by John Moffat
I had to make sure that we stuck to the course given me by my observer, and he had to make sure that he recorded the changes of direction and their duration correctly. Of course, if there was a wind, and there always was, this had to be taken into account, particularly if it changed during the flight. After a while you developed a sixth sense, so that it was possible to detect any changes of wind through the controls. We carried smoke floats on racks under our wings. I would drop one of these and, once it had started smoking, I would fly right over the top of it, then turn and do a 180-degree course back over it in a timed run so that the observer could measure the rate of drift and the angle. With this he could calculate on his charts the necessary changes to our course back to the rendezvous point. It was not easy in an open cockpit, but most of the Fleet Air Arm navigators were good, and my observer, Dusty Miller, was really spot on. Once our calculations had been made it was the job of the TAG to sink the smoke float. You couldn't leave something like that bobbing about in the ocean, because it was obviously a clue that a carrier was in the vicinity and it could help build up an intelligence picture for a U-boat trying to track a convoy and its escort. So the TAG would sink it with machine-gun fire. My TAG, Hayman, would manage this with a single burst from his Vickers.
I got lost only once. We had been on a long patrol – I think it was nearly three hours – but when we got to our rendezvous point there was no sign of the carrier. I did feel anxious at that point. It was vital to keep radio silence, of course, because any transmission would have given away the carrier's position. I took us up to 3,000 feet, but still we could see nothing.
'I think we've made a mistake,' I said. Dusty didn't reply, or at least I can't remember one. It was pretty obvious. So I said to him, 'Now will you go back to your chart again, and make sure you've laid the winds off in the right direction.'
After a while he said, 'My God, you're right.' He roughly corrected it and within five minutes the carrier was in sight.
After a long patrol, the strain of maintaining a level height and course against the wind, plus the incessant noise of the engine and the slipstream whistling through the spars for two and a half hours sapped my energy. It was always a relief to see the Ark, a tiny ship in the distance, growing bigger as we approached. Landing on required all my attention, under the strict gaze of the deck landing officer, Lt Commander Pat Stringer. I had to check that the brakes were off, set the mixture for rich again, because you could often lean it out to conserve fuel on a long flight, and then set the carburettor intake to 'cold'. I would lower the arrestor hook and come in over the round down – the end of the flight deck at the stern – keeping my eye on the batman and trying to hit the first or second arrestor wire; hitting the last one was seen as a bit of a last-ditch effort. By the time I was waiting for the tug of the hook against the wire there was not enough speed to take off and go round again. Use the brakes at this point and it would be disaster: the plane would flip over and crash. All you could do was switch off the engine and hope the crash barrier would stop you. Then I would climb out of the cockpit while the wings were folded and the plane was moved to the deck-lift. Tired and stiff, we had made it again.
There is a story that I was told by another Swordfish pilot, Pat Jackson, who took a short-service commission when the war started. He was flying off Victorious and he too got lost, but his observer's error did not end as easily as mine. He flew back to the point where he should have seen the carrier, and there was nothing.
They were in the North Atlantic, with low cloud and poor visibility. It was a devilish place in which to navigate, with a lot of variable winds at different altitudes, and it was an even worse place in which to get lost. They flew around, but naturally at the end of a patrol fuel is low, and it was getting lower. The observer then spotted a boat in the sea; it was a lifeboat, submerged up to its gunwales, with the waves breaking over it. The Swordfish was equipped with an inflatable liferaft, which was stowed in the centre section of the upper wing. When seawater penetrated a cartridge it released carbon dioxide, which then inflated the raft, breaking open the hatch that covered it. Although it saved many people, the liferaft was not something in which you would want to spend a lot of time in the North Atlantic. Pat had about ten minutes' fuel left at that point, with not a clue where his carrier was. There was this swamped boat, more solid and bigger than the liferaft, so down they went. They ditched as close to it as they could, got into the liferaft and drifted down to the submerged boat. There was a big tarpaulin covering the bottom planks and they half expected to find some bodies under it, but it was empty. There were some emergency rations and a sail. They baled the water out with their flying boots, rigged a mast and set the sail. They were closest to Greenland, but the thought of trying to land there, on a rocky coast with strong winds and ice, was not appealing, so they turned east.
