HMS Illustrious (R87)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The fourth HMS Illustrious (R87) of the Royal Navy was an aircraft carrier , which during the Second World War with the Battle Honor Taranto in 1940, Mediterranean 1940-41, Malta convoys in 1941, Diego Suarez in 1942, Salerno 1943, Sabang 1944, Palembang 1945 and Okinawa in 1945 was awarded.
With the attack on Taranto in the autumn of 1940, the carrier succeeded in the first successful attack by a carrier on an enemy fleet. Despite several bomb hits while securing a convoy in early 1941, the severely damaged ship was able to return to fleet service after a year.
Illustrious was the first ship of the Illustrious class , which also included the Victorious , the Formidable and the modified Indomitable . The carriers Implacable and Indefatigable can also be counted in the Illustrious class, as they are based on the same planning draft - however, a. got stronger machines built in. The carriers had a displacement of 23,000 tons and a capacity of only 36 aircraft due to the reduced armor.
history
The naval budgets of 1936 and 1937 provided for the procurement of two aircraft carriers each. Admiral Sir Reginald Henderson , the Third Sea Lord responsible for procurement , was determined not to just procure a slightly modified version of the Ark Royal, which was still under construction . He was convinced that aircraft carriers could not defend themselves with their aircraft unless a reliable early warning system was available. Without such a system they would be exposed to attacks from land planes, especially in the anticipated areas of operation such as the North Sea and the Mediterranean . This meant that the new carriers still had to be operational after attacks that had caused damage. The sensitive aircraft also had to be protected. These demands could only be met by armoring the hangar. This led to higher top weights and only allowed the installation of a hangar deck in order to give the girders sufficient stability. Compared to the previous carriers, the number of possible aircraft on board the ships of the Illustrious class was halved. The offensive potential of the ships was reduced in order to improve survivability.
The armored hangar was part of the fuselage and not placed on top of it as with the existing girders. The deck had a thickness of 76 mm and extended over the entire width of the hull and was connected to the 114-mm waterline armor and its 64-mm transverse bulkheads. The 114 mm side walls of the hangar were closed at the top by the flight deck, which was provided with 76 mm thick armor. The two lifts could not be armored within their intended weight. Only the hangar openings to the lifts that were installed in front of and behind the hangar received armored gates.
Since the defensive ability with their own aircraft was not familiar, the new carriers received strong anti-aircraft armament such as the Ark Royal with twin 4.5-inch towers in a new, semi-recessed design at the corners of a defense rectangle, two each on a cantilevered one Platform. The guns were built so high that they could shoot over the flight deck. It was assumed that in this situation the aircraft were in the hangar without fuel. Four fire control stations were available to control the eight gun turrets.
The light anti-aircraft armament consisted of six eight-fold rapid-fire 2-pounders ("pom-pom"), two of which were set up in front of and behind the bridge structure (the island) and the other two were set up on platforms next to the flight deck on the other width of the fuselage were.
The carriers received three sets of Parsons geared turbines that worked on three shafts. Six Admiralty boilers generated the necessary steam. The engine plant was supposed to generate 111,000 hp to enable a top speed of 30 knots. The Illustrious achieved 113,700 hp in its tests. Classic maximum speed measurements did not take place. The fuel supply of the Illustrious and her sister ship was a maximum of 4850 ts, which gives a range of 10,400 nautical miles (19,300 km / 12.00 mi) at 16 knots and 6,300 nm at 25 knots.
The orders for the financial year 1936 went to Vickers-Armstrong and originated at the shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness and the High Walker Yard in Newcastle-on-Tyne . The keel laying of the Illustrious took place on April 27, 1937 in Barrow. The launch and christening of the new building with hull number 732 took place on April 5, 1939 by Lady Henderson, the wife of the Third Sea Lord, who, as the former commander of the Furious and admiral of the aircraft carrier, had campaigned for the development of the new type.
Illustrious was 740 ft (225.6 m) long by 710 ft (216.4 m) in the waterline. the hull width was up to 95 ft 9 in (29.2 m) in the waterline. The equipped draft was 28 ft 10 in (8.8 m). The girder had a standard displacement of 23,000 ts upon completion.
Its crew then comprised 1299 men. In 1944 this had risen to 1997 men. As a test vehicle in post-war use, only 1090 men were needed for their use. The acceptance of the carrier was delayed because it was equipped with a newly developed radar system, the installation of which required the installation of an additional mast behind the island. The acceptance tests were carried out in the Irish Sea and on May 25, 1940, the carrier was taken over by the Royal Navy. Instead of going to Dakar, the porter went to the Caribbean for work-up. The aircraft group consisted of squadrons 815 and 819 with a total of 21 Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers, which were also used for reconnaissance tasks, and the fighter squadron 806 with initially nine fighters (four Blackburn Skua and two Blackburn Roc and three Fairey Fulmar ). The war operation of the ship should take place in the Mediterranean.
