Everything about Hms Illustrious 1940 totally explained
HMS
Illustrious (87), the fourth
Illustrious of the
British Royal Navy, was an
aircraft carrier which saw service in World War II, the
lead ship of the
Illustrious class of carriers which also included
HMS Victorious (R38),
HMS Formidable (R67), and
HMS Indomitable (R92).
Illustrious was built by
Vickers-Armstrongs at
Barrow-in-Furness, launched in 1939, and commissioned in May 1940. She displaced 23,000 tonnes and had the capability to carry up to 36 aircraft, a number greatly reduced by her armoured deck. Perhaps predictably, she was nicknamed "
Lusty" by the men who served on her.
Service
Illustrious joined the fleet in August 1940. Her first assignment was in the
Mediterranean, where she was used to provide
convoy cover, perform anti-shipping strikes, and raid positions in
North Africa.
On
31 August, she was used to launch a strike against airfields at
Maritza. 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. Twenty-one aircraft from Numbers 813, 815, 819, and
824 Squadrons based on
Illustrious attacked the Italian fleet at night. The Italians were caught off-guard, and one
battleship was sunk and 2 were heavily damaged.
On
10 January 1941 Illustrious was attacked while escorting a convoy east of
Sicily by Axis
Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 and
Ju-87 "Stuka"
dive-bombers, being hit by 8 bombs and suffering extensive damage, destroying her sick bay and ward room, and killing amongst others the England rugby player
W. G. E. Luddington. While in
Malta receiving repairs for her battle damage she was again bombed, flooding her boiler room. On
23 January she sailed to
Alexandria, Egypt for temporary repairs, arriving at noon on
25 January, and then sailed to
Virginia for permanent repairs at the safer
Norfolk Navy Yard. One propeller shaft had to be cut away and her speed fell to 23 knots.
She returned to service in May 1942, and was immediately dispatched to the
Indian Ocean. Later in May,
Illustrious and her sister ship
Indomitable participated in
Operation Ironclad, covering 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 was used to help cover the Allied landings in Sicily in September 1943.
In 1944, she joined the
Eastern Fleet, where she participated in raids on the Indonesian islands of
Sabang on
22 July 1944 and
Palembang on
24 January and
29 January 1945. After this,
Illustrious put into
Fremantle,
Australia, for rest and re-supply. She then sailed with the rest of the
British Pacific Fleet on
4 March to
Manus, and from there sailed on
19 March to
Ulithi. Later in 1945, as part of the British Pacific Fleet, designated
Task Force 57 by
Admiral Nimitz she covered the landings at
Okinawa with her sister ships
Formidable and
Victorious, where she won her last
Battle Honour. While in the
Pacific, she was hit by two
kamikaze aircraft. Her armoured
flight deck absorbed the brunt of some hits, but the hull was progressively warped by damage that would have been confined to the superstructure in her American counterparts.
After the war she was given the role of training and trials ship, with a speed limited to 22 knots due to accumulated wartime damage. She was refitted and modernized from January through August 1948, decommissioned at the end of 1954, sold on
3 November 1956, and finally scrapped, after a successful career, at
Faslane.
Formidable and
Indomitable were also scrapped in the
1950s;
Victorious, the last of the class, was scrapped in 1969.
Battle honours
Further Information
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