REVEALED: Eight facts about Lusty you may not know

HERE are eight facts about Illustrious before she bids farewell to her home port today.
HMS Illustrious arriving in Singapore to deliver aid. Picture: Ray Jones PPP-150129-132325001HMS Illustrious arriving in Singapore to deliver aid. Picture: Ray Jones PPP-150129-132325001
HMS Illustrious arriving in Singapore to deliver aid. Picture: Ray Jones PPP-150129-132325001

Lusty will be waved off by crowds in Old Portsmouth today, many of whom will have fond memories of the Falklands veteran.

And here are some facts about the life of the the second of the Navy’s three Invincible-class aircraft carriers;

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1) Illustrious was built by Swan Hunter shipbuilders on the Tyne and launched by Princess Margaret in December 1978.

2) Work to complete the 22,000-tonne ship was speeded up during 1982 after the outbreak of the Falklands War.

3) Although the conflict ended before work was finished, Illustrious rapidly deployed and played an important role in the aftermath. So quickly was she deployed, her commissioning ceremony took place at sea en route to the Falklands on June 20 1982.

4) During the 1990s, Illustrious helped maintain the no-fly zone over Bosnia and in 1998 operated in the Gulf carrying out similar roles over southern Iraq. She was soon called into action again in 2000, leading a task group aimed at restoring peace and stability to Sierra Leone. The following year she played an important part in the war on terror in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in America, staying in the region for several months.

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5) In 2006, along with Type 42 destroyer HMS Gloucester, Illustrious helped in the evacuation of British citizens from Beirut caught up in the Israel-Lebanon crisis. She hit the television screens in 2008 as the star of Channel 5’s six-part documentary Warship which followed her deployment to the Mediterranean, Africa, the Middle East and south-east Asia for a series of exercises and diplomatic visits to 20 ports.

6) She made headlines around the world in 2013 last year when she was diverted to assist with disaster relief operations in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan.

7) Illustrious was commissioned in 1982 at the end of the successful mission to liberate the Falkland Islands and took part in a range of operations until 2014, including evacuating Britons from the Lebanon in 2006 and delivering humanitarian aid after Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines in 2013.

8) The ship will now be recycled by Leyal Ship Recycling Ltd following a two-year open competition which sought to retain part of all of the ship for heritage purposes in the UK. While a number of bids were received, none proved viable.