Extraneous
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ORIGINAL: warspite1 2/2 [4535 Ark Royal - by Robert Jenkins] .B Engine(s) output: 102,000 hp .B Top Speed: 30.75 knots .B Main armament: 16 x 4.5-inch (114mm) guns and 48 x 2-pdr pompoms .B Aircraft: 54 .B Displacement (full load): 27,720 tons .B Thickest armour: 4.5-inch (belt) .P The Ark Royal was the first modern carrier designed for the Royal Navy (RN). The sole ship of her class, she was laid down in 1935 and completed three years later. She was to be the only modern carrier avaiable to the RN at the outbreak of World War II. .P The 1930 London Naval Treaty allowed carriers of up to 27,000 tons, but the British designed Ark Royal at 22,000 tons, as they were anticipating getting agreement for a reduced tonnage at the next treaty. As it turned out, the 1936 treaty ultimately set a 23,000 ton displacement ceiling, but work on Ark Royal was too advanced to allow her to use the additional allowance. .P Unlike later British carriers, her flight deck was not armoured, although she did have a 3.5-inch lower hangar deck that covered her machinery spaces, magazines and aviation fuel store. This was designed to withstand a 6-inch shell or a 500lb bomb. Her two hangars were on different levels and her three lifts were linked to both. She had two catapults that could launch 12,000lb at 66 knots. Although designed to operate 72 aircraft, her actual capacity during the war was 54 and for these, she carried 100,000 Imp gallons of aviation fuel. .P Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament was impressive, with eight twin 4.5-inch guns mounted on sponsons just below the level of the flight deck. This arrangement stopped the limited arc of fire problems seen in earlier designs. .P Ark Royal was a well designed ship that could operate effectively in poor weather. The speed and power figures above are as designed, although she exceeded both in trials. Her one main weakness however, was to cause her eventual sinking (see details of her sinking below). .P Like all British carriers, she suffered from poor quality aircraft at the beginning of the war. This was thanks in part to the decision to make the Royal Air Force (RAF) responsible for naval aviation and the consequential lack of enthusiasm and investment by the RAF in naval aircraft due to their other priorities. .P The name Ark Royal stems from the Elizabethan period; the first Ark Royal was the flagship of Lord Effingham during the engagement with the Spanish Armada in 1588. The second vessel of that name followed over 300 years later, but thanks to the heroic exploits of the third Ark Royal during the first two years of the Second World War, the name has been almost ever present within the RN since. .P HMS Ark Royal was completed in November 1938, and at the outbreak of World War II, she was deployed in the North Western Approaches, searching for U-boats. While on one such patrol, she was lucky to escape a torpedo attack by U-39 (see HMS Courageous) and after the sinking of Courageous in that first month of war, carriers were no longer used in that role. .P At the end of that first month of the war she provided air cover for Home Fleet units escorting the damaged submarine Spearfish back to the UK (see Submarine Counter 4734). .P The following month Ark Royal was deployed in Hunting Group K during the search for two German pocket-battleships at large in the North and South Atlantic oceans (see HMS Hermes). In December, after one of these, the Admiral Graf Spee, was engaged by RN units off Uruguay, Force K was sent to the River Plate at the utmost speed. However, the German raider was scuttled by her crew and Ark Royal was no longer required (see HMS Exeter). .P The Ark returned to the UK at the start of 1940 and in February she took part in the successful search for six German merchant ships that had sailed from Vigo, Spain, in an effort to get back to Germany (see HMS York). Following this, she was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean with the carrier Glorious, but the planned exercises there were soon cut short due to the German invasion of Norway at the beginning of April. Both carriers were recalled to join the Home Fleet and Ark Royal was to play a key role in the ill-fated Allied campaign in Norway (see HMS Curacoa, HMS Glorious and Transport Counter 4720). At the end of the Norwegian debacle, which had proved costly to the RN in terms of men and ships, Ark Royal herself was to share in the pain. She was ordered to launch an airstrike against the battlecruiser Scharnhorst at her mooring in a Trondheim fjord. On the 13th June, Skuas from 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS) took off for the mission, unaware that the German defences had already been alerted. In the ensuing attack, eight of the fifteen Skuas were shot down for just one hit recorded against the battlecruiser. Even then, the bomb had merely bounced off Scharnhorst's armour plate. To compound the misery, the destroyers Antelope and Electra collided in the fog on the voyage home. .P After the French surrender at the end of June, and with the French navy