~ WW2 Wartime Sailor Made Model Of Aircraft Carrier HMS Ark Royal Pennant Number 91 ~
The model is made from wood with wire and nail details. It stands on a substantial wooden base with a plaster of Paris sea. It is of the type that a sailor would have made for his children.
~ HMS Ark Royal ~
HMS Ark Royal (pennant number 91) was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that was 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. Her sinking was the subject of several inquiries, with investigators keen to know how the carrier was lost in spite of efforts to save the ship and tow her to the naval base at Gibraltar. They found that several design flaws contributed to the loss, which were rectified in new British carriers.
The wreck was discovered in December 2002 by an American underwater survey company using sonar mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle, under contract from the BBC for the filming of a documentary about the ship, at a depth of about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) and approximately 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) from Gibraltar.
~ Condition ~
Being a sailors model it is of quite basic construction. There is some loss to the mode, including pieces from the ship and the sea base.
~ Dimensions ~
The models, including the base, is 20 cm (8 inches) wide, 20 cm (8 inches) deep and 30 cm (12 inches) tall. It weighs 4.4 Kg.
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