'The Ark is Launched on Merseyside, 13th April, 1937', (1942). 'Her huge bows tower to her iron flight deck 800 feet long and 94 across. She took three years and three months to build and cost ?2,330,000.' A British Royal Navy aircraft carrier of the Second World War, 'HMS Ark Royal' was designed to carry a large number of aircraft, and had two hangar deck levels. She was launched in Liverpool by Lady Maud Hoare, wife of Sir Samuel Hoare, then First Lord of the Admiralty. 'Ark Royal' was involved in the first aerial and U-boat kills of the war, in operations off Norway, in the search for the German battleship 'Bismarck', and took part in the Malta Convoys. A German submarine torpedoed her on 13 November 1941 and she sank the following day. Only one of her 1,488 crew members was killed. From "Ark Royal". [His Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1942]