Carriers, and war canoes in general, are not as independent of friendly shore facilities as you might expect and probably have as much need as do aircraft.
This is about as close to RAF Central disinformation as you can get. Do you seriously believe that the RN hasn't learned by now to take just about everything with it, including RFAs filled with POL, ammo, stores, spares and food plus heavy repair ships and maintainers when it deploys to the far flungs for umpteen months at a time?