Then they were hit by a storm, swamped again and had to start baling once more. The wind was against them, so they had to run before it, heading west. They were alone, in the middle of the Atlantic, wet, cold and with the barest of rations, when they saw another sail. They got closer and realized it was another lifeboat with five or six men in it. They were in the same condition as Pat and his crewmembers, except that three of the men in the other lifeboat were dead. They were Scandinavian and said they had been adrift for fourteen days. Pat gave them some ship's biscuits, but the two groups could not agree on the best course. Pat and his crew still wanted to try to head east, but those in the other boat thought it was better to go west, to Canada. They separated, each going their different ways.
Pat drifted for nine days. The TAG started to develop frostbite in his legs, despite the fact that they took it in turns to massage each other to keep the blood flowing. But the TAG's feet and lower legs turned blue, and he started to lose any feeling in them. They then decided to head north, because they saw some birds heading in that direction. They sailed for another two days, then were hit by another storm, and it started to snow.
By now the TAG was barely conscious, and Pat and his observer were beginning to suffer hallucinations. They too were beginning to get slightly frostbitten. During the night, Pat had to dissuade the observer from trying to swim home. When dawn came, I think Pat must have been near to breaking. He had always been a religious man and he said that he prayed a lot in those last days. Then, as they crested a wave, he saw what he thought was a ship. He was sure that he was hallucinating, but he woke up the observer, who was, fortunately, lucid enough to see it as well. By a miracle, they had kept their signal flares from the Swordfish and they fired them off.
The ship saw them and turned. They managed to secure the line that was thrown to them, but they were so weak that three sailors had to climb down into the lifeboat and haul them out to safety. They had been rescued by an Icelandic fishing boat. All three survived, although I think the TAG lost his toes. Yet to this day Pat has never forgotten the poor buggers in the other lifeboat. He told the Icelandic authorities about them and they put out a search, of sorts, but they would have been adrift by then for almost a month and either had been rescued already or were dead. They were never found to his knowledge. Their fate has haunted him ever since – perhaps more than the hardships he suffered himself. I was very lucky that I found the Ark so quickly that day.
Yet it happened often. I had been on the Ark for a few weeks when I was told that a new pilot was going to share my cabin, a chap called Ferguson. He was a quiet, slightly delicate soul. As I was on early flying duties, I didn't see much of him. Within a few days his aircraft had failed to return and I found myself assembling his few possessions, photos and other personal items to parcel up and post to his parents. It was very disturbing to have to do this. It really shook me up. It was not as severe as the bomb that nearly killed me at Worthy Down, but I could not but be affected by this sudden death. He was about my age, and I thought of his mother's reaction when she heard the news, and how she would feel when she looked at the letters she had written to her s
on, whom she would now never see again. I hoped that his death had been quick. I thought of my parents too, waking every day not knowing if I was still alive.
Of course, living in Kelso as they did, I was fairly sure that they were safe, but there were many men on board the Ark who did not know what was happening to their parents, or their wives and children. They had families in London, or Liverpool or Coventry, cities that were being hit by air raids, and whenever news of the Blitz came through on the BBC a ripple of anxiety went round the mess decks.
Whether it was this, or the ambience on board the Ark generally, but I felt that I was beginning to grow up. There was an atmosphere of competence and confidence in which you felt that if you didn't give of your best you were letting the whole ship down. I too wanted to do my best and I started to become serious about my duties – although like most young men, I couldn't resist a challenge or a chance for some sport.
Perhaps the most powerful influence on me at the time was my squadron CO, Lt Commander Coode. I had enormous respect for him; he was an outstanding leader. He was regular navy, and although he could have been only about twenty-seven or so, he seemed like a god. I hero-worshipped him slightly, developing an almost childlike desire to emulate him.
