What sounds appropriate about the name of HMS Ariel, and why couldn't Lord Haw-Haw have been wronger when he said the predecessor of Ariel had been sunk in the Channel?

HeavensArrow

The HMS Kestrel had not been sunk and it later was renamed the HMS Ariel. Opened between South Wonston and Kings Worthy, near Winchester in 1918 as an RAF base. Became HMS Kestrel in May 1939 when it transferred to the Admiralty. It achieved a certain wry fame during WWII when the pro-German broadcaster William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) claimed it had been sunk by the Kreigsmarine! Various training schools and ferry units were based during WWII. Between 1946 and 1947, based aircraft carried the fin code VM. In Jul 1952 it was renamed HMS Ariel, when the Air Engineering School moved in from Warrington. It was home to early rotary wing units but when the AES moved on to Lee-on-Solent, the base transferred to the British Army in Dec 1960. The Army Pay Corps is still based here. - dave taskis, hornchurch, united kingdom - Oct/2004 http://www.helis.com/database/?menu=2&tpais=UK&tbase=146 William Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), the man generally associated with the nickname Lord Haw-Haw, was a fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was controversially executed for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joyce Joyce was executed on January 3, 1946, at Wandsworth Prison, aged 39. He was the second-to-last person to be hanged for a crime other than murder in the United Kingdom. (The last was Theodore Schurch who was executed for treachery the following day at Pentonville. In both cases the hangman was Albert Pierrepoint.) Apr 17 08, 3:44 PM

Baloo55th

Yes, a bit hard to sink an inland establishment in the Channel..... Right too about Joyce's execution being a bit dodgy - I don't think many people would have wanted him freed though. Apr 18 08, 11:43 AM