Original subtitles

Warships of the ultimate symbol of a nation's military might.

These things are monsters.

One of technology.

Enormous vessels crewed by thousands

wrestling with massive guns and powerful aircraft

they can deliver terrifying

destruction turned the tide of.

The chef fulfill to win the war.

There was no other reason.

From the beginning of the twentieth century

to the present day.

These at a stories of classic warships.

From dreadnoughts to Bismarck.

Japan monster see warrior yamato.

The American super ships Wisconsin

Lexington and enterprise

to today's cutting edge royal Navy carriers.

These are the world's greatest warships.

September eleventh two thousand and one.

The aircraft carrier USS enterprise is in the arabian Gulf on her way home.

Without warning she is order to turn around and

head to the coastal waters of southwest Asia.

Nine eleven terrorist attacks of shocked the world and prompted the American

government to declare that war on terror.

As part of that war.

Enterprises aircraft will fly hundreds of missions against the Taliban and all qaeda

in the remote and distant mountains of Afghanistan.

This is just the latest chapter in the story of enterprise.

A story that already stretches back some forty years.

The story of the aircraft carrier goes back a lot further than that.

So how did the aircraft carrier grow from humble beginnings

to become the decisive weapon in the second world war.

The ultimate instruments of military and political strategy in the cold war.

And as we enter a new era.

Promise to rule the waves for decades to come.

They are still today.

The most complex

expensive pieces of design and engineering on the planet.

Within a decade of the first manned flight in

the earliest years of the twentieth century.

Naval strategies were thinking about launching aircraft at sea.

For direct military engagement was not that primary concern.

Dave Morris is a historian of naval aviation.

The whole reason in many ways for the Navy to become involved with

aviation and aircraft and taking aircraft onto their ships

is

Effective the extending the view over the horizon

was a reconnaissance was really where

a whole of naval aviation begin.

When the first world war broke out in nineteen forty.

The need to fight ways to fully combine the air and sea power intensified.

So the stars at the first world war.

It's in its infancy aircraft are incredibly basic there is no means of actually

launching an aircraft from the deck of the shape.

Basic catapults basic arrested systems.

Platforms for on the front of ships.

All of it was an.

Ad hoc experiments all marriage flying by

said to get pants trying

something new for the very first time.

It was britain's royal Navy that lead this experimentation

and the reserve collection of the fleet air arm in somerset

house is one of the few remaining examples of

an early attempt at launching aircraft at sea.

The sea plane lighter.

A seaplane lighter.

It is a toad vessel and it is not just doesn't have

an engine it's not a powered draft as a toad vessel.

Capable of transporting in this case

and aircraft and this craft could be towed

and extend the range of a seaplane

before it could be launched to fly.

Crucially as the name suggests.

The seaplane lighter was only launching seaplanes.

Not fighter aircraft.

But in the early years of world war one.

Britain desperately needed fighter aircraft at sea.

Since nineteen fifteen

dozens of being killed in raids on towns and cities along england's east coast.

The raids were carried out by German zeppelin's.

Huh Jack ships carrying up to two tons of bombs.

And aircraft launch from land of a little defense.

It would take.

Sopwith camel typically

forty five to fifty minutes to spiral up to the sixteen seventeen thousand feet.

That the zeppelin would be operating at.

A maybe only have five minutes at most on target

before but then have to

return to its base possibly gliding because it was out of fuel.

Salvation lay in the seaplane lighter

but not before some serious trial and error.

What if we put a wooden deck on top of this craft

what if we told the whole contraption.

At fifteen to twenty knots into a fifteen to twenty not sea breeze.

Get an equivalent crossed deck wind speed of around forty knots.

Could they launch a camel from a toad lighter

and then take.

Fighter plane to see.

Landing was a totally different

problem to solve altogether it could not land back onto the lighter

was not safe enough

long enough index-based the landing would have to do

a controlled crash into the sea

alongside the lighter

and hopefully the pilot would get rescued.

As pilots and sailors begun to master the new

technology the seaplane like to came into it so.

Only

nine days after the first successful experiment.

And except with camel take off from a seaplane lighter to

see.

Took the whole contraption into the

into the center of the north sea waited on station.

On and intercepted zeppelin fly I fifty three and successfully shot at dine

shocking the German zeppelin cruise and to realizing

they could be intercepted by fighter planes

far as to say.