The officers of Force H were very strong on exercises and practice. Admiral Somerville and the captain of the Ark, as well as the commander air, were well aware that we were not always the most experienced pilots, so at every opportunity we had training sessions. We did everything we could to speed up our landings and take-offs, so that we could land on, clear decks and fly off again in the shortest possible time – something that could be vital if we came under attack. We carried out torpedo-dropping exercises and often launched mock attacks against the destroyers and cruisers in Force H to give their gunnery directors experience in judging aircraft altitudes and speeds, something they were notoriously bad at doing.
At the end of one of these sessions I was following Lt Commander Coode in the circuit above the Ark as we came in to land. As he came in he did a perfect loop above the ship, then flew round to land on. I saw him and thought, 'I can do that.' I forgot to tell my two crewmembers in the back that I was going to attempt a loop, however, and down I went, then pulled the stick right back up into the climb. It was a disaster. I had failed to build up enough speed, so at the top we hung for what seemed an eternity. There were cries of alarm from behind me and everything in the rear cockpits, which of course had not been secured, fell out. Pencils, slide rules, map cases, plotting boards, ad hoc rations all descended from the air; and worse, we were close to a stall. I was told that everyone on the bridge was aghast as they looked up at this hapless pilot, with the rain of equipment falling into the sea. I managed to right the Swordfish, descended and went back into the circuit, feeling extremely embarrassed. I was given a severe talking to by the CO when I landed and made to feel about a foot tall. Naturally, I was the butt of every joke in the wardroom for days: 'Tried another loop yet, Jock?' But what made me feel more sheepish than anything was the abuse I received from Dusty and Hayman. I promised myself I would never ever do anything like that again. But I did, as we shall see.
It was rare for us to enter the Mediterranean without being attacked by the Italian air force. Sure enough, on our return in January from escorting the ships of Operation Excess to Malta, we were attacked by ten Italian bombers, Savoia Marchetti 79s, which flew straight and level and attempted to bomb the battleship Malaya. Two of these aircraft were shot down by the Ark's Fulmar fighters and the rest withdrew. Some of the crew of the downed aircraft were rescued by one of our escorting destroyers, and I remember seeing one Italian airman standing on the fuselage of his slowly sinking bomber trying to catch a line that had been thrown to him. He was brought over to the Ark to be interrogated and also, I heard, for some medical treatment. I thought that when he had been rescued he hadn't looked particularly injured, so asked if he was all right. 'No,' came the reply. 'He's got the clap.'
This token bombing raid was the only sign of the Italian air force and it was not until we returned to port in Gibraltar that we heard some sad and alarming news, which explained why we on the Ark had got off lightly. The carrier that had mounted the attack on Taranto, Illustrious, had been very badly damaged on 10 January as she was providing air cover for the small convoy of fast cargo ships that we had escorted as far as the Straits of Sicily. So far, the major combatant faced by us in the Mediterranean had been the Italian fleet and their air force. The Italians had not had a great deal of success and, perhaps more importantly from their perspective, had also been getting the worst of it against the British army in North Africa. The navy had been hammering their supply shipping to the port of Tobruk in Libya and they were on the run. Some intelligence briefings had suggested that the Germans had stationed some aircraft in southern Italy, or in Sicily, but in the Ark we had not faced the Luftwaffe.