no longer available to guard the Western Mediterranean, Ark Royal was transferred to Gibraltar to join the newly formed trouble-shooting Force H. Ark Royal was to be synonymous with Force H over the course of the next year and a half. .P Ark Royal was central to the attack on the French Fleet at Oran (see HMS Enterprise) at the start of July and then at the end of the month, she assisted the delivery of aircraft to Malta in Operation Hurry (see HMS Argus). During this operation, Force H were detached to launch a diversionary air attack on Cagliari, Sardinia, and indeed, Ark Royal's aircraft were to re-visit the island on a number of occasions in the coming months. .P Her next operation was HATS, a complex, and successful mission to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet, supply Malta and attack Italian targets (see HMS Calcutta). .P In September, Ark Royal left the Mediterranean and took part in another ill- fated operation; this time the attack on Vichy-French Dakar (see HMS Resolution). After the British aborted the Dakar operation, Ark Royal returned to Gibraltar to rejoin Force H, escorted by the battleship Barham and the cruisers Berwick and Glasgow. Force H then took part in Coat; another operation designed to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet and re-supply Malta (see HMS Barham). This operation was closely followed by a tragic aircraft delivery mission to Malta named Operation White (see HMS Argus). .P Two more operations were to be undertaken by Force H before the end of the year. Firstly the supply operation, Collar, which led to the inconclusive Battle of Cape Spartivento (see HMS Despatch), and secondly, at the end of the year, Force H provided escort for Hide, an operation designed to get the battleship Malaya to Gibraltar (see HMS Malaya). .P At the conclusion of Hide, Ark Royal briefly left the Mediterranean to take part in the search for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper after the German cruiser had attacked convoy WS5A (see ASW Counter 4699). .P The New Year 1941 saw Force H covering an important convoy to Malta; Operation Excess (see HMS Southampton), and followed this with raids against the Tirso Dam on Sardinia and the Italian port of Genoa (see HMS Malaya). Upon return from the Genoa operation, Force H were taken out of the Mediterranean once more, this time for a six week deployment in the Atlantic. They were required there for convoy protection and to search for German surface raiders (see HMS Nelson). .P April saw Force H back in the Mediterranean, where their next operation was Winch, a successful aircraft delivery operation to Malta (see HMS Argus). Force H then headed back into the Atlantic to briefly patrol in the Bay of Biscay (see HMS Fiji) as it was wrongly thought that Scharnhorst and her sister Gneisenau were preparing to leave the French port of Brest. Force H returned to Gibraltar to carry out further aircraft delivery missions; Operations Salient and Dunlop (see HMS Dido). .P In early May, they escorted the important Tiger convoy that was bringing reinforcements to the Commonwealth troops in Egypt on the first part of its journey to Alexandria (see Transport Counter 4729). This was followed by Operation Splice, another Malta delivery operation (see HMS Furious). .P No sooner had Force H returned from Splice than they were ordered into the Atlantic to take part in the search for the German battleship Bismarck. Ark Royal`s aircraft played perhaps the crucial role in the ultimate destruction of the battleship; it was a torpedo from one of her Swordfish that caused the Bismarck's rudder to jam and send her on a collision course with the chasing battleships of the Home Fleet (see HMS Rodney). .P Upon their return to Gibraltar, and with the British effort to keep Malta in the war coming under increasing pressure, Force H spent June taking part in four Malta aircraft delivery operations: Rocket and Tracer (see HMS Argus) and Railway I & II (see HMS Hermione). Sandwiched between these operations were two sorties into the Atlantic in search of enemy supply vessels (see HMS Hermione). .P In July, Force H escorted the second successful Malta relief convoy of 1941, codenamed Substance (see HMS Manchester), and the follow-up Style operation (see HMS Arethusa). These were followed in August by the covering of a minelaying operation, code-named Mincemeat (see HMS Hermione). In September, two more aircraft deliveries to Malta were completed (see HMS Furious) and at the end of that month, Ark Royal sailed with Force H for the third large Malta relief convoy of that year, Operation Halberd (see HMS Edinburgh). Ark Royal and Force H could be proud that all three major supply operations that year had been completely successful. .P October saw Force H involved in another aircraft delivery mission to Malta; Operation Callboy. This operation was to provide Malta with additional torpedo bombers. The old carrier Argus was used for the initial transfer of twelve Albacore aircraft, and she sailed to Gibraltar as part of military convoy WS12. Argus departed the UK on October 1st and after detaching from WS12, she