H.M.S. ILLUSTRIOUS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 32, 7 February 1941, Page 6

H.M.S. ILLUSTRIOUS

When the British aircraft-carrier H.M.S. Illustrious, while escorting a convoy through the Sicilian Channel on January 10, was fiercely attacked by German dive-bombers at intervals during the day, she managed to beat off her assailants with heavy loss, but herself suffered considerable damage in the action. The convoy itself was unscathed, but the light cruiser Southampton was set afire and became a total loss. The Illustrious, under her own steam, reached the naval base at Malta, where later she was again attacked. Nothing further was heard of the Illustrious until

today when, according to a message from Washington, Colonel Frank Knox, Secretary of the U.S. Navy, told a Press conference that the air-craft-carrier had been able to reach Alexandria under her own power. There, presumably, she will be safe from enemy air attack, to which Malta, within a hundred miles from Sicily, has been subject throughout the war. Aircraft-carriers are notoriously vulnerable ships, and Britain has lost two, the Courageous and the Glorious, through enemy action, and the news of the safety of the Illustrious will be received with general relief. That she survived a direct hit by a 10001b bomb is a testimony to the work of the shipbuilder, the material of which' she was built, and the skill with which she was handled. That she was able ultimately to reach Alexandria, nearly 900 miles away, is a proof of Britain's command of what Mussolini calls "our sea," Italy's Mediterranean, but in which the Italian navy has so far been conspicuous by its absence.