Falklands War

[dalek]

I am a great fan of Frederik Forsyth and his meticulous research. However, in his latest novel, "The Afghan", he states that P70 "The Canberra sailed on,shadowing the expedition's only aircraft carrier the Ark Royal."
To the best of my knowledge the old Ark had bee scrapped and the new one not yet launched. The only carriers used were Invincible and Hermes.
Or am I missing something?

[diginagain]

Factual accuracy

As you noted, it is a 'novel'.

[airborne_artist]

You are missing nothing. The Ark had been decommissioned four years before, and scrapped in 1980.

Mr F is trying to sell books, not write another history lesson on the South Atlantic.

[L Peacock]

I seem to remember the Ark's piano being fired off the catapult.

[tonker]

I used to give my pocket money to the "Save the Ark Royal fund"

My dad even managed to get me a placky model with a sailors headband decomishioning thingy. Cried my eyes out when it finally came into port.

I wonder how different history would be if we'd kept it. I know people keeping saying hindsight is a wonderful thing, but from one who doesn't sit in a trench etc i'm sick of good people being lost because of a lack of foresight. Just wait till i take power then you'll all see haahahahahahhaaaaaaaa(foreboding and evil sounding)

[k3k3]

The Ark had had it, most of the spaces below the waterline had been filled with concrete to keep the oggin out.

[Sunk at Narvik]

LP

"I seem to remember the Ark's piano being fired off the catapult"

No, that was Chris Stevens and his famous "fling"

[4Greens]

A number of carriers fired off the wardroom piano at the end of a commission. It was something of a tradition.

[cyclic gal]

The Ark decommisioned after it's final nine month deployment in December 1979. Iv'e still got the phots of the piano leaving the flight deck somewhere.

[allan907]

Mate of mine who served on both the Eagle and the Ark reckoned that the Ark was totally stuffed because of the concrete hole plugging job which left ragged lumps of concrete sticking out of the hull to slow her down. He reckoned that the Eagle was the one to have gone on but the Ark went on purely because of the name.

[dalek]

Thank you all. I know it is a novel and a pretty good one at that. It is just that Federick was very scathing about the Dan Brown research for Da Vinci, so I would have expected him not to make such a simple error.

[brickhistory]

Originally Posted by dalek

It is just that Federick was very scathing about the Dan Brown research for Da Vinci, so I would have expected him not to make such a simple error.

I'm sure no element of "Hey, I've written loads of much better books and only made a good living. This b@stard writes one and becomes nearly a billionaire" factored into his critiques......

Best Forsyth book, IMO, "Dogs of War."

And Brown had written other P'sOS prior to Da Vinci.....