The aircraft have proven it could be a viable see based weapon

and the British were keen to scale up the technology.

How could they develop that into a full sized crap

how could they effectively take multiple aircraft

wherever they needed to go.

Round the world

to deliver their aircraft.

Almost like taking their airfield.

Wherever they needed it this was the key.

Final piece of the puzzle.

Launched in nineteen eighteen

hms August was a reconditioned commercial

ship with a runway built on top of her hope.

She was a real game-changer.

Hm azhar this

was the world's first aircraft carrier by that

mean the ship that was capable of

launching.

Aircraft from its flight deck and recovering them onto the same deck.

With a hanger under that deck in which they could be

stored.

Fueled and

and sustained in operations for a considerable period.

I.

Have a lifting system to get aircraft up and down

from a big hangar deck below

and you have an arresting system to stop the aircraft is the land on the deck.

August can take twenty aircraft

anywhere wanted anywhere in the world.

By the end of the wall.

The German fleet

was.

Spending nearly all its time in Chile grades it's main base.

And the admiralty came up with the idea of using

aircraft from August to attack them in the harbor.

That practiced operating from August.

They were ready to go.

In early November nineteen eighteen.

But the armistice happened before they

carry out emtek.

August may not have played a leading role in world war one.

But the blueprint for the aircraft carrier we know today

had been do raw.

And in the next war.

Carriers will be at the heart of the actual.

As the world slid towards war in the nineteen thirties.

Naval engineers were restricted by treaty the size of battleship they could build.

Allowances for aircraft carriers

were far more generous.

So there's a strong incentive to

develop and build aircraft carriers.

And what you see is half built homes.

Of capital ships.

Mostly battle cruisers are converted on the stalks into aircraft carriers.

The next step was to move beyond just sticking a runway on top of an existing shit.

Actually ark royal

completed in nineteen thirty eight.

Incorporated all the admiralty his ideas on how aircraft should be operated at sea

from the trenches and thirty she was big.

Was eight hundred feet long.

She had stowage in her to hang has

won over the other.

The sixty or slightly more aircraft.

I

Is a pioneering bullshit for the British because she's the first

full size fleet carry that they really build from the Kale up

so she's she's a a world beater for the

European face when she comes.

At royals flight deck was nearly two hundred and fifty meters long

and a full twenty meters above the waves.

Her command and control functions were housed

in an island on the starboard side of the deck.

Become a feature of aircraft carriers to this day.

Interior of the ark royal which was truly revolution.

Andrew chung these curator of ships plans at the national maritime museum.

This is the general arrangement drawing for the aircraft carrier hms ark royal.

Showing her as completed.

Now it's an indicator of just how complicated the ship was.

One of the secrets to ok royals very impressive aircraft capacity was this new

enclose double storey hanger that her designers built into a

in terms of the height of the average person that's

effectively a four story hang a divided into two

it was the first time that a proper weatherproof to hangar of that size had been

built into a British aircraft carrier

and unlike previous large carriers in the royal Navy

this one was designed to optimize

aircraft handling so

the lower hangar was given over entirely to aircraft maintenance

whereas the upper hanger was intended purely for real

arming refueling and preparing planes for their next mission

to the admiralty believe that with this arrangement they could come to a very

efficient turn around and aircraft

and avoid a situation that they'd experienced an older carriers were

ground crew doing one thing with one aircraft would get in the way of ground crew

doing something entirely different with another air croft.

The ark royal also included touchable

to help launch planes from her decks

and arrest of cables to slow them down when they return.

She was about to be put to the test against

the most fearsome battleship on the machines.

Jewel in Hitler's naval crown.

The mighty Bismarck.

As

A quarter of a kilometer long and crewed by over two thousand men.

Bismarck boasted fearsome firepower and speed.

She terrorize britain's vital Atlantic convoys.

Something needed to be.

One hunting of the Bismarck and.

Far as to see.

Demonstrates.

Again just the importance of the Navy being able to take aircraft to see.

The Atlantic is absolutely vast are trying to cover it all by

see.

Finding a needle in a haystack it's still very difficult.

Doing it from aircraft.

Thought

you suddenly stopped to increase the chances.

Of finding your target.

This market already some hms hood

the biggest battleship in the British fleet

when she was spotted on the twenty sixth of may nineteen forty one.

