User talk:Saberwyn/Ark Royal sinking

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Contents

[edit] General observations

  • A section on the aircraft carried by Ark Royal may be of use and interest to readers. This would ideally contain
    • a brief description of the squadrons assigned to the carrier
    • the aircraft embarked (types, quantities, roles, etc)
    • Any significant changes and/or losses concerning the above
    • The associated dates thereof
  • When this is all over, you should think about copy-merging material from the Hunting the Bismarck section to the Last battle of the battleship Bismarck article... some of the facts and cites here would be of value over there.
  • I'm tossing up reorganising the sections related to the sinking: have the sinking as a main heading and the subsequent investigation and rediscovery sections as subheadings. When I get to that point of the copyedit, I'll set it all up in here and ask for your opinion before whacking it in mainspace.
  • Should all of the items in the reference list be converted to there {template:cite} format? Also, should the full bibliographic data for all the items be moved down to the references section, with the short-cite left as the actual citation in all cases?


[edit] Copyedit questions/comments

[edit] A second near miss

  • The German pilots did not see if the carrier had been hit, and when a later reconnaissance flight saw the two battleships but no aircraft carrier, the Germans claimed that Ark Royal had sunk.[f] The carrier returned safely to port.[1]
    • It may need a little more explanation here... where did the carrier go after the attack? Why was she not present when the battleships were spotted? It might be an idea to rephrase Footnote F and work it into the text, some thing along the lines of "To prove the propaganda false, Churchill invited the US naval attache to visit the docked carrier, while the British naval attache in Rome was instructed to assure Mussolini that Ark Royal was still in service

[edit] The Norwegian campaign

  • Ark Royal returned to Scarpa Flow on 27 April to refuel and embark more aircraft,...
    • why, were there heavy losses?
      • ...before heading back...

[edit] Mediterranean deployment

  • ...there was concern that a French fleet anchored at Mers-el-Kébir might fall under Axis control and tip the balance of power.
    • In the Mediterranean, or in the war as a whole?
  • During July, the British colony of Malta began to come under air attack,...
    • from whom?
  • Force H remained at Gibraltar until 30 September, when they escorted reinforcements for Admiral Andrew Cunningham's fleet to Alexandria.[3] Again, diversionary attacks were planned on Italian air bases at Elmas and Cagliari, which were successfully carried out on 1 September.
    • Were the airbase attacks carried out before, during, or after the reinfocement run? Are the dates correct (1 October?), or does the flow of this paragraph need reworking?
  • Negotiations failed, and the British tried to take Dakar by force, without success.
    • Did Ark Royal have any major role in this battle or the preceeding negotiations?
  • During the following engagement, which is referrred to as the Battle of Cape Spartivento, one Italian cruiser was damaged,...
    • do we know which cruiser? is there an article?
  • The Italian air force launced a retaliatory attack, during which Ark Royal was the subject of multiple bombing runs, none of which hit.[4]
    • I thik this needs a line to wrap it up, something descriing the outcome of the engagement and the supply convoy
  • Ark Royal returned to the Mediterranean from 20 December to 27 December to escort British battleship HMS Malaya and a group of merchant ships from Malta, resuming searches on her return.[5]
    • Ark Royal appears to have returned to the Med on a more permanent basis, when did this happen?
  • Force H then became involved in Operation Excess, a complicated plan to move convoys through the Mediterranean to support the Eighth Army.
    • which was where and doing what?
  • Needing to demonstrate British strength to the Spanish
    • Why?

[edit] Second pass

  • The air attacks failed to damage any other Italian ships or sink the disabled destroyer (which at the time both sides believed was the Italian cruiser Bolzano).[citation needed]
    • this is one of the crunchy bits of history I love, but we really need a citation for the fact that the Italians mistook her for a different ship... or have I stuffed this up?
  • The Mediterranean Fleet was under heavy pressure from Axis forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, while the British port at Gibraltar was likely to be lost if the Spanish chose to ally with the Germans instead of remaining out of the war.
    • Is this right?

[edit] The search for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

  • Ark Royal
    • immediately?
      • launched a Fulmar with a payload...

