Rediscovered by a local fisherman in , the site of the wreckage was declared a protected site in The first excavation began shortly after, with dive seasons finishing in the summer of The purpose of the excavation was to recover and preserve fragile artefacts from the ship as they became exposed.
Watch the divers at work immerse yourself in the dive film, which will make you feel like you are diving on the wreck without getting wet. The original Invincible was an innovative Georgian warship which originally belonged to the French navy. This famous ship revolutionised warfare at the time with many ships in the Royal Navy being modelled after her and a total of seven carrying on her name.
A major showcase for most important underwater excavation in decades to begin with a call for volunteers. As with the majority of Royal Naval vessels, the name Illustrious has been used on numerous occasions between and , with no fewer than 5 different ships carrying the name. For the purposes of this web page, we concentrate of HMS Illustrious 87 , the lead class aircraft carrier built during the s by our predecessor company, Vickers Armstrongs at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Initial construction at Barrow in Furness suffered with a large number of unwanted delays, mainly created by the slow deliveries of armour plate and other essential materials. In the main, this was due to the low capacity within the steel industry, which had been severely cut back due to the lack of orders as a direct result of the Washington Naval Treaty, agreed some 15 years earlier.
The treaty had called for surviving ex-World War I ships to be modified and this had almost eliminated orders for new build naval ships. The specification called for an overall length of feet Her beam was calculated to be 95 feet 9 inches After slipping into the water, she was towed into the Buccleuch Dock at Barrow for fitting out for her complement of around 1, officers and enlisted men. HMS Illustrious aircraft hangar below flight deck. To maximise the protection of the hangar, the hangar floor was constructed of 2.
Below the waterline, she featured an underwater defence provision comprising of a layered system of liquid and air-filled compartments, backed by a 1.
The ships armament comprised of sixteen quick-firing 4. The final completion of the was delayed by over two months in order to instal a new Marconi Type 79Z early warning radar, making HMS Illustrious the first aircraft carrier in the world to be fitted with radar before completion. She entered Royal Naval service on 24th April , under the command of Captain Denis Boyd, and embarked on her sea trials within a month.
During the sea trials she carried a maximum of 4, long tons of fuel oil, giving her an estimated maximum range of approximately 10, nautical miles at 10 knots, although this range reduced dramatically as speed increased. Two months later, HMS Illustrious suffered substantial damage when she was attacked and crippled by German dive bombers.
Such was the extent of her wounds that she was sailed to the safety of the United States for repair. On the second climb or pop-up , their radars gained contact, designated a target, and fired their missiles, taking evasive maneuvers after firing their weapons. The distance at which they fired their missiles is disputed, varying between 27 and 9.
The ships detected by the argentine fighters were three Type 42 destroyers, on AAW radar picket duty, spread 15 miles apart, covering the threat axis. The three destroyers were positioned 18 nautical miles west of the British carriers.
HMS Glasgow, stationed at the center of the formation, was the first ship in detecting the Super Etendards 40 miles west of their position. Glasgow immediately sounded General quarters and reported this information to the Task force. HMS Sheffield, the southernmost unit of this formation, had downgraded this alert. Contributing to this lack of alertness, was recurrent false alarms from her ESM, identifying the electronic signals as Etendard's radars.
In addition, the ship at the time of the attack, was using her satellite communications system which interfered with her ESM. In fact, Glasgow was the ship targeted by the Argentine pilots, but she managed to evade the incoming missiles by promptly deploying chaff decoy. One of the two missiles impacted Sheffield and although it is believed that it did not explode, caused a fire of such magnitude that four hours later the ship had to be abandoned.
This attack neutralized a third of the British anti-aircraft area defense, which, at that time had only three AAW destroyers in the theater of operations. This information was unknown by the Argentinians until that day, when the British media broadcasted the attack on radio and television, disclosing this vital intelligence to the world, and the enemy.
Shortly after the attack on Sheffield , both P-2 Neptune became inoperative. Maritime scouting was then assigned to aircrafts with less range and endurance, fitted only with weather radars, which meant a loss of capability in detecting and designating enemy targets. To compensate this deficiency, operators of the anti-aircraft radars stationed in Port Stanley - Puerto Argentino tracked the Sea Harriers from when first detected until they lost contact, thus triangulating, quite accurately, the location of the British carriers, at approximately miles Northeast of the Falkland.
Using this information, on the May 25 th, the Argentinian naval command planned a strike on the British carriers, employing two Super Etendard, each carrying an Exocet missile. Since the British by then knew that the Super Etendard-Exocet system was operational and that these aircrafts were deployed in Rio Grande Naval Air Station, the argentine naval command planned a deceptive maneuver.
The strike followed a different direction of approach, with the fighters flying the first leg on a northeasterly course, refueling miles east of Puerto Deseado , then approaching from the northeast of the British task force, away from the expected thread axis. On their second pop-up, the pilots detected two medium and one small target, designated their missiles, and at a range of 25 miles, released their weapons of the larger target, then taking an evasive course towards Puerto Deseado.
The refueling aircraft had remained on-station, and after four hours of flight and having flown 1, miles, the fighters returned directly to their home base in Rio Grande. On this opportunity, the British ships reacted correctly, promptly executing their pre-planned evasive actions, so the missiles hurtle through the chaff cloud deployed by Ambuscade , locking instead on Atlantic Conveyor which did not have these types of countermeasures.
Gordon Brooks, the medical officer aboard on the Atlantic Conveyor ; however, noting the numerous contradictions in official sources, and with new facts available, in published his investigation of this attack.
HMS Hermes turned in the opposite direction, presenting her bow into the incoming missiles, reversing her relative position with Atlantic Conveyor, which probably lured the missiles towards her, eventually taking the hits. At the time of the attack, RFA Sir Tristram was not in the proximities, and both Brown and Woodward omit in their books the presence of Hermes in the vicinity of the stricken merchant.
The ship was schedule to disembark this precious cargo on San Carlos later that night, but all was lost. Probably, the loss of Atlantic Conveyor was the most serious suffered by the British during this conflict. But, analyzing the relative positions during this attack, it can be affirmed that this huge merchant ship saved HMS Hermes from being hit. After the war Admiral Woodward pointed out that the loss of a carrier would have forced the withdrawal of the Task Force from the Theater of operations.
Atlantic Conveyor went down on the 28th of May, three days after the attack. British and Argentine versions of this attack, coincides in the distance at which the missiles were fired. Regarding battle-damage assessment, once more this was provided to the Argentinians by the British media. That same night BBC transmitted the news of the attack and their casualties.
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