Swordfish biplanes were launched Vermont royal in pursuit

the justice show interest was able to drop down to almost see height

level light

and approach

six the feet above the waves

and launch their torpedoes against the Bismarck.

The damage they did to Bismarck.

Was.

Fatal.

One of the torpedoes.

Hit the rudder bright aft and jammed it.

So no matter what they tried to do with our engines bismol could only turn

encircled.

The ship was intact apart from her ability to.

Head.

And so she could do nothing but wait for the big guns of the home fleet to come up at

on the next day.

Although Bismarck was ultimately some by battleships.

It was air power that has crippled to.

Dr yan v it is an expert in German naval strategy in the second world war.

Two certain extent.

You could call the be smart the essence

of a battleship.

Bought at the same time.

She was a dinosaur.

She was the best almost the best you could achieve chief and

she battleship shipbuilding but.

In strategic and also and technical chops she was

out dated.

Because she.

Falls victim to a new weapon.

Ark royal may well have changed the rules of engagement on the high seas.

But the British aircraft carrier as an all round package

remained a work in progress and challenges remained.

Principally.

How to build planes best suited to this complex form of aviation.

It is probably would say the most challenging full of flying.

So if you imagine.

Just the three biggest challenges of trying to land on

take off from an aircraft carrier.

The first thing is your runway is absolutely tiny.

Second to your runways moving up and down.

Say when you're trying to take off your moving up and down when you're landing

moving up and down so your aircraft have to be incredibly robust.

Because.

When you lie nanjing slammed down on that day.

And the third point is that your runway moves

say when you take off and go in your mission then you've come back

your runway isn't it'd be way you left is

so all of those things make naval flowing incredibly difficult.

At the beginning of world war two the royal Navy is

still using in many ways quite outdated aircraft.

Gladiator biplane swordfish and.

Typical of the aircraft that would be on the ark royal.

Skewer dive bombers

but still quite slow.

The the necessity for a fighter aircraft.

Purpose built.

Was very very high.

The solution to all these problems was a very British compromise.

Let's take an already successful plane

and adapted for life on the ocean wave.

While we have here is the super marine shifa.

The modified naval eyes version of of the spitfire aircraft.

Converted to go on ship's

deck with the folding wings they can enable them to go into the hangar spacious below.

Had.

Take off catapult spools

fitted to strengthen parts of the fuselage

had a deck hook

arrest of the hook fitted to the tail of the aircraft.

But.

Are still compromises the pilot is still sat very low

the pilot is still sat quite a long way

rearwards behind the engine which gives bad

visibility an approach to the ships for landing.

The undercarriage is still.

Woefully week for an aircraft

has the punchline onto an aircraft carrier deck and all wins and weather's

so.

When she for flying the spitfire stroke sci fi it was still a very very capable fighter

but it still had many many shortcomings

as a deck landing at.

The Americans made no such compromises with

the planes they would place on their carriers.

In america.

There was no air force.

And fighters and strike aircraft were designed for the name Lee

by the Navy for naval use exclusively.

Strategy will be brought to life in purpose-built

carrier aircraft such as the hell cuts and the corsair.

This was.

The

best that money could buy at the time this was taking

a design from the drawing board

and

creating a carrier born aircraft

with all of the things of that would

benefit from and require

a very strong undercarriage very strong wing.

Powerful engine deck hook.

Designed

from the outset to be in the best position on the aircraft.

Landing on carry a decks and all wins and weather's

taking the rigors of.

Thumping onto the decks and and they pulled to a whole by the arrest of wise.

Higher better visual physician for the pilot.

The him parts of these purpose-built American planes

was not lost on the British Navy high command.

Who saw a solution to that problem.

From nineteen forty one the Americans came up with

what was called to lend lease act.

Where they lintas

the aircraft for the duration of the war.

And.

Indian thousands of aircraft came to the royal Navy and that way

this was an enormous step forward for aircraft for the royal Navy

at that time in the war.

But it wasn't only the royal Navy who were keen on

maximizing the military potential of naval aviation.

Late nineteen forty one.

Six Japanese carriers trouble three and a half there was a miles across the pacific.

In total they launched three hundred and fifty three

planes against the battleships of the us pacific fleet.

And could at Pearl harbor.

In Hawaii.

Hull battleships were sunk.

For more heavily damaged.

Nearly two and a half thousand Americans died.

Well hello.

Showed for the first time.

That carry has had a strategic role as a striking force.

That could travel considerable distances.