arrived at Gibraltar on the 8th. The aircraft were loaded onto Ark Royal, which then sailed for Malta with a reinforced Force H; which also contained the battleship Rodney, the cruiser Hermione and seven destroyers. The force reached the flying- off position on the 16th and eleven Albacores and two Swordfish took off, with one Swordfish failing to arrive. As part of this operation, Force H also covered the cruisers Aurora, Penelope and two destroyers that were being sent to Malta to form Force K (see HMS Penelope). To complete the mission, Argus joined her fellow carrier Eagle at Gibraltar and returned to the UK at the end of October. .P Sadly, the following month was to be the last for this famous carrier that had served the RN so well and proved such a thorn in the side of the Axis. Her last mission was an aircraft delivery operation to Malta, Operation Perpetual (see Transport Counter 4721). On her return journey, she was hit by a torpedo from U-81. She took on a heavy list and then lost all power as her boilers were shut down. Crucially, she had no back-up generators. The order to abandon ship was given, perhaps prematurely, and the engineers had to be put back on-board once she had stopped listing further. Limited power was supplied from the destroyer Laforey, and her boilers were fired up thanks to water pumped into them by the destroyer. Still listing heavily, she was taken under tow to Gibraltar. The progress was slow and it was clear that she would not make it home before she capsized without more power to pump out the water. What ultimately led to her demise was the decision to try and get the port propeller working. Although this was achieved, the rotating machinery simply added to the pressure on the bulkheads that were already straining to hold back the flood water. The rising water eventually blocked the vents from the boiler and fire broke out. Smoke in the engine and boiler rooms forced the abandonment of those vital areas and meant Ark Royal's time was up. On the 14th November 1941, the Ark Royal rolled over and sank. Thankfully, only 1 life had been lost in the initial blast but her loss was a bitter blow for the RN. For her role in sinking the Bismarck and for the contribution to keeping Malta supplied, particularly with aircraft, her value during that period had been incalculable. (1) Histories should be chronological. Please place the origin of the ships name after the ship specifics. (2) Use American English spelling. When an American company develops a game then the write-ups should be in American English. (3) Spell check your work. I’ve underlined some of your misspelled words. (4) Have someone else proofread your work. You will not notice your errors but someone else will. [4535 Ark Royal - by Robert Jenkins] .B Engine(s) output: 102,000 hp .B Top Speed: 30.75 knots .B Main armament: 16 x 4.5-inch (114mm) guns and 48 x 2-pdr pompoms .B Aircraft: 54 .B Displacement (full load): 27,720 tons .B Thickest armour: 4.5-inch (belt) .P The name Ark Royal stems from the Elizabethan period; the first Ark Royal was the flagship of Lord Effingham during the engagement with the Spanish Armada in 1588. The second vessel of that name followed over 300 years later, but thanks to the heroic exploits of the third Ark Royal during the first two years of the Second World War, the name has been almost ever present within the RN since. .P The Ark Royal was the first modern carrier designed for the Royal Navy (RN). The sole ship of her class, she was laid down in 1935 and completed three years later. She was to be the only modern carrier available to the RN at the outbreak of World War II. .P The 1930 London Naval Treaty allowed carriers of up to 27,000 tons, but the British designed Ark Royal at 22,000 tons, as they were anticipating getting agreement for a reduced tonnage at the next treaty. As it turned out, the 1936 treaty ultimately set a 23,000 ton displacement ceiling, but work on Ark Royal was too advanced to allow her to use the additional allowance. .P Unlike later British carriers, her flight deck was not armored, although she did have a 3.5-inch lower hangar deck that covered her machinery spaces, magazines and aviation fuel store. This was designed to withstand a 6-inch shell or a 500lb bomb. Her two hangars were on different levels and her three lifts were linked to both. She had two catapults that could launch 12,000lb at 66 knots. Although designed to operate 72 aircraft, her actual capacity during the war was 54 and for these, she carried 100,000 Imp gallons of aviation fuel. .P Her anti-aircraft (AA) armament was impressive, with eight twin 4.5-inch guns mounted on sponsons just below the level of the flight deck. This arrangement stopped the limited arc of fire problems seen in earlier designs. .P Ark Royal was a well designed ship that could operate effectively in poor weather. The speed and power figures above are as designed, although she exceeded both in trials. Her one main weakness however, was to cause her eventual sinking (see details of her sinking below). .P Like all British carriers, she suffered from poor quality aircraft at the beginning of