ARK ROYAL (91)
http://www.britainatwar.com^35The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre’s
Mk.VII NX611 ‘Just Jane’ is being restored
to eventually re-fly. (IMAGE VIA IBCC)The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre’s
Mk.VII NX611 ‘Just Jane’ is being restored
to eventually re-fly. (IMAGE VIA IBCC)The year of her launch was 1587,
the European threat was the Spanish
Armada, defeated the following
year, and the man who ordered her
construction was one Sir Walter
Raleigh.
The ship’s legend went down in
the annals of English history, and
over three centuries later her name
would be revived once more in
response to a dangerously shifting
climate in Europe. Naturally, warfare
had moved on considerably and this
new vessel was very different to the
16th century galleon forged out of
oak. HMS Ark Royal, laid down in
November 1913, was the first of her
kind – designed and built specifically as
a carrier of seaplanes. This Ark Royal’s
construction also signalled the start
of a modern Royal Navy tradition of
commissioning aircraft carriers with
this name.A NEW THREAT
History would repeat itself once
more and as the 1930s rolled on, the
threat of war with Germany was
again imminent. And so a brand new
high-tech aircraft carrier was ordered
in 1934. This latest incarnation of
HMS Ark Royal, which would serve
valiantly, would have the pennant
number 91.ABOVE
Ark Royal with HMS
Echo and a Nelson-
class battleship.
(ALL KEY COLLECTION
UNLESS NOTED)OPPOSITE
The Ark Royal,
pennant number 91,
launching in 1937.Ark Royal was conceived under the
long shadows of the Washington
Naval Treaty of February 1922 and
the London Naval Treaty of April- Collectively, these agreements
signed in the aftermath of the Great
War placed limitations on military
shipbuilding to help prevent a
post-war arms race. Indeed, the latter
pact’s full title was the ‘Treaty for the
Limitation and Reduction of Naval
Armament’, as signed by the UK, the
USA, Japan, France and Italy. A second
London Treaty followed in 1936,
again restricting the signatories’ naval
capacity, although tellingly both Japan
and Italy weren’t included among them.