Attack targets

and cause a lotta damage when they got their.

Wealth Pearl harbor was a stunning triumph for the Japanese.

Who would have unforeseen repercussions.

Not totally how the u s Navy's one aircraft carriers escape the attack.

With america's response would herald the arrival

of arguably the greatest carriers in history.

After Pearl harbor there was no doubt that the capital ship of the second world war.

Was going to be the aircraft carrier there was no one of the battleship.

The centerpiece here was the ethics class carrier.

These were very large ships thirty eight

thirty nine thousand tons full load displacement

they had.

Capabilities.

To receive a lot of punishment

they were very survival all because of that

and also because of their large any aircraft.

Battery

but most of all they could cure a very large air.

In total an astonishing twenty four ships of this class were built.

Each ship could carry up to one hundred and ten aircraft housed in three thousand six

hundred square meters of hangar space.

From a.

By more than two and a half thousand men.

They had a range of twenty eight and a half thousand kilometers

equivalent of traveling from los Angeles to Tokyo

three times.

With a top speed of thirty three not

the essex class carriers dominated the world's biggest ever battlefield.

The pacific ocean.

Xx class aircraft carriers

can fairly claim to be the finest aircraft carriers produced by any nation.

They.

Captured that and balance of aircraft capacity protection Ian.

Both passive and active

and high speed better than any other carry a design that was produced

and as significantly.

The united states was able to produce them in numbers.

The essex class carrier

program was one of the biggest industrial achievements of the war.

Eleven of them had been ordered by nineteen forty

and in the end.

There were twenty four

of them completed before the war had ended.

When you think of that in terms of shipbuilding it's huge.

Shepherd built to win the war.

There was no other reason.

In nineteen forty one.

Japanese airplanes and launched a devastating

attack on the u s fleet at Pearl harbor.

UK s Navy was reeling from the attack.

But it was about to take delivery of the most iconic aircraft carriers in history.

The essex class.

USS Lexington was one of the first ethics class Korea's.

Launched in nineteen forty three.

Kenneth Cole step was a goner on board during his first deployments in the pacific.

They wanted to have two squadrons of aircraft.

On the ship.

Rather than one

for each division that is fighter.

Dive bomber and torpedo bomber.

Is a very flexible type of strike force with your have.

You can be going out after ships were you're using your torpedo bombers

and they typically.

Would do a sandwich Chinese attack where the

torpedo bombers were come in from low altitude

and the guy bombers are in from high altitude.

Thus they're splitting the defensive guns of the enemy.

Has got a handle both in the same time.

Variety of aerial firepower was critical in overwhelming the Japanese fleet.

Gave Lexington on a fellow essex cost carriers the

starring role in the u s advance towards Japan.

Nikkei forty three the Americans began an island hopping campaign in pacific.

On their way to Tokyo

and their centerpiece of this campaign

was the first carrier task force.

The task force how to aircraft carrier

at its core.

These will be surrounded by battleships and

destroy us to keep the enemy at arm's length.

Allowing the carriers to launch aerial attacks.

Lexington lead task force fifty eight.

It's first major engagement was at the truk lagoon

Japanese carry a base in the central pacific.

Japanese get their first taste of what the essex glass carriers can do when they raid

truk lagoon in February nineteen forty four in the very aptly named operation

hailstone.

This Japanese bastion is effectively destroyed as a front line base

over the course of a series of raids

most of its aircraft destroyed either in the air on the ground any shipping are lucky

enough to be caught in the lagoon has sunk.

And the Japanese never used truck again they can't

it they they've had noticed serve to them that their

premier

central pacific bastion is no longer an option.

Americans called the big blue blanket

which was the air cover they gave to the amphibious

operations that captured the islands.

That moved west across the pacific to the very shores

of Japan.

They could stay at sea for weeks even months on end.

Because they had logistics support groups.

With oil tankers ammunition stick ships

stools ships.

They could even provide replacement aircraft and pilots

it's

one of the most

powerful expressions of naval power and the free nuclear.

Terror.

Four months after flattening Chuck lagoon.

Lexington joined fourteen

the u s carriers in the Philippines see.

What will become the decisive engagements of the war in the pacific.

This was the largest aircraft carrier battle of the pacific war

we brought fifteen aircraft carriers to the battle in the Japanese brought night.

And there's no other battle.

That have that many aircraft carriers and.

