb her at dawn on the following morning, but all ten bombs missed, and an attempt to attack the ship with a Short 184 modified to carry a 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo failed when the weight of the torpedo proved to be more than the aircraft could lift.[16][17]

On 3 April, the ship was transferred to the island of Syros, where she could support the seaplanes of No. 62 Wing of the Royal Air Force (RAF) on anti-submarine patrols; part of the former No. 2 Wing RNAS redesignated when the RNAS and the Royal Flying Corps were merged to form the RAF. Ark Royal was transferred to Piraeus in October and was still there when the Armistice of Mudros with Turkey was signed on 31 October. The ship joined the Allied fleet that occupied Constantinople after the surrender.[18]

Interwar years and the Second World War

After the war, Ark Royal transported aircraft across the Black Sea to

the air and land campaign against Diiriye Guure.[19] Ark Royal served during this campaign solely as a depot and repair ship for the RAF. She was withdrawn before its conclusion and transferred to the Black Sea to support the White Russian forces there as they began to collapse. The ship twice ferried refugees from the Caucasian coast to the Crimea and, after the second voyage, had to be fumigated at Constantinople after an outbreak of typhus among her passengers. During the summer of 1920, Ark Royal ferried RAF aircraft and personnel to Basra. She then returned to Britain for a refit and was put into reserve at Rosyth in November.[20]

She was recommissioned in September 1922 to transport

Chanak crisis. The aircraft were ferried semi-assembled and then transferred to the aircraft carrier Argus where they were fully assembled. On 11 October, the F.2s flew from the carrier to an airfield at Kilya on the European side of the straits. The ship remained in the area until she was given a brief refit at Malta in early 1923. Now equipped with Fairey IIID seaplanes, Ark Royal returned to the Dardanelles until she was transferred back to the United Kingdom late in the year. Upon her arrival, the ship was placed back in reserve and became the depot ship for the reserve of minesweepers at Sheerness until 1930.[20]

HMS Pegasus at anchor during World War II

In 1930, Ark Royal was recommissioned again as a training ship and an aircraft catapult was installed on her forecastle, forward of her cranes. For the next nine years, the ship conducted trials and evaluations of catapults and seaplane launch and recovery equipment and techniques. On 21 December 1934, she was renamed HMS Pegasus to release her name for a new carrier that was then beginning construction. The ship was assigned to the Home Fleet when the Second World War began, and was mostly used to train sailors in catapult launching and shipboard recovery techniques. The ship used the Fairey Seafox, Supermarine Walrus, and Fairey Swordfish of 764 Naval Air Squadron.[21] She also served as an aircraft transport and was present in Scapa Flow, having just delivered some aircraft, on 14 October when the battleship Royal Oak was sunk by the German submarine U-47. As the closest ship to Royal Oak, Pegasus was able to rescue some 400 survivors.[22]

A Supermarine Walrus amphibious aircraft making a low pass near seaplane tender HMS Pegasus, September 1942

Pegasus was converted to the prototype fighter catapult ship in November 1940,

anti-aircraft guns mounted in the bow, the ship's bridge was enlarged and the mast was replaced with a tripod mast bearing a Type 291 air warning radar.[26] The ship then became a seaplane training ship again, hosting 763 NAS aboard from 20 April 1942 to 13 February 1944.[27] Pegasus then became a barracks ship until May 1946 and was then listed for disposal in June.[28]

She was sold to R. C. Ellerman on 18 October, renamed Anita I, and

British Iron and Steel Corporation in October 1950. Later that year, the ship was broken up for scrap at Thos. W. Ward, Grays, Essex.[29]

Notes

  1. ^ "cwt" is the abbreviation for hundredweight, 30 cwt referring to the weight of the gun.

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Layman 1976, p. 92
  2. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 91–92
  3. ^ Friedman, p. 363
  4. ISBN 0-85177-282-X
    .
  5. ^ Friedman, pp. 28, 363, 368
  6. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 95–96
  7. ^ a b Friedman, p. 364
  8. ^ a b Layman 1989, p. 45
  9. ^ Friedman, pp. 363, 368
  10. ^ a b Friedman, p. 28
  11. ^ Brown 1999, pp. 76–77
  12. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 96–7
  13. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 98, 100
  14. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 100–01
  15. ^ a b Layman 1976, p. 102
  16. ^
    ISSN 0043-0374
    .
  17. ^ "Law Intelligence: R.A.F. claim in the Prize Court". Flight Magazine. XI (6, No. 528). FlightGlobal Archive: 190. 6 February 1919. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  18. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 102–03
  19. ^ Omar, Mohamed (2001). The Scramble in the Horn of Africa. p. 402. This letter is sent by all the Dervishes, the Amir, and all the Dolbahanta to the Ruler of Berbera ... We are a Government, we have a Sultan, an Amir, and Chiefs, and subjects ... (reply) In his last letter the Mullah pretends to speak in the name of the Dervishes, their Amir (himself), and the Dolbahanta tribes. This letter shows his object is to establish himself as the Ruler of the Dolbahanta
  20. ^ a b Layman 1976, p. 103
  21. ^ Sturtivant, pp. 98, 100–101
  22. ^ Layman 1976, pp. 103–04
  23. ^ a b Layman 1976, p. 104
  24. ^ Sturtivant, pp. 178, 187, 189
  25. ^ Poolman, pp. 39–41
  26. ^ Lenton, pp. 112–13
  27. ^ Sturtivant, p. 98
  28. ^ Layman 1989, p. 47
  29. ^ Layman 1976, p. 105

References

External links

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