The ship was docked in Clydeside for a minor refit the following day; she arrived in Scapa Flow on 15 August, and became the flagship of Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster. [7], During her 1943 refits, the flight deck was modified to extend its usable length to 740 feet (225.6m), and "outriggers" were probably added at this time. 810 Squadron and its Barracudas were transferred off the ship the next day and were later replaced by the Avengers of 854 Squadron. [66], She was then formally assigned to the Eastern Fleet and, after a short refit in Durban, sailed to Colombo, Ceylon, and became the flagship of the Rear Admiral Aircraft Carriers, Eastern Fleet, Denis Boyd, her former captain. Illustrious was decommissioned from service. The HMS Illustrious was an aircraft carrier. ww2dbaseIllustrious was the lead ship in her class of aircraft carriers. The Japanese aircraft diving on the ILLUSTRIOUS. Afterwards, she was opened for visits by the public before returning to Portsmouth. [18] Two more twin Oerlikon mounts were added, and her boilers were retubed. About Us; Staff; Camps; Scuba. Preventing this required a preemptive invasion of Diego Suarez scheduled for May 1942. [8] On 24 May 1940 Illustrious ran her sea trials and her engines reached 113,700shp (84,800kW). The ship was laid down on 17th June that year and launched on 17th August 1939 . In 1951, she helped to transport troops to quell rioting in Cyprus after the collapse of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936. [63] After her stay at Freetown, Illustrious proceeded to Durban; during the voyage her staff also fitted ASV radar to the replacement Swordfish. [83], Formidable's arrival allowed Rawlings to order Illustrious to the advance base in San Pedro Bay, in the Philippines, for a more thorough inspection. 26364; McCart, pp. HTML tags are not allowed. 2627; Sturtivant, p. 327, Brown 1971, p. 257; Brown, J. D., pp. There was no aerial opposition and the fighters claimed to have destroyed 24 aircraft on the ground. British Fleet Air Arm Swordfish aircraft of HMS Illustrious spotted French submarine Le Hros off Courrier Bay, Madagascar at 0500 hours and attacked with depth charges; Le Hros attempted to evade by diving, but ultimately would be forced to surface and would be scuttled by her own crew to prevent capture. It gives details of over 439,000 Royal Navy and Merchant Seamen records which are searchable by name, rank, age and ship. Captain Charles Lambe was appointed as the new captain of the Illustrious on 21 May, but he could not join his new ship until 9 July. The roofs of the gun turrets protruded above the level of the flight deck to allow them to fire across the deck at high elevations. some really good leads ,two good sites I found were World Navalships Froums & the other was Sevicepals.com + I got a crew snap shot prior to them sailing to Crete,some one else maybe interested in this info.Keep me posted Folks if . Vice-Admiral Arthur Power carried out another raid on Port Blair in the Nicobar Islands with carrier HMS Illustrious, battleship HMS Renown, and French battleship Richelieu, with light covering forces. [29], Upon his arrival in the Mediterranean, Lyster proposed a carrier airstrike on the Italian fleet at its base in Taranto, as the Royal Navy had been planning since the Abyssinia Crisis of 1935, and Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, approved the idea by 22 September 1940. After returning home in early 1943, the ship was given a lengthy refit and briefly assigned to the Home Fleet. Sharon Howard SA Served from 1991 - 1998 Served in HMS Illustrious John Scott CHIEF PETTY OFFICER Served from 1975 - 2000 Served in HMS Illustrious Stephen Knott MEM Served from 1998 - 2002 Served in HMS Illustrious Glenn Ashley [53][54] The naval historian J. D. Brown noted that "There is no doubt that the armoured deck saved her from destruction; no other carrier took anything like this level of punishment and survived. Later in the day her Corsairs intercepted 10 Ki-43s and shot down two of them while driving off the remainder. Repairs were made in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where her destroyed aircraft were replaced and augmented by twelve additional Martlet