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The career of HMS Ark Royal was short but very active. Launched on the 13th of April 1939, HMS Ark Royal was the third ship to bear the same name. With a speed of 32 knots, she was one of the fastest aircraft carriers of its class and the 800ft flight deck would accommodate torpedo carrying Swordfish biplanes and Skua fighter planes. HMS Ark Royal saw action in almost every sea in the world, and notably provided crucial support to the convoys braving the perilous Mediterranean routes between Malta and Gibraltar. It was one such mission, some 30 miles from Gibraltar, where she received the punishing blows from two torpedoes that would eventually lead her 1,000 fathoms down to the bottem of the sea in 1941. It was one of Ark Royal's skilled pilots who maneged to set the steering gear of the German battleship Bismark out of action and so set the scene for that vessel's eventual destruction.
