HMS Eagle R05 Audacious Class Aircraft Carrier 1964 Bow View Photo Print

HMS Eagle (R05), a Royal Navy Audacious Class aircraft carrier, comes almost straight towards the camera in 1964, at sea again after her long rebuild. Her bow cuts a white wave beneath the broad overhang of her flight deck. The deck is clear of aircraft, with its landing lines and angled-deck markings sharp against the dark surface, and small groups of her crew are out on deck by the island. Above the island rise the big round dish of her new Type 984 radar and a large rectangular aerial, with funnel smoke drifting back over a long, low coastline in the distance. Eagle was laid down at Harland and Wolff in Belfast as Audacious and renamed before her launch on 19 March 1946, when Princess Elizabeth sent her down the ways. She was completed in 1951, and she and her sister Ark Royal were the largest carriers the Royal Navy had built until the Queen Elizabeth Class of the 21st century. When she paid off at Portsmouth in January 1972, after more than twenty years’ service, she was kept in reserve and stripped of spares to keep Ark Royal at sea. She was towed to Cairnryan for breaking up in October 1978. You can read more about the history of HMS Eagle HERE This print is ideal for those who served in HMS Eagle after her 1964 recommissioning and anyone with a connection to Harland and Wolff or the Royal Navy’s big carriers. Product Details Image Taken: 1964 Photographer: Courtesy British Information Service © Public Domain - Restored by Hampshire Prints