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Chilean battleship Almirante Cochrane

HMS Eagle underway 1930s.jpeg
Aerial view of Eagle in the 1930s
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS 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, 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: 50,000 shp (37,000 kW)
Propulsion:
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:
Armour:
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.


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