HMS Ark Royal was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that was operated during the Second World War. Designed in 1934 to fit the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, Ark Royal was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, England, and completed in November 1938. Ark Royal operated in some of the most active naval theatres of the Second World War. She was involved in the first aerial and U-boat kills of the war, operations off Norway, the search for the German battleship Bismarck, and the Malta Convoys. She was torpedoed on 13 November 1941 by the German submarine U-81 and sank the following day.