HMS Eagle (1918)

HMS Eagle was an early aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that began life as a battleship ordered by another country. Chile ordered her as Almirante Cochrane, a ship of the Almirante Latorre class, and Armstrong Whitworth laid her down at its Newcastle upon Tyne yard on 20 February 1913. Work stopped when the First World War began, and Britain bought the nearly complete hull from Chile on 28 February 1918 to convert it into a carrier. She was launched on 8 June 1918, but labour trouble, the chance that Chile might buy her back and the need for comparative flying trials delayed completion until 1924. She carried an island on the starboard side, served in the Mediterranean and on the China Station, spent the first months of the Second World War searching the Indian Ocean for German raiders, and escorted convoys to Malta. The German submarine U-73 torpedoed and sank her on 11 August 1942 during Operation Pedestal, with 131 lives lost.