HMS Ark Royal 1941
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Ark Royal | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1941 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | aircraft carrier | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II, Norwegian Campaign, Attack on Mers-El-Kebir | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Alboran Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Spain | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 53 km from land |
| Position | 36.0500, -4.7500 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Ark Royal (pennant number 91) was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that operated during the Second World War.
Designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, Ark Royal was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, England, and completed in November 1938. Her design differed from previous aircraft carriers. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. Designed to carry a large number of aircraft, she had two hangar deck levels. She was used during a period that first saw the extensive use of naval air power; several carrier tactics were developed and refined aboard Ark Royal.
Ark Royal operated in some of the most active naval theatres of the Second World War. She was involved in the first aerial U-boat kills of the war, operations off Norway, the search for the German battleship Bismarck, and the Malta Convoys. Ark Royal survived several near misses and gained a reputation as a 'lucky ship'. She was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81 and sank the following day. One of her 1,488 crew members was killed.
Diving & visiting
The location of the wreck was undetermined until mid-December 2002, when the wreck was discovered by an underwater survey company, C & C Technologies, Inc, using a sonar-equipped autonomous underwater vehicle, 30 nautical miles (35 mi; 56 km) from Gibraltar, at about 3,300 feet (1,000 m) depth. The company had been contracted by the BBC as part of a documentary on maritime archaeology related to major battles of the Royal Navy. The Ark Royal wreck lies in two main pieces with the stern section sitting upright and the bow section upside down. 66 feet (20 m) of the bow is separated from the rest of the ship's hull.
Location
- Recorded position: 36.0500, -4.7500 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Alboran Sea
- Nearest coast: Spain
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Ark Royal (91) (revision 1375434722), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Rediscovery”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- U-433 1941 · 19 km
- Spanish destroyer Almirante Ferrándiz 1936 · 24 km
- U-340 1943 · 50 km
- OS35 53 km
- U-732 1943 · 67 km
- U-731 1944 · 67 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
- SS Gracechurch 1940
- SS Rio de Janeiro 1940
- U-13 1940
- U-25 1940
- U-54 1940
- Armando Diaz 1941
- Bismarck 1941
- Fiume 1941
- HMAS Sydney 1941
- HMAS Waterhen 1941
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
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