The counterfactual begins with a tightly bounded change: damage-control parties react within minutes, close the hull, and counterflood instead of spending roughly three quarters of an hour evacuating. Ark Royal might then have reached Gibraltar and undergone major repair either in Britain or the United States. Survival was still uncertain because the original torpedo damage was severe. The scenario offers a starting point for assessing how an additional large Royal Navy strike carrier could have affected later World War II operations.
Notable Point · 1:02:54-1:04:12
What timely damage control might have preserved
The closing counterfactual asks how Ark Royal's survival would have changed the carrier war if crews had contained flooding and brought her to Gibraltar.