[edit] Malta convoys and Operation Tiger

  • By May 1941, Rommel's Afrika Korps were driving through North Africa towards the Suez Canal, pushing the Eighth Army before them.
    • You changed 8th Army before, does it need to happen again?
      • Yes, good point. It becomes the 8th Army only in September 1941.
  • Prior to Ark Royal’s departure, Captain Holland left the ship to recuperate after an illness,
    • was he sick while in command?
      • The intimation in Jameson is that it was the stresses of command (which must have been huge). He doesn't elaborate further other than to say his 'health had for sometime been worrying Surgeon-Commander Williams'.
  • 12 of Ark Royal’s Fairey Fulmars,
    • Was there a term for this grouping? Was it one particular squadron, a formation with a fancy name like 'fighter screen' or 'combat air patrol' (not likely, but maybe something similar), or just the first 12 planes off the deck? Were all twelve up at once, or were different numbers up for different attacks?
      • A small airborne patrol was constantly aloft, with what Jameson calls a 'standby section' on the deck ready to scramble. The fighters were divided into 'sections', Red, Yellow and Blue. Fulmars of both 807 and 808 squadrons took part in the defence that day. 12 fighters was the maximum available that day owing to serviceability issues. Different numbers were aloft at different times. After the first waves of attacks by the Italian airforce, only seven Fulmars were serviceable, three in Red section and two each in Blue and Yellow. These seven faced the largest attack of the day from 34 aircraft of the Luftwaffe. A later attack just before dark was driven off by just two Fulmars and the fleet's AA guns. Oh, and I think the note to that reads that only one Fulmar was lost. In fact two were, but the pilot and observer were rescued.

[edit] Hunting the Bismarck

  • A flight of fourteen Swordfish bombers
    • I assume 14 planes as that's the number of torps mentioned in the pre-copyedit article, is this correct?
      • Fifteen aircraft actually. Presumably one did not launch before the mistake was realised.
  • On their return to the carrier, the Swordfishes were re-armed, this time with contact-detonator warheads, and launched again for a second attack.
    • Was it the same fourteen-ish planes?
      • Pretty much - Jameson "At 19:15 fifteen Swordfish (mostly the same aircraft as before - there were no others available) were flown off..."

[edit] Escorting the Malta convoys

  • Despite heavy losses,
    • to the convoys or to forces in Malta?
      • Both really, but to the convoys specifically in this section. To be honest it might be an idea to tone this down a little. Substance and Halberd resulted in some of the escorts sunk or damaged as well as some merchant losses, but it really wasn't on the scale of the later convoys, such as Harpoon, Vigorous and Pedestal, which were quite a bit larger and suffered a very high percentage of casualties (only two of Harpoon's merchants made it to port). Perhaps "despite some losses..."?

[edit] Final voyage and sinking

  • The impact and subsequent explosion caused Ark Royal to whip violently,
    • context of whip slightly unclear
      • Something like shake or shudder perhaps, the concussion basically caused the ship to shake violently, throwing moving objects about, knocking men over, etc. (Jamespn uses shudder, and also described it as "without any warning the ship was shaken by a violent convulsion").
  • By approximately 02.30 hours, the angle of list was 20 degrees, and when 'abandon ship' was declared an hour and a quarter later,
    • I think this needs some more exact times
      • Doing the maths, it was at 20 degrees at 02:05. It's a bit difficult though, all the sources tend to work in general times at this point, in that it came down to an observer's estimate of the degree of the list, and the time that it was observed. Similarly it would probably have been at 20 degrees at 02:05 and at 02:30, as the list was only increasing slowly at this period owing the effect of the pumps. At 04:00 the list was 27 degrees, at which point Maund gave the order for those in the engine rooms to come up on deck to prepare to evacuate. He was the last man off, at 04:30, when the angle was passing 35 degrees and meant he had had to slide down a rope over the exposed hull of his ship and ended up with his uniform covered in green weed.

