page_title: HMS Ark Royal (91)
section_title: Malta convoys and Operation Tiger
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Ark Royal (91) / Service history / Malta convoys and Operation Tiger
caption_attribution_description: English: Force H at Sea: H.M.S. Renown and Ark Royal, taken from H.M.S. Sheffield.
context_page_description: HMS Ark Royal was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that served during the Second World War.
  Designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, Ark Royal was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, England, and completed in November 1938. Her design differed from previous aircraft carriers. Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure. Designed to carry a large number of aircraft, she had two hangar deck levels. She served during a period that first saw the extensive use of naval air power; several carrier tactics were developed and refined aboard Ark Royal.
  Ark Royal served in some of the most active naval theatres of the Second World War. She was involved in the first aerial and U-boat kills of the war, operations off Norway, the search for the German battleship Bismarck, and the Malta Convoys. Ark Royal survived several near misses and gained a reputation as a 'lucky ship'. She was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81 and sank the following day; one of her 1,488 crew members was killed.
context_section_description: Ark Royal spent April alternating between covering convoys and delivering aircraft to Malta and forays into the Atlantic to hunt commerce raiders. By May 1941, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps were driving through North Africa towards the Suez Canal, pushing the Western Desert Force before them. With British forces close to collapse and strategic locations threatened, the British High Command risked sending a reinforcement convoy across the Mediterranean to Alexandria. The convoy consisted of five large transport ships, escorted by Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Renown, the battleship Queen Elizabeth, the cruisers Sheffield, Naiad, Fiji, and Gloucester, and screened by destroyers of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. Prior to Ark Royal's departure, Captain Holland left to recuperate from stress and poor health, and was replaced by Captain Loben Maund. The convoy left Gibraltar on 6 May, and was detected by Italian aircraft. The convoy—limited to 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) and escorted by so many capital ships—was such a tempting target that Italian and German aircraft were mobilised.
  The British convoy came under air attack on 8 May, first by the Italian air force, then German Luftwaffe. Over the day, 12 of Ark Royal's Fairey Fulmars (the maximum number available) drove off over 50 aircraft, with the assistance of targeting information from Sheffield's radar and anti-aircraft fire from the escorts. During the initial waves, one Fulmar was lost, killing Flight Lieutenant Rupert Tillard and Lieutenant Mark Somerville; another was destroyed with the aircrew recovered, while several others were damaged. Consequently, only seven were able to face the main Luftwaffe force of 34 aircraft, while an attack just before dark was driven off by two aircraft and heavy fire from the ships. The convoy survived without serious damage: the only casualties were to mines, with the Empire Song sunk and New Zealand Star damaged but able to reach port. Ark Royal underwent another aerial attack on 12 May, during her return to Gibraltar. Later that month, she and fellow aircraft carrier Furious delivered Hawker Hurricanes to support Malta.
caption: Ark Royal at sea with the battlecruiser Renown
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