HMS Ark Royal IV: Britain's Greatest Warship

Sea Power, Apr 2000 by Price, Jennifer M

HMS ARK ROYAL IV: Britain's Greatest Warship, by Richard Johnstone-Bryden. Herndon, Va.: Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1999. 272 pp. $39.95. [Phone: (703) 661-1500] Foreword by Adm. of the Fleet Sir Michael Pollock, GCB, LVO, DSC. The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal IV, possibly the most famous Royal Navy warship of the postwar era, was launched in 1950 and when decommissioned 29 years later in 1979 was the last conventional carrier in the Royal Navy.

The author combines interviews and firsthand accounts ranging from former officers and crew-including admirals, captains, and ship's company-to aircrews of the embarked Fleet Air Arm squadrons and the shipyard workers who built the "Ark." Ark Royal IV played a key role in the development of the R.N.'s fixed-wing aviation and pioneered the concept of carrierborne VSTOL aircraft. The book's final chapters provide helpful complementary information about the Ark's aircraft, historic construction and operational details, brief histories about the three previous Ark Royals, and a chapter speculating on the future of Royal Navy aircraft carriers. With bibliography, index, and numerous black-and-white photos throughout.