Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

The ill fated Carrier HMS Glorious pictured in the mid '30's.

The ill fated Carrier HMS Glorious pictured c1936.She was sunk by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on June 8th 1940 with the loss of 1207 lives from her,160 from Destroyer Acasta and 152 from Destroyer Ardent, a total of 1,519.To this day many questions remain unanswered concerning her loss.

Battle Cruiser conversion HMS Courageous pictured at Alexandria in 1935.

HMS Furious pictured laying off RNAS Smoogroo (Orkney Islands) on February 3rd 1919 with three Sopwith Camels and a one and a half strutter ranged on her foredeck.

Courageous Class Battle Cruiser HMS Furious pictured as completed at Armstrong Whitworth Shipyards,Wallsend-upon-Tyne in 1917.Showing her aft 18 inch main armament and forward flying off deck.She was modified as an aircraft carrier while under construction. Her forward turret was removed and a forward flight deck was added in its place, such that aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure to land. Later in the war, she had her rear turret removed and a second flight deck installed aft of the superstructure, but this was less than satisfactory due to air turbulence. Furious was briefly laid up after the war before she was reconstructed with a full-length flight deck in the early 1920s.

HMS Furious celebrates American Independence Day,at Scapa Flow July 4th 1943.

Two views of COURAGEOUS in dry dock at Malta, 1935. DFO

HMS Courageous pictured at Oslo on June 9th 1938.

Blackburn Dart, the standard single-seat torpedo bomber of the Fleet Air Arm from 1923 until 1933. On May 6th 1926 a Dart piloted by Air Commodore G.H. Boyce became the first pilot to carry out a night deck landing, on HMS Furious with the deck illuminated by floodlights.

Navy General Board

The British aircraft carrier HMS Furious at anchor.
Furious was a flush-deck carrier, lacking an island structure. Though improving aircraft handling on deck, the compromise was that having no island made ship handling more difficult as the crew lacked good visibility.
Furious attempted to address this in two ways. She had a small navigation station mounted on the starboard side of the forward flight deck.
When aircraft were not being operated, the carrier was also equipped with a retractable chart house, seen deployed in this photo. The chart house would retract into the deck when air operations began, sitting flush with the flight deck.