I'm not sure how best to work in this material

I suspect a lot of this is prose remaining from before I started my rewrite and tried to incorporate as best I could. This is the only section that I didn't just write from scratch so this is probably why it's the most problematic.
  • Some of the torpedo blast vented upwards through a bomb trunk forward of the bridge island.
    • The blast passed up through the ventilation trunks and a bomb lift, causing smoke and steam to billow out onto the upper decks and the flight deck. Visually impressive and disturbing, which might have led to the impression that the damage had been worse than it was. With the switchboard down and Maund unsure of the true extent of the damage, it might have been a contributing factor to his decision to begin the evacuation, but neither Rossiter nor Jameson make much of it. Could perhaps be lost without much issue.
  • The ship whipped violently with the explosion, which caused the fully-loaded torpedo-bombers on the flight deck to be hurled into the air; however she showed very little shock damage internally, and her masts remained standing.
    • Probably the same as the above. Appeared very damaging initially, but later hopes were raised that it wasn't quite as bad as all that and she could be saved. The basic message in those early hours was that once they got over the initial shock, everyone thought they had a good chance of saving the Ark. The shock had however loosened seams, which caused a slow but significant ingress of water to the ship in general.
  • This position, being dead amidships, meant that the list caused would be greatest, and its position relative to the transverse bulkheads was such that four main compartments, plus over 106 feet (32 m) of the ship's starboard bilge, were immediately subject to flooding.
    • Significant to the final sinking, it was the point of impact that made it an immediately fatal hit. The breach in the hull opened up a large amount of the ship to immediate flooding, she very quickly went to 17 degrees. The machine spaces were severely affected and these were the areas that had to be brought back on line if there was to be any chance of bringing her into port. Despite being partially successful, the efforts of trying to start the engines only increased the flooding and the list (albeit slowly), until the uptakes were flooded, the boilers could no longer draw air in, and they overheated and shut down. The pumps lose power, flooding continues at a more advanced pace and the list increases even faster.

Another point, I think I was far too lenient on retaining some of the earlier editor's (who has not cited a source come to think of it) judgements about the delay in starting damage control. As soon as the torpedo hit damage control began in the individual sections independent of orders from the bridge, which was out of communication. The initial order for evacuation was given quickly, but this not the same as an 'abandon ship' announcement, but a standard procedure to begin removing all non-essential personnel. At the same time as this was being done, Maund had ordered measures to counter the list, and fuel was being pumped from starboard to port, i.e. they had not abandoned hope of saving her. The difficulty then arose that some of those who had been ordered to leave in the confusion were necessary for the repair works, whilst some who had been ordered to stay did not have the necessary skills. Effective damage control was therefore delayed. But I think what the original editor thought was that as soon as the torpedo struck everyone jumped off Ark Royal, when she didn't sink immediately some of them jumped back on. In reality some people never left Ark Royal until the final evacuation and damage control was underway from the off, but was hampered by the initial confusion over the evacuation order. Statements like "flooding was uncontrolled until 49 minutes after the attack, when damage control measures were initiated" are therefore too simplistic a judgement. It's probably time to remove this fallacy.

[edit] Investigation

  • The inquiry closed the report with the observation that Ark Royal had sunk 22 nautical miles (41 km) east of Europa Point, the southernmost tip of Gibraltar.
    • Inquiry: BoI, court-martial, or Bucknill?
      • The Board of Inquiry in this case.

[edit] Notes to Self

  • Mike Rossiter, Ark Royal: the life, death and rediscovery of the legendary Second World War aircraft carrier (Corgi Books, London, 2007). ISBN 978-0-552-15369-0
    • At Lane Cove, Parramatta
  • William Jameson, Ark Royal: The Life of an Aircraft Carrier at War 1939-41 (Periscope Publishing Ltd, 2004). ISBN 1-90438-127-8
    • At Lane Cove

[edit] Potential Aircraft section

I've dug up some information, specifics about losses, etc are a bit of a nightmare to come by though. I've put in what I could find about those squadrons operating from the start. As you can see the Roc, Walrus and Albacore were occasionally flown off, probably as stop gap replacements.

  • Five squadrons embarked in August 1939 (had been working up individually beforehand) -
    • No. 800 and No. 803 - both flying Skuas
    • No. 810, No. 818 and No. 821 - all flying Swordfishes

Blackburn Skuas - Dive bombers. Heavily armed but slow and under-powered. Are replaced aboard Ark Royal from April 1940 onwards by squadrons equipped with the Fairey Fulmars Fairey Fulmars - Bombers, also used as dive bombers. Heavily armed, but again under powered and not very maneuverable. Considered reliable and sturdy, with long range. Fairey Swordfish - Torpedo bombers/spotter aircraft/reconnaissance aircraft. Slow, but famously durable.

