“Oh my God!” I thought. Hopefully someone can help?My dad was the CPO on the Eagle, and survived, I have seen actual footage on History channel of it going down, but no amount of searching can find it. I would love to see any photos or footage.My Dad Joseph Mcgowan [MAC] survived this sinking and went on to survive Punjabi sunk in Arctic. At 1514 hours HMS Neptune sighted the enemy battlefleet bearing 260° from HMS Warspite The ensuing action can best be described in five phases. He lived a good life after the war as a successful builder and had several children. The losses were such that the Fascists claimed a great victory. He always talked about his pay -a white £5 note – in his locker which went down with the ship. He was a carpenter and worked on the Sopworth Camels. HMS Eagle (R05) Übersicht Typ Flugzeugträger: Bauwerft Harland & Wolff, Belfast Kiellegung 24. This is a great dive, and like many of the wreck dives around, is wreck then reef. But, to all, admiration and thanks for what was done. Eagle was just a bulge in my vision. Sadly, he didn’t survive. I never saw them again.Taking a deep breath I blew up my inflatable lifebelt which was a permanent part of our dress when we were afloat. I had no relative on the Eagle. He, as I notice others didn’t talk about it much. A senior officer surfaced near him and gave him his lifebelt. When it went down he was sucked down and came up in great difficulties.
The shallow areas provide a great place for densely packed colonies of pure white sagartia anemones. He survived and went on to serve in other ships H M S Leamington was one. HMS Eagle was the fourth British aircraft carrier to enter service, after the Furious, Argus and Hermes, and a compromise.Taking a massive dreadnought to carry 25 planes would seems ludicrous to us today, but there were little options at the time, but scrapping the ship entirely, instead of taking advantage of an hole in the naval disarmament treaty of 1922. HMS Eagle and the 19th division (HMAS Stuart, HMAS Vampire and HMAS Voyager) were now detached from the 1st Battle Squadron and the damaged HMS Gloucester was ordered to join them. For some reason I thought we had hit a school of whales! An officer slid between the two ratings and shouted, “now is your time to learn,” and with a rating beneath each arm he dived into the sea. I am returning in April and feel much the same as my Dad. He was picked up buy the tug Jaunty I think. (Designed to withstand a charge of 750 per square inch, the torpedo blister was supposed to deflect the force of underwater explosions and preserve the hull of the ship. I would love to see any pictures of him or the crew to show my dad George Nicholls. Something bumped into me from behind; it was “Stripey”, the twelve year service man who was the “Daddy” of our messdeck, but something was wrong. These are known as the Association wrecks, as the flagship was HMS Association. He slid down a turret into the sea and lost his hair in the flames of burning oil. He did however leave some brief but interesting notes about his journeys in the form of a time line starting with him joining the ship at Gladstone Dock Liverpool on 11th November 1941 and the journeys she made from that date until she was sunk on 11th August 1942. Swim! She was reduced to 50 guns in 1830 and then became a training school in 1860, being renamed HMS Eaglet in 1918. Shared the story but limited some of the details. These are known as the Association wrecks, as the flagship was HMS Association. The disaster led Parliament to look for a solution to the problem of longitude, solved in 1772.
My horizon from wave level was limited. Remembering our survival lectures, I hurriedly kicked off my deck shoes, pushed myself away and before I could think I was upside down 20 feet under the water and frantically holding my breath whist I looked around for a lighter colour in my surroundings that would indicate the surface.