#36: HMS Illustrious: The Carrier That Proved Air Power at Sea
On November 11, 1940, just 21 obsolete Swordfish biplanes launched from HMS Illustrious crippled the Italian fleet at Taranto, sinking or disabling three battleships in a single night raid. The attack proved that carrier-based aircraft could destroy a battle fleet in harbor, a lesson the Japanese Imperial Navy studied carefully before planning Pearl Harbor thirteen months later.
Illustrious was the first carrier designed with an armored flight deck, 3 inches of steel that would save her repeatedly. In January 1941, Luftwaffe Stuka dive bombers hit her with six 500kg bombs in the Mediterranean. Any other carrier would have been destroyed, but Illustrious survived and limped to Malta for emergency repairs. She went on to serve in the Indian Ocean and Pacific theaters. Her armored deck concept influenced British carrier design for decades and proved that defense technology could be as decisive as offensive striking power in naval warfare.
