HMS Ark Royal | Driven to destruction (Part 1 of 2) 

High praise indeed. Thanks. Makes having to stay up until 3am to fix cascading problems from last-minute edits (almost) worth it! ;)

Part 2 is out there also, if you haven't already seen it: Recollections of her sinking.

With a torpedo blister, American F6F's and dive bombers, upgraded AA and repairs she would have survived and already ranked with Yorktown 1942 would be ranked with Enterprise.

HMS Ark Royal had a fatal flaw: The number, size, power and distribution of her lifts. Especially the fact that only one of them - a two-tier lift - accessed the lower hangar. That dramatically slowed the ranging - and stowing - of strikes.

@@ArmouredCarriers I’d argue her biggest flaw (which probably killed her) was the total reliance on her steam plant for power. Once she lost electricity for the pumps she was screwed. Had she had a decent diesel back up system she may have stood a chance. It’s also worth mentioning that DK Brown mentions that officers being taught damage control were told that had they flooded the centre boiler room then she could have been brought to an even keel and likely towed back to Gibraltar. Even without a diesel back up. In regards to Courageous and Glorious we will never know how effective they would be as they were both lost under ludicrous circumstances.Courageous hunting U-Boats. Glorious under the most murky of of scenarios of which even today their are doubts about what really occurred and why. I bet the RN would have loved to have had those two available in the Far East in Dec 1941 off Malaya. Furious did ok and pretty much everything asked of her,till she was worn out (common theme for RN ships). Eagle was too slow,Hermes too small and slow. Argus had already been relegated to a training vessel before necessity brought her back. All 3 of those ships were from the immediate post WW1 years at a time when they were effectively prototypes. The 3 light battlecruiser conversions were from the early 30’s (Furious on refit 3.) Again all 3 were in need of refit,again money and dockyard space were in short supply. Ark was the new breed. It’s an interesting question as to whether the RN would have been better served by building improved Ark Royals or the Illustrious class. Personally I think that the RN got it right for their needs. That they didn’t last long post war (Victorious) apart was down to money and the rapid development of aircraft size. That said I think the Implacables were a mistake with such low hanger heights. The writing was already on the wall in regards to aircraft size and it was “unfortunate” that they weren’t redesigned to reflect that. In defence the RN needed ships ASAP.

@@MattVF I largely agree with most of your points. But I always worry about eagle-eyed hindsight (which is why I love the perspective of these guys ... it's not always right. But it is often what they thought at the time). Inquiries did place the blame at the hand of failed damage control practice. But it was also doctrine at this time to avoid counter-flooding a ship "as it was the enemy's job to let in water". A lesson learned the hard way, perhaps, that pragmatism wins over ideology every time. Generators would have helped a lot. But cost-saving measures had prevented these being provided during 1930s construction. And the emergency of war meant both that enough weren't availalble, and the ships could not be spared long enough to have them retrofitted. A false economy modern governments and navies could learn from. Corageous is a case of war reality versus pre-war wargames. They thought the 1939 techology would keep the carrier safe. They were wrong. But the role of carrier as the core of anti-submarine hunter-killer groups was revived by 1942 (escort carriers admittedly), but the Cold War of the 1950s saw fleet carriers return to the role. I guess it will take another war to prove whether or not the current technology balances in favor of the carrier or sub ... Glorious - as my "bloody shambles" videos show - was an unmitigated case of confusion combined with stupidity.

@@ArmouredCarriers absolutely agree. The RN didn’t have the benefit of a Mk1 retroscope! Courageous was undertaking something that the RN would later successfully carry out with escort carriers. Whether a fleet carrier was worth the risk I think is a different question. I’m pretty sure that Ark Royal was near missed by a uboat in the same time frame . Had it not been for iffy German torpedoes then the RN could have lost Ark Royal as well (Rodney also dodged bullets as well from memory because of dodgy magnet pistol detonators). Your right though. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I love the fact that your channel gives you accounts from the people who were there. Too often these days there is concentration on the statistics of vessels rather than the men who actually fought them.

Thanks.

I think Formidable and Illustrious had both left Norfolk by November '41.

@@ArmouredCarriers I just checked. The two were not ready until early December, and then they collided while sailing back to the UK. Repaired through January and into February. The "Indomitable" was the fourth carrier in the class, but she ran aground during a shakedown cruise in November, '41, the famous "missing carrier of Force Z" that people still argue about. That would have left only "Ark Royal" and "Victorious" until early 1942.

The jolly , " man your brooms " after a Kamikaze hit, was nonsense. Wartime propaganda that you are falling for to this day. It was no joke , but they managed to stay in action , with supreme effort . There was nothing jolly about it.

