HMS Eagle 1942
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Eagle | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1942 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | aircraft carrier, super-dreadnought | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | Chile | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Chilean Navy, Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Mediterranean Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | 38.0500, 3.0200 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Eagle was an early aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy. Ordered by Chile during the South American dreadnought race as the Almirante Latorre-class battleship Almirante Cochrane, she was laid down before World War I. In early 1918 she was purchased by Britain for conversion to an aircraft carrier; this work was finished in 1924. Her completion was delayed by labour troubles and the possibility that she might be repurchased by Chile for reconversion into a battleship, as well as the need for comparative trials to determine the optimum layout for aircraft carriers. The ship was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet and later to the China Station, spending very little time in home waters other than for periodic refits.
Eagle spent the first nine months of World War II in the Indian Ocean searching for German commerce raiders. During the early part of the war, the Fleet Air Arm was desperately short of fighters and Eagle was equipped solely with Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers until late 1940. She was transferred to the Mediterranean in May 1940, where she escorted convoys to Malta and Greece and attacked Italian shipping, naval units and bases in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Location
- Recorded position: 38.0500, 3.0200 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Mediterranean Sea
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 Eagle (1918) (revision 1381031566), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; 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
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- U-409 1943 · 128 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
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- Giovanni delle Bande Nere 1942
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All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Open ocean wrecks · Mediterranean Sea · Second World War