the war. This was thanks in part to the decision to make the Royal Air Force (RAF) responsible for naval aviation and the consequential lack of enthusiasm and investment by the RAF in naval aircraft due to their other priorities. .P HMS Ark Royal was completed in November 1938, and at the outbreak of World War II, she was deployed in the North Western Approaches, searching for U-boats. While on one such patrol, she was lucky to escape a torpedo attack by U-39 (see HMS Courageous) and after the sinking of Courageous in that first month of war, carriers were no longer used in that role. .P At the end of that first month of the war she provided air cover for Home Fleet units escorting the damaged submarine Spearfish back to the UK (see Submarine Counter 4734). .P The following month Ark Royal was deployed in Hunting Group K during the search for two German pocket-battleships at large in the North and South Atlantic oceans (see HMS Hermes). In December, after one of these, the Admiral Graf Spee, was engaged by RN units off Uruguay, Force K was sent to the River Plate at the utmost speed. However, the German raider was scuttled by her crew and Ark Royal was no longer required (see HMS Exeter). .P The Ark returned to the UK at the start of 1940 and in February she took part in the successful search for six German merchant ships that had sailed from Vigo, Spain, in an effort to get back to Germany (see HMS York). Following this, she was ordered to the Eastern Mediterranean with the carrier Glorious, but the planned exercises there were soon cut short due to the German invasion of Norway at the beginning of April. Both carriers were recalled to join the Home Fleet and Ark Royal was to play a key role in the ill-fated Allied campaign in Norway (see HMS Curacoa, HMS Glorious and Transport Counter 4720). At the end of the Norwegian debacle, which had proved costly to the RN in terms of men and ships, Ark Royal herself was to share in the pain. She was ordered to launch an airstrike against the battlecruiser Scharnhorst at her mooring in a Trondheim fjord. On the 13th June, Skuas from 800 and 803 Naval Air Squadrons (NAS) took off for the mission, unaware that the German defenses had already been alerted. In the ensuing attack, eight of the fifteen Skuas were shot down for just one hit recorded against the battlecruiser. Even then, the bomb had merely bounced off Scharnhorst's armor plate. To compound the misery, the destroyers Antelope and Electra collided in the fog on the voyage home. .P After the French surrender at the end of June, and with the French navy no longer available to guard the Western Mediterranean, Ark Royal was transferred to Gibraltar to join the newly formed trouble-shooting Force H. Ark Royal was to be synonymous with Force H over the course of the next year and a half. .P Ark Royal was central to the attack on the French Fleet at Oran (see HMS Enterprise) at the start of July and then at the end of the month, she assisted the delivery of aircraft to Malta in Operation Hurry (see HMS Argus). During this operation, Force H were detached to launch a diversionary air attack on Cagliari, Sardinia, and indeed, Ark Royal's aircraft were to re-visit the island on a number of occasions in the coming months. .P Her next operation was HATS, a complex, and successful mission to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet, supply Malta and attack Italian targets (see HMS Calcutta). .P In September, Ark Royal left the Mediterranean and took part in another ill- fated operation; this time the attack on Vichy-French Dakar (see HMS Resolution). After the British aborted the Dakar operation, Ark Royal returned to Gibraltar to rejoin Force H, escorted by the battleship Barham and the cruisers Berwick and Glasgow. Force H then took part in Coat; another operation designed to reinforce the Mediterranean Fleet and re-supply Malta (see HMS Barham). This operation was closely followed by a tragic aircraft delivery mission to Malta named Operation White (see HMS Argus). .P Two more operations were to be undertaken by Force H before the end of the year. Firstly the supply operation, Collar, which led to the inconclusive Battle of Cape Spartivento (see HMS Despatch), and secondly, at the end of the year, Force H provided escort for Hide, an operation designed to get the battleship Malaya to Gibraltar (see HMS Malaya). .P At the conclusion of Hide, Ark Royal briefly left the Mediterranean to take part in the search for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper after the German cruiser had attacked convoy WS5A (see ASW Counter 4699). .P The New Year 1941 saw Force H covering an important convoy to Malta; Operation Excess (see HMS Southampton), and followed this with raids against the Tirso Dam on Sardinia and the Italian port of Genoa (see HMS Malaya). Upon return from the Genoa operation, Force H were taken out of the Mediterranean once more, this time for a six week deployment in the Atlantic. They were required there for convoy protection and to search for German surface raiders (see HMS Nelson). .P April saw Force H back in the Mediterranean, where their next operation