II fighters from HMS Archer, while two Martlet I aircraft were, in turn, transferred to Archer, bringing Illustrious's total aircraft complement to 47. A Hawker Sea Fury crashed while landing on 15 May, killing the pilot and two members of the deck crew. The next morning, Martlets from 881 Squadron intercepted three Potez 63.11 reconnaissance bombers, shooting down two and forcing the other to retreat, while Swordfish dropped dummy parachutists as a diversion. After another round of flying operations, she visited Trondheim, Norway, on 19 June. [14] These changes increased her aircraft capacity to 57[17] and caused her crew to grow to 1,831. Two of the Barracudas were forced to return with engine trouble before the attack began and another was shot down over the target. The design was unique in the sense that the flight deck was armored, unlike many of her contemporaries outside her class; however, the added protection also limited the total number of aircraft she was capable of carrying. [28], After refuelling in Gibraltar, Illustrious and the battleship Valiant were escorted into the Mediterranean by Force H as part of Operation Hats, during which her Fulmars shot down five Italian bombers and her AA guns shot down two more. Copyright 2004-2023 Lava Development, LLC., all rights reserved, Aircraft Carrier Illustrious Photo Gallery, See all 20 photographs of Aircraft Carrier Illustrious, Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, Britain, 6 Admiralty 3-drum boilers, 3 Parsons geared turbines, 3 shafts, 8x2 QF 4.5in naval guns, 6x8 QF 2 pounder naval guns. The British fighters claimed to have shot down five Ju 87s, with the fleet's anti-aircraft fire claiming three others. Neither ship was seriously damaged, but Illustrious had to reduce speed to shore up sprung bulkheads in the bow and conduct temporary repairs to the forward flight deck. In total darkness Fasson and Grazier entered the sinking submarine to capture instruments and documentation fully aware of the dangers. The two flare droppers also bombed the oil storage depot with minimal effect, and one bomb penetrated through the hull of the heavy cruiser Trento without detonating. sgtpepperband. This attack was intercepted by six of the ship's Fulmars which had rearmed and refuelled ashore after they had dropped their bombs, but only two of the dive bombers were damaged before the Fulmars ran out of ammunition. During the morning of 10 January, her Swordfish attacked an Italian convoy without significant effect. The ship resumed flying training off the north coast of Scotland in October for two weeks, but she spent most of the rest of the year on trials of the new mirror-landing system that automated the process of landing aircraft aboard. [13], While under repair in 1941, Illustrious's rear "round-down" was flattened to increase the usable length of the flight deck to 670 feet (204.2m). Reconnaissance photos taken by the R.A.F. [10], The main armament of the Illustrious class consisted of sixteen quick-firing (QF) 4.5-inch (110mm) dual-purpose guns in eight twin-gun turrets, four in sponsons on each side of the hull. 25758; Brown, J. D., pp. [12], The Illustrious-class ships had a flight deck protected by 3 inches (76mm) of armour and the internal sides and ends of the hangars were 4.5 inches (114mm) thick. Over the next several months she conducted deck-landing practice for Avenger and Seafire pilots before starting a short refit on 2 April. Led by HMS Illustrious (aka "Lusty"), elements of the UK's Response Force Task Group (RFTG), left Portsmouth on Oct. 1, to take part to part to a series of exercises around the UK as well . She was commissioned on 20th June 1982 (3 month early during work-up trials, due to the Falklands crisis). The four aircraft loaded with bombs set one hangar in the seaplane base on fire and hit the destroyer Libeccio with one bomb that failed to detonate. For this operation she had aboard six Fulmars of 806 Squadron, 23 Martlets of 881 Squadron and 18 Swordfish of 810 and 829 Squadrons. The end of the war several weeks later meant that there was no longer any urgency in refitting the Illustrious in time to participate in the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands and the Admiralty decided