1/700 HMS Eagle 1942 (HP Models)
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by Jerry Lloyd |
1/700 HMS Eagle 1942 (HP Models)
HMS Eagle began as a Chilean battleship by Armstrong's at Elswick on the Tyne in1913 but was purchased incomplete for £1.3 million and completed as a carrier in 1925, a High Angle Control System director was fitted in 1932 and arrestor wires were fitted in 1936, in June 1940 HMS Eagles Swordfish aircrew found 3 Gloster Gladiators in crates ashore in Alex and borrowed them to form a fighter flight and for a while these three were the RNs only fighters in the Med, her 813 squadron found fame around the fleet for using their Fairey Swordfish biplanes to dive bomb enemy destroyers, a refit in 1941 added 20mms and radars including a hand cranked air search radar on her mainmast (type 291) with a 30 mile max detection range, final armament became 9 x 6inch, 4 x 4inch, 2 x 8 2Pdr pom-poms, 12 x 20mm, and her top speed from worn out boilers dropped to 20 knots, in February 1942 as the only RN carrier with wide enough lifts she was chosen to carry RAF Spitfires to defend Malta so on March 2nd she flew off 15 Spits specially finished in a desert camo scheme (when they arrived On Malta they operated exclusively over the sea) on March 21st she flew off another 9 Spits this time in European camo of brown n' green, 7 more were flown off in March 29th (surviving planes were repainted on Malta in a unique blue-grey/brown camo) with some of her own aircraft ashore she delivered 17 Spits twice in May, emptied of all her own aircraft she made three runs in June delivering 31, 32 and 32 and another 29 in July, in august her own aircraft re-embarked for the Pedestal operation and she was lost on the 11th.
