Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
HMS Illustrious (R87)
| |
| Career | 
|
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 27 April 1937 |
| Launched: | 5 April 1939 |
| Commissioned: | 25 May 1940 |
| Decommissioned: | 1954 |
| Fate: | Scrapped. |
| Struck: | 3 November 1956 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 28,661 tons full load |
| Length: | 743.75 feet (227 m) |
| Beam: | 95 ft (29 m) |
| Draught: | 28 feet (8.5 m) |
| Propulsion: | 6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers, Pearsons geared turbines producing 110,000 shp (82 MW) driving three shafts |
| Speed: | 30.5 knots (56 km/h) |
| Range: | 11,000 nautical miles (20,000 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h) |
| Complement: | 1200 |
| Armament: | Eight 4.5 inch (114 mm) guns 48 2-pdr (907 g) guns |
| Aircraft: | 36 |
| Motto: | |
The fourth HMS Illustrious (R87) of the Royal Navy was an aircraft carrier, arguably the one with the most distinguished and vital career of this proud lineage.
The namesake of a new class of carriers which included such other venerable names as Victorious, Formidable and Indomitable, Illustrious was built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow, launched in 1939 and commissioned in 1940. She had a displacement of 23,000 tonnes and a capability to carry up to 36 aircraft on-board, though this was in comparison to much smaller counterparts quite minuscule. Her armoured deck greatly reduced the number of aircraft that she could carry.
On 11 November 1940, she became the first carrier in history to launch a major strike against an enemy fleet. In a daring attack against the Italian fleet at Taranto, the Italians were caught off-guard and decimated. On 10 January 1941, just two months later, Illustrious herself was subjected to an aerial attack from German and Italian Stuka dive-bombers, suffering extensive damage while escorting a convoy east of Sicily. While in Malta, receiving repairs for her battle damage, she was again hit by bombs. Shortly afterwards, she made her way to Virginia for more secure repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard.
She returned to service in 1942 and was immediately dispatched to the Indian Ocean. In May that year, she and her sister-ship Indomitable covered the landings at Diego Suarez in Vichy French controlled Madagascar. In 1943, she returned to the Mediterranean, for operations with Force H, based at the British territory of Gibraltar. She helped cover the Allied landings in Sicily. In 1944, she joined the Eastern Fleet, where she participated in raids on the Indonesian islands of Palembang and Sabang . In 1945, as part of the British Pacific Fleet, along with two of her sister-ships, Formidable and Victorious, she covered the landings at Okinawa where she won her last Battle Honour . While in the Pacific she was hit by two kamikaze aircraft, but, unlike her American counterparts, suffered minimal damage due to her armoured flight deck.
After the war she was given the role of training and trials ship. She was refitted in 1948, decommissioned in 1954 and finally scrapped, after an incredibly successful career, at Faslane in 1956. Her sister-ships Formidable and Indomitable were also scrapped in the 1950s, though Victorious, the last of the class, survived till 1969, when she too was broken up.
See HMS Illustrious for other RN ships of the same name.
Battle Honours
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