1940/1941: deployment in the Mediterranean
The Illustrious joined the fleet in August 1940. The first mission took her to the Mediterranean , where she escorted convoys and attacked enemy ships and combat positions in North Africa.
On August 31, an air strike against airfields in North Africa started from here . On November 11, 1940, the Illustrious went down in naval warfare as the first carrier to attack an enemy fleet. In the attack on Taranto , 21 Swordfish torpedo bombers of the 813th, 815th, 819th, and 824th Squadron ships of the Italian fleet attacked shortly after sunset. The completely surprised Italians lost a battleship ; two more and one heavy cruiser were badly damaged.
Two months later, on January 10, 1941, while escorting a convoy near Sicily , the Illustrious itself was the target of a German-Italian air attack by dive bombers .
_at_the_Norfolk_Naval_Shipyard_in_November_1941.jpg)
Badly damaged by eight bomb hits, it ran to Malta for repair work , where it was again damaged by air strikes. The Illustrious left Malta on January 23rd and reached Alexandria at noon on January 25th, where the ship should be makeshift repairs. Eventually the carrier ran out to Virginia , where the damage was to be completely repaired in a safe haven at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard .
1942: Deployment in the Indian Ocean
The Illustrious was not ready for action again until March 1942 and has now been relocated to the Indian Ocean . A few weeks later she took part with Indomitable in Operation Ironclad , the landing of the Allies in Vichy-France controlled Madagascar in Diego Suarez . On May 5, aircraft from the two carriers sank the Vichy-French submarine Bévéziers .
1943: Another mission in the Mediterranean
On August 5, 1943, the ship left the Home Fleet to replace the damaged Indomitable in the Mediterranean . On the way out, Illustrious secured the Queen Mary , who was en route to Quebec with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to attend the Quadrant Conference . When the ocean liner was out of range of the German Air Force, the carrier continued its march to Force H in Gibraltar . With the sister ship Formidable , the carrier moved to Malta on August 21, in order to secure the planned landing of the Allies in Salerno in September 1943 ( Operation Avalanche ) against intervention by the Italian fleet. On the march to the security position, the British unit was attacked by 30 German torpedo bombers on the night of September 9, whose attack failed in the anti-aircraft fire of the two carriers, the battleships Nelson and Rodney and the security screen. The aircraft group of the Illustrious comprised 50 machines for the first time when deployed to secure Avalanche ( 810 squadrons with twelve Fairey Barracuda II, 878 and 890 squadrons with 28 Martlet Vs and 894 squadrons with ten Supermarine Seafire L.IIc). The Seafires had to be parked on deck as they did not have folding wings. On the 12th, the Illustrious was withdrawn from the task. In the three days of operation, their fighters had flown 214 missions without loss or accident. Six of their Seafires were handed over to the light carrier Unicorn and were then also used by one of the first landing strips in the landing area. Another use of the carrier in the planned Dodecanese campaign was temporarily considered. At the end of September Illustrious relocated with Formidable back to Great Britain, where Illustrious came to the shipyard in Birkenhead on October 29 to be prepared for future use with the Eastern Fleet. She was prepared for the use of the Chance-Vought F4U-1B Corsair II , the catapult was reinforced for use by fully loaded barracudas , the flight deck was again slightly extended and an additional pair of force-controlled Oerlikon twins were installed.
1944: Deployment in the Pacific / Indian Ocean
In 1944 the carrier joined the British Eastern Fleet , where he took part in the attacks on the Indonesian islands of Sabang on July 22, 1944 and Palembang on January 24 and January 29, 1945. Then the Illustrious ran to Fremantle , Australia to pick up supplies . On March 4th she sailed with the rest of the British Pacific Fleet to Manus and finally to Ulithi on March 19th .
She then became part of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's Task Force 57 , along with British porters Formidable and Victorious . The fleet secured the landing operations at Okinawa , where the ship earned its final battle honor . During the operations in the Pacific, the ship was hit twice by Kamikaze planes, but did not suffer any serious damage due to the armored flight deck, unlike the American carriers that were also hit.
After the war
_(20921205028).jpg)
After the war, the Illustrious served as a training and exercise carrier. In the summer of 1946, the repair and refitting of the carrier was completed. It replaced the Triumph as a carrier for tests and carried out tests with Firefly FR.4 , Firebrand TF.4 , Sea Mosquitoes and Sea Vampires from late summer . In September and October 1947, the first carrier tests with the prototype of the Supermarine Attacker took place on it. From November 21st to December 11th, the porter transported the replacement for 2,000 conscripts pending discharge to Malta, who returned home on the porter. From January to August 1948 it was overhauled again and then carried out tests with Avengers , Fireflies , Meteors , Sea Hornets , Vampires and Seafires . On June 16, 1950, the prototype of the submarine hunter Fairey Gannet landed for the first time on a carrier with a turboprop engine. At the beginning of November, landings and take-offs of the Supermarine 510 test aircraft were followed by the first use of a jet aircraft with swept wings from a carrier and on July 9, 1951 the first carrier landing of a de Havilland Sea Venom . In addition, the Illustrious was used for normal training and occasionally also involved in exercises. At the end of 1951 the carrier transported troops to Cyprus in two trips when riots broke out there. In the fall of 1952, the carrier took part with 20 Fireflies and 8 Sea Furies in a NATO exercise off Norway, with the machines being used by Squadron 824 and two Dutch squadrons.