They hold this false that the new us carrier fleet in the

in the hope that they can turn the tables on the u s Navy

and it's a complete disaster the u s

remembers it as the great Murray honest Turkey shoot were.

Dozens of Japanese planes are last

for each American pilot shop down.

Battle effectively

ends the Japanese carrier fleet for good.

At it means that in the later battles the Americans

confidently.

Come up with this

huge aerial superiority which the Japanese simply cannot match.

Since victory at Pearl harbor in nineteen forty one.

Japan's Navy had been outmaneuvered and

fought by the u s Navy

the wall was slipping away

the Japanese employed a final desperate tactic to knock out us carriers as

the kamikaze attack.

Planes packed with explosives

and carrying only enough fuel for that would journey.

Would be flown directly into enemy targets in suicide attacks.

Designed to cause maximum damage.

Lexington defense was her Beau falls on t aircraft guns.

That downtown.

This is the largest machine god produced in the world.

It was made in Sweden.

Utilized by almost every country in the world.

And it fires one hundred and twenty rounds a minute and what's unique about the gun.

Is you had a.

Trainer who said on this side of the pointer

over there who as actually fired the gun.

As the gun training.

Each operator the pointer and a trainer.

Would have to coordinate

the brain the gun.

In the position.

As he's coming around.

It was a pointers responsibility

man on the left side of the gun

to actually fire it.

When he was in possession he would push his travel

with his left foot

and the gun would fire.

What's a kamikaze threat was a acknowledge and everyone knew

that these people were out to kill him.

The gutters had to stay on their toes not only were to

they defending

the ship but they were defending their home.

To this day a Japanese flag marks the spot where

a kamikaze pilot crushed into the Lexington.

Having avoided the hail of bullets from the bow.

Machine guns.

Kenneth Cole stat was on board dot day.

The election was off the Philippines plan

to kamikaze these dropped out of the clouds.

Going

from left to right across the bow of the ship.

Radars had picked up the contacts as they were coming

in back defensive patrol was unable to find them.

They probably saw the ship at the same time to ship saw that.

Ship started turning right to keep the guns focus found that.

We got the first one.

With the second one get boring on him.

And he was coming down from about five thousand feet.

He got hit several times

but.

He just kept gone coming in.

Gasoline on the aircraft spilled over the crew which

were out in the open an incinerator all of them.

Which was really horrible.

As a result.

The last forty eight people

and one hundred and thirty two were wounded.

Pilot had obviously intended to hit the flight deck and

make a large all on the flight deck which would have put

Lexington out of service

but he hit this area instead.

Spite of that.

The horror of the desk and the wounded work

that happen.

He did not seriously damage the she.

Pilot.

Was flying the aircraft that crashed into the election.

Was probably one of the original a kamikaze pilots

of selected.

Amazingly

the whole incident was captured in a series of extraordinary photographs.

This photo album.

Was made by.

Sailor on board the ship and and nineteen.

Forty four.

He was photographer on board and his name was.

Daniel John connally.

He took all the original photos of the kamikaze

strike on five November nineteen forty four

and during the attack.

Standing approximately right here.

And he.

Received a bronze star.

For photographing the aircraft coming straight in attic.

And it was a some point that he said well gotta get outta here.

Even a direct hit from a kamikaze pilots could slow down the mighty Lexington.

By the end of the war Lexington a shot down

three hundred and seventy two enemy aircraft.

Destroyed a further four hundred and seventy five or.

She had some cova three hundred thousand tons of shipping.

And not one essex class Korea was sung during the war.

Well without the essex class carriers are difficult to.

Say what alternate history would have been

but we definitely would not have had this striking power.

That we had during the second world war.

When the second world war finally ended in nineteen forty five

the victorious allies would redraw the map of Europe

and in turn Usher in the cold war.

The cold war was played out not against one opponent

although obviously the Soviet union was behind.

Everything going on in the communist world

but sometimes you have to fight the

surrogates north Korea.

North Vietnam.

And other countries.

Carriers were invaluable

in that they could provide.

Power.

The pulse of.

Bigger than most and forces.

In order to cover the big blue blanket again if you like.

Wherever.

Western foreign policy dictated.

The aircraft carrier that was built to meet this new challenge.

Was something special.

This is a biggie.

The enterprise.

The first nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

The largest ship in the world.

Enterprise was a giant in every sense.

See was long to them for jumbo jets laid end to end.