[edit] All squadrons operated

[edit] Embarked on formation, January 1939

  • 800 Jan 1939-April 1941 Skua II
  • 810 Jan 1939-Sept 1941 Swordfish I
  • 820 Jan-Sept 1939 Swordfish I
  • 821 Jan 1939-April 1940 Swordfish I

[edit] Embarked by outbreak of war, September 1939

  • 803 April 1939-Oct 1940 Skua II/Roc I
  • 818 Aug-Oct 1939 Swordfish I
  • 820 Sept 1939-June 1941 Swordfish I

[edit] Embarked by Norwegian Campaign, April 1940

  • 801 April-May 1940 Skua II
  • 807 April 1940-Nov 1941 Fulmar II

[edit] Embarked by beginning of Mediterranean Operations, June 1940

  • 701 June 1940 Walrus I
  • 818 June -July 1941 Swordfish I

[edit] Embarked as replacement aircraft???, December, 1940

  • 821X Dec 1940-Jan 1941 Swordfish I

[edit] Embarked by beginning of main Malta Convoys and aircraft deliveries, June, 1941

  • 800Y June 1941 Fulmar I
  • 825 June 1941-Nov 1941 Swordfish I
  • 816 July 1941-Nov 1941 Swordfish I
  • 812 Sept 1941-Nov 1941 Swordfish I
  • 808 Oct 1941-Nov 1941 Fulmar II
  • 828 Oct 1941 Albacore I/Swordfish I

As far as it goes, I think 800, 810, 820, 821 embark in January 1939. 803 embarks in April 1939 and 818 in August 1939. 818 leaves in October and operates off Furious. 801 and 807 embark in April 1940, 807 bringing the new Fulmars. 801 doesn't stay long, by May they're aboard Furious. 821 has been devastated by losses against the Scharnhorst, and are no longer an operational squadron. By June, Ark Royal is reinforced after losses sustained over Norway, and the disastrous attack on Scharnhorst by 701 (a training squadron, probably temporarily assigned for experience, but who don't go to the Mediterranean later that month) and 818, who return from a couple of months flying off mainland airbases, where they had gone after leaving Furious. A flight from the devastated 821 squadron briefly appears in December 1940, by January they have gone, probably to be absorbed into 815 squadron. A radical shakeup appears to be taking place in mid 1941. The Skuas have gone, the squadrons previously operating them have presumably been upgraded to the new Fulmars. 800 (Skuas) have gone in April, though an upgraded flight with Fulmars briefly returns in June. The Swordfish squadrons 810, 818 and 820 are all gone in June, July and September, replaced by the new Swordfish squadrons 825 (June), 816 (July) and 812 (September). Another Swordfish squadron, 828 appears in October but seems to have been reassigned to Malta almost immediately. Another Fulmar squadron, 808 arrives in October. The squadrons aboard Ark Royal at her sinking are 807 and 808 (Fulmars) and 812, 816 and 825 (Swordfish).

As far as I can tell, numbers fluctuated according to losses, what the factories could produce, where the Admiralty felt reinforcements were most needed, and how often Ark Royal could take on new aircraft. Around a dozen was usually the ideal number, but there appear to have been smaller squadrons.

[edit] No. 800

One of those attacking the Konigsberg from RNAS Hatson. Lost four aircraft attacking the Scharnhorst. Appears to be with Victorious by April 1941, and later Argus.

[edit] No. 803

Lost two Skuas over the Fanad Head incident. Was the squadron that made the first enemy aerial kill. Was aboard Glorious by April 1940. Was one of those attacking the Konigsberg, lost all but two of their aircraft attacking the Scharnhorst. Later seems to be operating on other carriers.

[edit] No. 810

With Ark Royal off Norway in 1940, and later at Mers el Kebir, attacking the battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque. Involved in bombing the Italian mainland and the attack at Dakar, attacked the battleship Richelieu. One of those defending Ark Royal at Spartivento, made bombing raids on Tirso Dam, Sardinia, Leghorn and La Spezia during 1941. Spent between March and May 1941 aboard Illustrious. One of the planes from either 810 or 818 squadrons scored the crucial hit on the Bismarck.

[edit] No. 818

Formed with 9 Swordfish in August 1939. With Furious off Norway from April 1940. Returned to Ark Royal in June 1940, involved in attacks at Mers el Kebir, specifically the battleship Strasbourg. Also involved in attacks on Sicily, and on the Italian battleship Littorio at Spartivento. Covered Malta convoys, made bombing and mining operations on Leghorn, Genoa, Pisa and La Spezia naval docks in February 1941. Scored two hits on the Bismarck.

[edit] No. 821

Sank U-39 after her unsuccessful attack on Ark Royal. Was with her through operations in 1939/1940 and went with her to Norway in April 1940. Bombed enemy positions, attacked the Scharnhorst. Disbanded in December 1940. Remaining planes seem to have been split, some to Argus, some to Ark Royal becoming part of 815 squadron