The Illustrious was decommissioned in February 1955 and sold for demolition on November 3, 1956 and scrapped at HMNB Clyde (Her Majesty Naval Base Clyde) in Faslane .
Her sister ship Formidable had already been decommissioned in January 1953 and then scrapped and the half-sister Indomitable had had the same fate from autumn 1953; only the Victorious was extensively modernized and remained in service until 1969.
Relay squadrons
.jpg)
| Season | Aircraft type | on board | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 806 | Blackburn Skua (until July 1940), Fairey Fulmar | June 11, 1940 to January 11, 1941 | at times also some Gloster Sea Gladiators |
| 815 | Fairey Swordfish | June 11, 1940 to January 10, 1941 | |
| 819 | Fairey Swordfish | June 11, 1941 to January 10, 1941 | dissolved |
| 829 | Fairey Swordfish | December 2 to 8, 1941, March 7 to September 21, 1942 | On board in the Caribbean in 1941, for the return march UK on Formidable |
| 810 | Fairey Swordfish 4.43: Fairey Barracuda II |
December 2 to 8, 1941, March 10, 1942 to November 2, 1944 | 1941 as before, Illustrious transported 23 Martlet |
| 881 | Grumman Martlet II , Fairey Fulmar | March 15, 1942 to February 18, 1943 | - |
| 882 | Grumman Martlet I. | March 22nd to September 7th, 1942 | of Archer , later with 881 merged |
| 806A | Fairey Fulmar II | May 29 to October 19, 1942 | spotter |
| 878 | Grumman Martlet IV | June 8 to October 18, 1943 | - |
| 890 | Grumman Martlet IV | June 14 to October 18, 1943 | - |
| 894 | Supermarine Seafire II | July 24th to August 24th; September 20 to October 18, 1943 | on board |
| 847 | Fairey Barracuda II | November 28, 1943 to June 18, 1944 | with 810 merged |
| 1830 | Vought Corsair II | December 9, 1943 to July 28, 1945 | dissolved |
| 1833 | Vought Corsair II | December 22, 1943 to July 28, 1945 | dissolved |
| 832 | Grumman Avenger I | May 3-25, 1944 | later escort Begum |
| 845 | Grumman Avenger I | May 3-25, 1944 | later escort carrier Ameer |
| 1837 | Vought Corsair II | June 10, 1944 to July 27, 1944 | Transferred to HMS Victorious |
| 854 | Grumman Avenger I | December 1, 1944 to May 18, 1945 | taken in Ceylon, machinery for Nowra post |
| 802 | Hawker Sea Fury FB.11 | July / August 1951 | of Theseus given |
| 815 | Grumman Avenger AS.5 | September 17 to October 14, 1954 | - |
literature
- VB Blackman, ed., Jane's Fighting Ships 1950-51. Sampson Low, Marston, & Company, London 1951.
- Roger Chesneau, Aircraft Carriers of the World, 1914 to the Present. An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1984.
- Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely. WW Norton & Company, New York 1991, ISBN 0-393-02918-2 .
- Norman Friedman: British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and Their Aircraft. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988, ISBN 0-87021-054-8 .
- David Hobbs: British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development and Service Histories. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2013, ISBN 978-1-84832-138-0 .
- Kenneth Poolman, Illustrious. Kimber and co. Ltd 1955.
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
- Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm. Air-Britain (Historians), Tonbridge 1984, ISBN 0-85130-120-7 .
- Warship Profile 10: HMS Illustrious, Aicraft Carrier 1939-1956, Technical History. by DJLyon, Profile Publications, Windsor 1971.
- Warship Profile 11: HMS Illustrious, Aicraft Carrier 1939-1956, Operational History. by David Brown, Profile Publications, Windsor 1971.
Web links
- ILLUSTRIOUS fleet aircraft carriers (1940–1941) on navypedia.org (English, accessed August 9, 2018)
- HMS ILLUSTRIOUS - Illustrious-class Fleet Aircraft Carrier on navypedia.org (accessed August 9, 2018)
- Maritimequest HMS Illustrious photo gallery
Individual evidence
- ↑ Warships from 1900 to today . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 22-24 .
- ^ Friedman: British Carrier Aviation , p. 366
- ^ Hobbs: British Aircraft Carriers , p. 89
- ^ DJ Lyon: HMS Illustrious , warship profile 10, p. 233
- ^ DJ Lyon: HMS Illustrious , warship profile 10, p. 227
- ^ David Brown: HMS Illustrious , warship profile 11, p. 241.
- ^ A b David Brown: HMS Illustrious , warship profile 11, p. 254.
- ↑ Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm. First Line Squadrons, p. 155 ff. With articles and information on each season