Before and a half acres of deck space was the equivalent of three football pitches.

She could accommodate ninety aircraft.

And how is a crew of nearly six thousand.

Enterprise was powered by eight nuclear reactors which gave her a

limited range.

In her fifty one year service.

Enterprise cover nearly two million kilometers.

Projecting u s power to every corner of the globe.

USS enterprise impresses me from her sheer scale.

At the time she was completed in nineteen sixty one the u s Navy.

Point out that she is the largest mobile object ever built by man.

David silva was a damage control officer on board enterprise.

He remembers well long stretches that see.

Because it was nuclear power there was nothing to stop it.

From continuing underway.

He's just getting food.

In stores for the crew.

You know so even if you loaded it all out just for the crew.

You could just keep going for years and years long as you could keep

bringing book on more stores.

Do you knew that something special was happening

when they throw out steaks and lobster tail.

Not always a good announcement was coming it's like okay guys now we're going to stay

out on their way for another two weeks we're not getting that port visit but we're

going to give you steak and lobster for dinner.

The ship's company of nearly six thousand.

The enterprise was not so much a warship

as a small city at see.

Like any city.

Keeping it going was a complex logistical operation.

Always the public works department there was an electrical officer auxiliaries

officer and we all worked for the chief engineer.

We all had division ns of people underneath us

with a lot of experience we had war and officers we had chief petty officers that ran

the enlisted troops of various different backgrounds and experiences.

More than any of the ship before.

Enterprise have perfected the art of see power.

Huge size and immense cream and

good launch multiple deadly

strikes against targets all over the world.

One each aircraft came down and was hot and

then released off its tail hook then they would.

Move those aircraft off to their parking areas

so you had.

Aircraft handlers you had playing captains you

had the catapult officers in the catapult pro

they're all out there on the deck

he add fuel or she had order and it's man you had everybody

in different colored shirts and helmet.

Designating what their job was.

Some of them are and radio communication

some of 'em it's just all hand signals.

You've got a blast from the jets coming off.

Before an aircraft would launch they'd put up these jet black the electors behind them

and then a drop its with the next aircraft had come up on the catapult.

It's a very hot windy dangerous place to be.

One of the many aircraft enterprise carried in her early days

was the a five vigilante bummer

which had a nuclear strike capability.

The combination of them limited range the

vigilantes ability to deliver nuclear weapons.

By the USS enterprise the most powerful piece of military hardware.

The world.

I carry is like the enterprise

the greatest influence

believe on the cold war was to show the Soviet union and Warsaw pact and allied

Navy's just what the united states could produce

and what the united states could produce a numbers

with their carrier battle brutes all over the globe.

Although the u s would switch to launching nuclear

weapons from submarines rather than carriers.

Enterprise has been at the sharp end of every major

u s military maneuver over the last fifty years.

In nineteen sixty one when the USS enterprise was

brand new she took part in the Cuban missile crisis.

Nearly made the cold war hawk.

She carried out a number of

tours of

north Vietnam.

From nineteen sixty six to nine to seventy three.

She operated in the pacific

mediterranean the Atlantic.

Her aircraft took part in strikes against him to be

against Bosnia.

Iraq of took

part in the no flies zone coverage either Iraq.

In the early stages of conflict.

In the persian Gulf.

She didn't finally

pay off as an operation warship until two thousand and eleven.

And with more than fifty one years of service.

At twenty five deployment.

He has always.

Answered the call to serve.

It's a direct descendant of the source of power.

That can be projected by the u s Navy and world war two

and in the era of the cold war.

All it takes is for a us carrier battle group to appear on the horizon.

For the demands of the united states to be taken says seriously.

The lesson of the enterprise was clear.

Any nation consider the first rank military power

needs an aircraft carrier capability.

It was a lesson britain

the country that had pioneered the use of air and sea power

at all but forgotten.

But today something truly extraordinary is being built to Scottish shipyard.

The queen Elizabeth class.

Is.

I.

Royal Navy had pioneered aircraft carrier technology.

It had been the first to combine air and sea power in battle.

And

develop the first recognizably modern aircraft carriers.

Since the defining battles of world war two.

It had been left behind by the u s and other nations.

New British queen Elizabeth class comprises two

ships queen Elizabeth which is carrying out to

attractive sea trials of the moment

and her sister ship prince of wales

stooge came to see in late

two thousand and nineteen.

