HMS Eagle (1918)

Aerial view of Eagle in the 1930s
Class overview
Preceded by	HMS Hermes
Succeeded by	Courageous class
History
United Kingdom
Name	Eagle
Ordered	29 July 1912
Builder	Armstrong Whitworth
Yard number	858
Laid down	20 February 1913
Launched	8 June 1918
Acquired	Purchased, 28 February 1918
Commissioned	20 February 1924
Identification	Pennant number: 94
Fate	Sunk by U-73 during Operation Pedestal, 11 August 1942
General characteristics (as completed in 1924)
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	21,850 long tons (22,200 t) (standard)
Length	667 ft 6 in (203.5 m)
Beam	115 ft (35.1 m)
Draught	26 ft 8 in (8.1 m) (deep load)
Installed power	32 water-tube boilers 50,000 shp (37,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 shafts; 4 geared steam turbine sets
Speed	24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Range	4,800 nmi (8,900 km; 5,500 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement	791
Armament	9 × 6 in (152 mm) guns 5 × 4 in (102 mm) AA guns
Armour	Belt: 4.5 in (114 mm) Deck: 1–1.5 in (25–38 mm) Bulkheads: 4 in (102 mm)
Aircraft carried	25–30

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 then 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. The ship also participated in the Battle of Calabria in July but her aircraft failed to score any hits when they attempted to torpedo Italian cruisers during the battle. Whenever Eagle was not at sea, her aircraft were disembarked and used ashore.

The ship was relieved by a more modern carrier in March 1941 and ordered to hunt for Axis shipping in the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. Her aircraft sank a German blockade runner and disabled a German oil tanker in mid-1941 but did not find any other Axis ships before the ship was ordered home for a refit in October. After completing an extensive refit in early 1942, the ship made trips delivering fighter aircraft to Malta to boost its air defences in the first half of 1942. The German submarine U-73 torpedoed and sank Eagle on 11 August 1942 as Eagle was escorting a convoy to Malta during Operation Pedestal.