Tag Archives: HMS Eagle

Buccs over Aden

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Some 57 years ago this month. Aden Emergency. The flight deck of the 54,000-ton Audacious-class aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (R 05) was photographed as part of Task Force 945 in the Gulf of Aden during the British withdrawal from the Aden colony in November 1967.

IWM (HU 106844)

Eagle’s deck is crowded with De Haviland Sea Vixen FAW.2s of 899 Naval Air Squadron and Blackburn Buccaneer S.1 and S.2s of 800 Naval Air Squadron. Meanwhile, following behind are the Centaur-class commando carrier HMS Albion (R 07), HMS Fearless (L10) of later Falklands fame, and the WWII-era Amphion-class submarine HMS Auriga (S69).

From the same period, drink in this beautiful shot of a Zuni rocket-armed Bucc from Eagle putting its watchful eye over the colony.

A Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft of 800 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Eagle on patrol over Aden and Khormaksar airfield, during the withdrawal of British troops on 29 November 1967. IWM A 35119

The Harland and Wolff-built Eagle, one of Britain’s two proper big deck carriers during the Cold War, was decommissioned in 1972 after just 21 years with the fleet while her sister, HMS Ark Royal, would endure until 1979. Both would have been welcome in the Falklands.

The Big E, 62 years ago today

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(Photo via Fleet Air Arm Museum, click to big up)

Here we see the crew of the Audacious-class fleet carrier HMS Eagle (R05), spelling the ship’s name, as her aircraft are arrayed on the flight deck, 4 August 1955, the day before the ship’s visit to Naples. She went on in short order to prove herself in the Suez crisis.

Later that month, her carrier air group made up of Westland Wyverns, Douglas Skyraiders, Hawker Sea Hawks and de Havilland Sea Venoms flew a record 201 sorties in one day, which is not bad for a flattop of any era. The lead ship of her class of large carriers for the Royal Navy, she was laid down at Harland and Wolff in Belfast (makers of the Titanic) during WWII but was only commissioned in 1951.

Along with her sister, HMS Ark Royal, Eagle was the largest warship operated by the British navy– at 55,000-tons fl– until the Queen Elizabeth-class takes to the waters in coming years.

Eagle was paid off in January 1972 at Portsmouth after only 20 years and 4 months of service, and was promptly stripped of reusable equipment to keep her sister in working order for another decade, before being scrapped in 1980.

It could be argued that if Eagle and Ark Royal, with airwings of Fleet Air Arm Buccaneers and F-4 Phantoms, would have been operational in 1982, at which point they would have been in their early 30s, then the Argentinians would have never taken a second look at the Falklands.

1953 Spithead Review

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Includes HMS Vanguard and the mighty HMS Eagle, the largest RN carrier ever built. Never again would the Royal Navy be this impressive. Guest visits include the Italian training vessel Amerigo Vespucci (which still exists, at 85-years of age), the French 9120-ton La Galissonnière-class cruiser Montcalm and the heavy cruiser USS Baltimore as well as the supersexy Soviet cruiser Sverdlov (which was only scrapped in 1989, one of the last steel ships present on this day in existence).