HMS ARK ROYAL IV
9 began to take shape. TThe days of the liner werhe days of the lin e numbered thanks to the jet age – the Red Navy was at fault (as it admitted privately...).
19 would grow for the next seven years. With the veil of With the veil of aand the rnd the revolutievolution in air power in the 1950s. Sea Hawks and on o After infamy, eventally came fame... thanks (a little) to the RAF.
ime secrecy lifted she would assume her true name.er true name. SSea Vea Venoms genoms gave way to Scimitars and Sea Vava ixens. When the Air Force turned down a new-style of documentary series
was not Princess Marina but Queen Elizabeth – in Elizabeth – in ThThe 60s was a decade of huge social, economic, e 60s wasw – a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ programme – the RN said “yes” and invited a
s to come the Queen Mother – who ppolitical and technological change – and four-strong BBC team aboard to cover Ark’s US deployment.
ormed the honours on a spring day mmany, if not all, these factors impacted on The result was Sailor, first aired in August 1976. Aided by a No.1
irkenhead in 1950. More than 50,000 AArk’s third, fourth and fifth commissions. theme tune by Rod Stewart, a dramatic high-seas rescue, a string
ple watched the carrier enter the water Between the tail end of 1959 and of characters and a puppet who sailed rather close to the wind, the
he first time on May 3. OOctober 1966, the carrier was “run very programme set the benchmark for every documentary about the
would be four more years before she hhard” by a succession of exercises, military for the next three decades.
to sea, however, and February 1955 mmarathon deployments east of Suez But TV star or not, it could not save HMS Ark Royal. In February
ore she was formally commissioned. aand, increasingly, dealing with the end 1977, the government announced the carrier would be out of service
ur illustration depicts Ark in the latter oof empire. before the end of 1978. Ark’s ship’s company had hoped she would
of that first commission, during which In the early spring of 1966, Ark was remain in service until her successor HMS Invincible (ironically
she underwent a few tweaks: the ddispatched to east Africa to lead the launched 27 years to the day) joined the Fleet.
barrel Bofors gun in front of the island nnewly-formed Beira patrol, enforcing But it was not to be, but at least Ark Royal went out with a bang,
removed, as was the HADT on the ssanctions against Rhodesia (today not a whimper.
forward gallery. A mirror landing sight ZZimbabwe) which had illegally declared She took pride of place at the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review on June
nson was added on the port side abaft the deck edge lift. its independence. The decision to commit Ark came just days after 27 (her final visit to Portsmouth, as it turned out), hosting the Queen,
his stage she did not sport the famous RO9 pennant number on Whitehall pulled the plug on the future carrier programme, deciding Duke of Edinburgh, then Prime Minister Jim Callaghan and every
side of her island, or the code R on the fl ight deck – these were it didn’t need seaborne air power... available commanding officer in the Fleet.
oduced by the 2nd commission. For the time being, it certainly did, however. Between 1967 and She exercised with NATO, with the French, she spent four months
sizeable proportion of her brief first commission was spent in 1970, £32m (roughly £400m today) was ploughed into Ark ahead of in the Americas, exercised some more with NATO, hosted the Queen
Mediterranean, partly conducting trials and tests, partly as a her sixth and final commission. Mother for the final time, paid a farewell visit to Gibraltar – and to
wpiece for the RN and NATO. That commission would be her longest and most (in)famous. A Malta, too, where 10,000 people waited to see her – and witnessed
er second commission, 1956-58, was only slightly longer than dozen Buccaneers were her punch, two-seat Phantoms her shield, the very last fixed-wing aircraft (Gannet 044 of 849 Naval Air
fi rst, but it did see a magical tour of the USA, including a fi rst aided by a quartet of Gannets on airborne early-warning duties. Squadron B Flight) to land on her hallowed flight deck.
visit to New York, berthed a stone’s throw from the Seven Sea Kings searched for enemy submarines, and one Wessex The fast jets and propeller-driven aircraft departed – a Phantom
legendary liner Queen Mary. was on stand-by for Search and Rescue duties. held the distinction of being the last aircraft catapulted from Ark –
The commission began in controversial fashion; having shadowed before the ship entered Devonport for the final time on December 4
the carrier very closely, a Soviet Kotlin-class destroyer got too close 1978, trailing a 450ft decomissioning pennant.
and clipped the carrier. Two Russian sailors died in the collision. There were plans to save her – notably as a floating museum on
Their government blamed the RN. Questions were asked in the Thames at Greenwich – but in the end she went for scrap, towed
Westminster. A Board of Inquiry convened. out of Plymouth Sound in September 1980.
Ark’s captain was cleared; Over the next four years, breakers at Cairnryan, near Stranraer,
tore her apart.
Some of her remains. An anchor at Yeovilton. The admiral’s cabin
in a Scottish hotel. The memories live on. And so too the
name.
Artwork: Ross Watton. With thanks to Ernie Ruffl er (Metropolitan Borough of Wirral Archives Service); David Scoble
and Gerry Rendle (Devonport Dockyard Historical Centre); Dave Kirkpatrick for providing many photographs of an
Ark Royal model; and Michael Brown of Task Force ’72 for their invaluable help with the reference material which
helped make this illustration possible
AArk Royal Cutaway.indd 6rk Royal Cutaway.indd 6 228/1/09 15:26:348/1/09 15:26:34
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