HMS Ark Royal (1914)
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The Royal Navy had been using a converted cruiser, HMS Hermes, as a seaplane carrier, to conduct trials in 1913. On the outbreak of the First World War a number of cross channel ferries were converted as well. However, another ship was needed, and in 1914 a tramp steamer was requisitioned whilst under construction. This 7,000-ton vessel was turned into the first purpose-built aircraft carrying vessel, HMS Ark Royal in Blyth, Northumberland. She could carry five floatplanes and 2 normal aircraft. The latter would have to return to land after launch, but the seaplanes could take off over the bow and land in the water alongside the carrier, before being lifted back into the hold by crane.
The ship spent the war in the Eastern Mediterranean and took part in the Dardanelles campaign from February to May 1915.
In January 1918 two of her Sopwith ABC planes attempted to bomb SMS Goeben.
After the war she operated in the Black Sea, transporting aircraft to Batumi to support White Russian forces fighting the Russian Civil War. She was also used in support of the land campaign in Somalia against the Mad Mullah.
During 1920 she assisted the withdrawal of White Russian forces from Crimea. She then returned to Britain and was put into reserve at Rosyth for a refit.
She was recommissioned in September 1922 to take aircraft out to the Mediterranean during the Chanak crisis, before undergoing another refit at Malta in April 1923.
In December 1934 she was renamed HMS Pegasus to free her name for a new carrier that was then beginning construction.
HMS Pegasus served in only minor roles during the Second World War, and was sold in December 1946. Work began to convert her into a merchant ship named Anita I, but this was halted and she was broken up for scrap in 1949.
See HMS Ark Royal for other ships of the same name.
References
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