@@user-qq2vq4fv8b HMS Illustrious was hit by 7 x 1,100lb bombs in one day, 1/7/1941 and survived. HMS Indefatigable was hit by a Kamikaze (Zeke + 550lb bomb) on 4/1/45, it caused a dent in the flight deck which was filled with concrete and Carrier back in operation. HMS Indomitable hit by Kamikaze 5/4/45. minor damage to flight deck. HMS Formidable hit by Zero Kamikaze + 500lb bomb 5/4/45.Back in operation in 24 hrs. Formidable hit second time 5/9/45, superficial damage and Carrier backin action in under 1 hour after wreaked planes pushed overboard. As I said the ships were very tough, if my words offended you then get a sense of humor lol

It wasn't jolly by any means. But that is a direct quote of a US Navy Liaison officer aboard HMS Indefatigable when she was hit on 1945. There is a tendency to cope with stressful situations through dark humour.

@@billballbuster7186 not " offended "

The thing about Major Ronald Hay (Royal Marines) is that ... he quite often talks with his tongue firmly in his cheek! As you will notice from his other comment about how "brave" the battleship admirals were when bombarding Genoa ...

I'll get there. Not sure when. Watch this space.

As many places as I can. There are online archives. And I have an old DVD collection. Much of it was public domain (government distributed) when it was produced. The rest fell out of copyright after 75 years.

There may be two or three photos. Good question. I'll have to look. Arresting cables were a fun thing: I think the first use was with the US Navy before WWI. At one point, the RN was using rope tied to sandbags on either end. The first cable and variable tension pulley system was HMS Courageous in 1931. But the concept of a crash barrier was very much a USN thing, brought about by the Lexington and Saratoga. They had slow lifts, but large flight decks. So the deck park was a necessity for their large air groups. And thus the need for deck landing officers. (Also, I don't think the RAF liked their pilots being ordered around by those RN jokers)

I'll do that "episode" in a few months. I've published too much Ark lately ...

Yes, that was one of those terribly harsh pragmatic lessons learnt the hard way in the opening years of the war.

Running ships into the seabed? Well, no ... Just ask HMS Illustrious! (She had to have her central shaft cut away as they hadn't had time to repair it for over a year and a half - but she was still needed to support the Okinawa campaign!) The Illustrious class design was largely wrapped by the time Ark was made operational. But I suspect the late improvements to power and speed of their lifts may have had something to do with early experience with Ark. A late enlargement of the Illustrious class island - and a rather ad-hoc attempt to find a spot for a large mast - is also likely to be another lesson. But mostly it was the need for internal space to be dedicated to fighter directors and plot boards that came out of the Ark's attempts to utilise limited number of poor-performance aircraft to best effect in intercepting incoming bombers...

@@ArmouredCarriers How do you reckon The Ark would have stood up to the pounding Lusty and Indom got from the (luftwaffe - FC 10? Excess/Pedestal)?

@@geordiedog1749 A bit beyond my engineering pay grade. But at the very least, the big bombs (especially the 1100lb and 2200lb) would have burst much deeper inside the ship. And that can't be good.

@@ArmouredCarriers Yeah. I fear she’d have been a goner.

It appears to be a fairly common story across the board. For example, the County Class heavy cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall were caught "on the hop" in 1942 off Ceylon as they were rushing back to join the fleet after having to abandon refits which included finally fitting them with proper radar suites. They had been hard pressed in the counter-raider and convoy escort roles in the years before their loss.

Interesting question. I don't think it was the treaty (the three "Batch One" Illustrious class carriers were under construction in 1939). I think it was more the fact that Ark Royal was the first. And they learnt a lot from making her. For example her two-tiered lift was a nightmare. As was having just one lift accessing the lower hangar. And the promotion of a former Admiral of Carriers who had operated in the Mediterranean during the Abyssinian Crisis to the top job of Naval Constructor happened at about the changeover point. He felt these ships would spend much of their time operating within the range of land based bombers, and thought armoured flight decks would help.

Yoikes. The things that slip past the eye at 3am...

Sigh. I was up until 3am trying to get this one published. Amazing how cross-eyed one gets at that point. Fixed.

But the same RN that was instrumental in producing the concept of carrier warfare and had plans to “Taranto” the HSF in 1918 - 22 years earlier than Taranto itself. In regards to budget there is always compromise in regards what you want and what you can afford. Especially when you are having to rebuild or refit the entire fleet. You also have the issue that a direct result of the Washington and London Treaties the capability to design and build the ships had been greatly reduced due to the loss of manufacturing as a result of companies losing staff and capability in the lean years of 1922-1938.

It’s a mix of destruction and extrusion. A bit like bubble gum.

Close. A mix of "destruction" and "exhaustion". fixed.

How long do you think a Carrier would last in a modern war. ??

@@jameswebb4593 depends how good its fleet is.