Harland and Wolff - Shipbuilding and Engineering Works

Laid down on 1st May 1915 and launched 20th April 1916. She was commissioned on January 1917. Subsequently, she was converted to become an aircraft carrier February 1924 - March 1930.

The aircraft carrier Glorious was a sistership to the Courageous which was torpedoed in the Channel by a German submarine September 17th, 1939. Both ships were originally battlecruisers designed for WWI, a purpose which they never fulfilled. Some years after the end of WWI, they were both converted. On June 8th, 1940, Glorious, escorted by destroyers Acastra and Ardent, was surprised by the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, while evacuating RAF aircraft from Norway.

The three British warships were sunk in a very short space of time. The Germans announced in their first communiqué that they had rescued hundreds of survivors, while an official report stated that only 36 men from a raft were rescued by a Norwegian vessel.

In total, 160 men were lost aboard Acasta, 152 aboard Ardent. Only one man survived from each ship. Glorious lost 1,207 men.