HMS Illustrious (87)
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Illustrious circa 1954
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Illustrious |
| Ordered: | 13 April 1937 |
| Builder: | Vickers-Armstrongs |
| Laid down: | 27 April 1937 |
| Launched: | 5 April 1939 |
| Commissioned: | 25 May 1940 |
| Decommissioned: | late February 1955 |
| Out of service: | February 1955 |
| Identification: | Pennant number: 87 |
| Motto: |
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| Honours and awards: |
Genoa 1795, Basque Roads 1809, Java 1811, Taranto 1940, Mediterranean 1940–1942, Malta Convoys 1940, Diego Suarez 1942, Salerno 1943, Sabang 1944, Palembang 1945, Okinawa 1945 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, November 1956 |
| Badge: | In front of a trumpet erect two trumpets in saltire gold |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type: | Illustrious-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: | 23,000 long tons (23,369 t) (standard) |
| Length: | |
| Beam: | 95 ft 9 in (29.2 m) |
| Draught: | 28 ft 10 in (8.8 m) (deep load) |
| Installed power: |
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| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range: | 10,700 nmi (19,800 km; 12,300 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 1,299 |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
1 × Type 79 early-warning radar |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: |
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| Aircraft carried: | 36 |
| Aviation facilities: | 1 catapult |
HMS Illustrious was the lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy before World War II. Her first assignment after completion and working up was with the Mediterranean Fleet, in which her aircraft's most notable achievement was sinking one Italian battleship and badly damaging two others during the Battle of Taranto in late 1940. Two months later the carrier was crippled by German dive bombers and was repaired in the United States. After sustaining damage on the voyage home in late 1941 by a collision with her sister ship Formidable, Illustrious was sent to the Indian Ocean in early 1942 to support the invasion of Vichy French Madagascar (Operation Ironclad). After returning home in early 1943, the ship was given a lengthy refit and briefly assigned to the Home Fleet. She was transferred to Force H for the Battle of Salerno in mid-1943 and then rejoined the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean at the beginning of 1944. Her aircraft attacked several targets in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies over the following year before Illustrious was transferred to the newly formed British Pacific Fleet (BPF). The carrier participated in the early stages of the Battle of Okinawa until mechanical defects arising from accumulated battle damage became so severe that she was ordered home early for repairs in May 1945.
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Wikipedia