that she would become the Home Fleet training and trials carrier. The high-angle director atop the island was replaced with an American SM-1 fighter-direction radar, a Type 293M target-indication system was added, and the Type 281M was replaced with a prototype Type 960 early-warning radar. [46] Four days later Illustrious's aircraft attacked two convoys near the Kerkennah Islands and sank two merchant ships totalling 7,437GRT. Her fighter complement was augmented by 878 and 890 Squadrons, each with 10 Martlet Vs, and 894 Squadron with 10 Seafire IICs. Hundreds watched in quiet reflection as the ship sailed out of Portsmouth on her final . The HMS Illustrious Association was formerly known as the "Old Illustrians' Association" and was formed by a group of wartime Old Boys who were invited on board the 5th ILLUSTRIOUS on 9 September 1983. The catapult comprised a central brace system chosen for trolley-launch seaplanes as well as distributing the forces of launch evenly through an airframe. 254, 257; Brown, J. D., p. 80; McCart, pp. A Z.501 searching for the fleet was shot down on 10 November by a Fulmar and another on the 11th. [64][65] Illustrious' aircraft flew 209 sorties and suffered six deck landing crashes, including four by Martlets. [79], On 16 January 1945 the BPF sailed for its primary base in the Pacific Ocean, Sydney, Australia. One patrolling Swordfish sank the submarine Le Hros and another spotted for ships bombarding French defences. A Chance-Vought Corsair JT208 buckles a wing on . [33] She sailed from Alexandria on 6 November, escorted by the battleships Warspite, Malaya, and Valiant, two light cruisers, and 13 destroyers, to provide air cover for another convoy to Malta. [47] On the morning of 22 December, 13 Swordfish attacked Tripoli harbour, starting fires and hitting warehouses multiple times. [84], On 31 July Captain W. D. Stephens relieved Lambe. Captain Ralph Edwards relieved Stephens on 7 January 1947. She relieved Triumph as the trials carrier in August and conducted trials on Firefly FR.4s, Firebrand TF.4s, de Havilland Sea Mosquitoes and de Havilland Sea Vampires over the next several months. This is a shout out to any members of the Phot Branch who were on board HMS Illustrious acting as a film crew when it sailed from the UK until departing the ship in Hong Kong, who were employed to make a documentary of life on board during the deployment. It had a height of 16 feet (4.9m) which allowed storage of Lend-Lease Vought F4U Corsair fighters once their wingtips were clipped. The following day, the Fireflies of No. . All British aircraft returned safely although one American fighter was forced to ditch during the return home. HMS Cumberland carried out offensive sweep in Indian Ocean with HM Battleships Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, HM Battlecruiser Renown, HM Aircraft Carrier Illustrious, HM Cruisers London, Gambia and Ceylon screened by fleet destroyers. One aircraft of the third flight was forced to make an emergency landing and its crew was captured by the French. They had to be replaced by men from the UK so Illustrious ferried the replacements to Malta, sailing on 21 November and returning on 11 December to Portsmouth. For the planned attack on Port Blair in the Andaman Islands in mid-June her air group was reinforced by the 14 Corsairs of 1837 Squadron; six Barracudas from No. The weather was too bad for Illustrious to rescue the steamer's crew, but she pumped fuel oil overboard to flatten the seas until a tug arrived to rescue the ship on 27 October. 3233, Brown 1971, pp. In 1945, after a period of rest and re-supply in Fremantle, Australia, she sailed north and joined Allied Task Force 57 to cover the Okinawa operation. No. Bad weather degraded the accuracy of the Barracudas and little damage was inflicted aside from a few aircraft destroyed on the ground and a few small craft sunk in the harbour. PA. The new ship class was named the Invincible-class and would constitute three vessels led by HMS Invincible and followed by HMS Illustrious and HMS Indomitable. [17], Illustrious had been badly damaged underwater by a bomb in April 1945, and was ordered home for repairs the following month. 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