was Winch, a successful aircraft delivery operation to Malta (see HMS Argus). Force H then headed back into the Atlantic to briefly patrol in the Bay of Biscay (see HMS Fiji) as it was wrongly thought that Scharnhorst and her sister Gneisenau were preparing to leave the French port of Brest. Force H returned to Gibraltar to carry out further aircraft delivery missions; Operations Salient and Dunlop (see HMS Dido). .P In early May, they escorted the important Tiger convoy that was bringing reinforcements to the Commonwealth troops in Egypt on the first part of its journey to Alexandria (see Transport Counter 4729). This was followed by Operation Splice, another Malta delivery operation (see HMS Furious). .P No sooner had Force H returned from Splice than they were ordered into the Atlantic to take part in the search for the German battleship Bismarck. Ark Royal`s aircraft played perhaps the crucial role in the ultimate destruction of the battleship; it was a torpedo from one of her Swordfish that caused the Bismarck's rudder to jam and send her on a collision course with the chasing battleships of the Home Fleet (see HMS Rodney). .P Upon their return to Gibraltar, and with the British effort to keep Malta in the war coming under increasing pressure, Force H spent June taking part in four Malta aircraft delivery operations: Rocket and Tracer (see HMS Argus) and Railway I & II (see HMS Hermione). Sandwiched between these operations were two sorties into the Atlantic in search of enemy supply vessels (see HMS Hermione). .P In July, Force H escorted the second successful Malta relief convoy of 1941, codenamed Substance (see HMS Manchester), and the follow-up Style operation (see HMS Arethusa). These were followed in August by the covering of a mine laying operation, code-named Mincemeat (see HMS Hermione). In September, two more aircraft deliveries to Malta were completed (see HMS Furious) and at the end of that month, Ark Royal sailed with Force H for the third large Malta relief convoy of that year, Operation Halberd (see HMS Edinburgh). Ark Royal and Force H could be proud that all three major supply operations that year had been completely successful. .P October saw Force H involved in another aircraft delivery mission to Malta; Operation Callboy. This operation was to provide Malta with additional torpedo bombers. The old carrier Argus was used for the initial transfer of twelve Albacore aircraft, and she sailed to Gibraltar as part of military convoy WS12. Argus departed the UK on October 1st and after detaching from WS12, she arrived at Gibraltar on the 8th. The aircraft were loaded onto Ark Royal, which then sailed for Malta with a reinforced Force H; which also contained the battleship Rodney, the cruiser Hermione and seven destroyers. The force reached the flying- off position on the 16th and eleven Albacores and two Swordfish took off, with one Swordfish failing to arrive. As part of this operation, Force H also covered the cruisers Aurora, Penelope and two destroyers that were being sent to Malta to form Force K (see HMS Penelope). To complete the mission, Argus joined her fellow carrier Eagle at Gibraltar and returned to the UK at the end of October. .P Sadly, the following month was to be the last for this famous carrier that had served the RN so well and proved such a thorn in the side of the Axis. Her last mission was an aircraft delivery operation to Malta, Operation Perpetual (see Transport Counter 4721). On her return journey, she was hit by a torpedo from U-81. She took on a heavy list and then lost all power as her boilers were shut down. Crucially, she had no back-up generators. The order to abandon ship was given, perhaps prematurely, and the engineers had to be put back on-board once she had stopped listing further. Limited power was supplied from the destroyer Laforey, and her boilers were fired up thanks to water pumped into them by the destroyer. Still listing heavily, she was taken under tow to Gibraltar. The progress was slow and it was clear that she would not make it home before she capsized without more power to pump out the water. What ultimately led to her demise was the decision to try and get the port propeller working. Although this was achieved, the rotating machinery simply added to the pressure on the bulkheads that were already straining to hold back the flood water. The rising water eventually blocked the vents from the boiler and fire broke out. Smoke in the engine and boiler rooms forced the abandonment of those vital areas and meant Ark Royal's time was up. On the 14th November 1941, the Ark Royal rolled over and sank. Thankfully, only 1 life had been lost in the initial blast but her loss was a bitter blow for the RN. For her role in sinking the Bismarck and for the contribution to keeping Malta supplied, particularly with aircraft, her value during that period had been incalculable.
< Message edited by Extraneous -- 8/9/2010 3:51:59 PM >
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University of Science Music and Culture (USMC) class of 71 and 72 ~ Extraneous (AKA Mziln)
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