Biggest warships of built for the royal Navy.

Nine hundred and nineteen feet long.

There are one hundred feet longer than above.

They were built in precise.

Dup can't just north of Edinburgh.

Three years ago here in recife

the naming of hms queen Elizabeth.

Was a strategic awakening for the united kingdom.

The moment when we proved to the world and to ourselves.

That we still have what it takes to be a great

maritime industry nation.

What they gave britain is

a strategic reach that this country has not had since the older

ark royal class carriers with the commission.

The key feature of these chips his size.

Future prints them because they're designed to last fifty years

we didn't know aircraft will be around.

In fifty years'

time

but we do know that the present generation will last

long the Internet.

Size you can cope with change.

Is is

is as sophisticated as as any aircraft carrier.

The you will find anywhere in the world.

Everything about the modern aircraft carrier has taken everything we've learned

in the previous hundred years is now.

Cemented into one package.

Everything about the new carriers design is

intended to improve on all that have gone before.

The principles and queen Elizabeth.

Very very different to most

obvious passive this difference is the fact

that have to islands what they've done these

is taken those to traditional bates that you have

to have in any aircraft carrier to make it work

the controls the shit.

At the controls the flying

and of completely separated them out

so that makes them visually very distinctive but it also means that there is much

less confusion in the way they operate the ships.

The islands will hold some of the most advanced military equipment ever installed.

Including a revolutionary radar system which allows each ship to track eight hundred

objects in a two hundred kilometer radius.

At thirty five be fighter jets will be the crucial component to the

capability.

For planes can be delivered from hanged at a flight deck in just sixty seconds.

In the carriers do it all with a much smaller crew.

An American carrier as a ship's company of.

Roughly four thousand men

to operate in a group of about seventy aircraft.

Queen Elizabeth with

a full air group adopt as expected to.

Have about one thousand six hundred

sailors on board.

Plus two hundred and fifty marines if their inbox so.

Considerably less.

To do that.

They use the sort of computer controlled automation

that.

Supermarkets and Amazon.

Would use.

In other words one man with a touch screen.

Can control the robot to go and collect.

A bomb off a shelf in a magazine

and bring it via railway line to a bomb left and then bring it up to the flight deck.

Wear armor as can take it feels it and put it on an arab.

We've never had anything with that degree of automation

before.

And they've got it.

Projection is that by the end of the day working life

they won't even be operating manned aircraft they'll all be Jones.

So don't

even really know what the full capability the ship's is going to be going forwards.

The queen Elizabeth classes designed to build on all

the lessons of the aircraft carrier through history

to be fearsome and of to project power

but flexible enough to perform multiple tasks in peace time to.

They are very much multi-mission vehicles

so they can function as aircraft carriers

they can function as anti submarine warfare ships.

They can form the core of a battle fleet or act in

conjunction with say a u s carrier battle group.

They can also take part in more peaceable activities.

Pacification an anti piracy

and even disaster relief which was the sort of thing that we have used an

amphibious landing ships for in recent years.

I think there's no better pretty freely to the carrier is still there is as the

apogee of naval power than the fact that the britain's royal Navy has invested

vast sums in building to stay to the all carries

because there's nothing really to beat a carrier as a means of power projection.

It's a piece of your own real estate.

You can take any where in the world

to deploy in support of land forces to control the oceans

to protect trade.

The incredibly versatile assets.

It's been over one hundred years since those early

experiments are combining air and sea power in world war one.

One hundred years in which aircraft carriers have

featured in the iconic battles of world war two.

At least the world during the cold war.

And remains to stage to the present day.

They are still today

perhaps arguably the most complex

expensive pieces of design and engineering

that humans are putting together on the planet.

Even in an age of of airliners

and spacecraft.

The captain of the nineteen seventies.

Oil.

Captain fell.

Once made.

I think a very good statement.

He said.

The role of my ship.

Is to go anywhere at high speed

and do anything the British government wants me to do when arrived.

And think about that

that's precisely what they can do.

And the royal Navy's commitment to the queen Elizabeth class carriers stands

a testament to the enduring importance of these multifaceted fighting machine.

Were turning back o'clock to when Europe's busiest airport was built

and review some of its present day secret in

brand new Heathrow April any man Tuesday meet.

Next night roof to Milan for fight night on five life than a tomorrow with no been.

Taking on any party.

And.