On 10 January, around midday, Illustrious had been carrying out a manoeuvre where carriers are at their most vulnerable. The combat air patrol of six Fulmars had been in the air for some two hours and the planes, low on fuel, were coming to the end of their endurance. On Illustrious's flight deck were six more Fulmars, ranged and ready to take off to replace them. Illustrious's radar had picked up a large formation of enemy aircraft approaching from the north at about 12,000 feet, but the Fulmars in the air did not have the fuel to engage them. The first attack, however, came from the south in the shape of two Italian Savoia Marchetti 79s, three-engined torpedo bombers, which made a low-level attack on the carrier. The captain of Illustrious manoeuvred the ship so that she combed the tracks of the torpedoes, which passed on either side of her. Two of the Fulmars in the patrol had descended to attack the torpedo bombers and both the Italian bombers had been shot down. The Fulmars were now at low altitude; it would take some time for them to climb again to meet the next wave of attacking aircraft. Illustrious changed course again, going to maximum speed and heading into the wind so that she could start launching the Fulmars ranged on the flight deck. As she did so, the first of the German dive-bombers, for this is what they were, were going into their attack manoeuvre.
This was the first time that these aircraft, the Junkers 87 – a plane we all referred to as a Stuka – had been seen in the skies above the Mediterranean fleet. They were aeroplanes that epitomized Nazi aggression and the bombing of Poland and France. They had a V-shaped crank in their wing, a high cockpit and were quite unmistakable. They had been specially designed as a dive-bomber and were extremely effective.
Captain Eric Brown, an RNVR pilot who had joined up in 1939 and was another Scot, born in Melrose, flight-tested a captured Stuka after the war. His report explains a great deal about why these aircraft were so feared by ground troops. There was a bomb-sight built into the floor of the pilot's cockpit and when the target was aligned in this, the pilot would pull back on the throttle, roll the aircraft 180 degrees and start his dive. He would descend at a steep angle of 90–60 degrees, and even with the aircraft's dive brakes extended it would reach a speed of 360 miles an hour. The aircraft designers had incorporated a system into the plane whereby extending the dive brakes triggered an automatic mechanism that would simplify the whole process of pulling out of the dive. As the Stuka reached an altitude of 1,500 feet, a light flashed red on the instrument panel, signalling the pilot to release the bomb. He would then press a button on the stick and the bomb was released, thrown clear of the propeller by a swivelling frame under the fuselage. As soon as the bomb-release button was pressed, the automatic mechanism took over. The dive brakes were retracted, the propeller pitch was changed and the controls automatically pulled the plane out of the dive and into a fast climb. When the propeller spinner rose above the horizon, the pilot could take over again. This took an enormous amount off the pilot's shoulders at a critical moment. The bomb-sight was accurate and he knew that the bomb would be dropped at the right height. He could be confident that, even if he lost consciousness because of the high G
of the pull-out, he would not lose control of the aircraft. All the pilot really had to worry about was keeping the Stuka aimed bang on target. It's no wonder that these aircraft were such a devastating weapon.
Now a whole wing of Stukas and their associated fighters were based in Sicily. Their most important target was the aircraft carrier that defended the Mediterranean Fleet.
Forty-three Stukas had taken off from their airfield in Sicily; just ten of them were now searching out the two battleships Warspite and Valiant, while the remaining thirty-three were concerned solely with hitting Illustrious.
Despite a massive anti-aircraft barrage, the Stukas got through. The Fulmars took off from Illustrious through the fountains of seawater that were thrown up by near misses. The last Fulmar to roll down the flight deck was machine-gunned by a Stuka as it pulled out of its dive. It staggered into the air, then crashed into the sea.
Illustrious's flight deck had been armoured to withstand a direct hit from a 500lb bomb, but the Stuka carried a 500kg bomb as standard, and, if they dispensed with the reargunner, the Germans could load it up with a 1,000kg bomb, the equivalent of 2,200lb of explosive. Six bombs hit Illustrious, and the result was catastrophic. Both the deck-lifts were hit, the rear one bringing a Fulmar up to the flight deck; that too was destroyed, killing the pilot. One bomb destroyed the steering gear and created fires in the stern. The carrier left the line and steamed in circles while the crew tried to put out the blaze and restore power to the rudder. Another bomb penetrated the flight deck and exploded below it in the hangar deck, where most of the pilots were standing by their aircraft, their normal action stations when they were not in the air. The hangar became an inferno; six of the Swordfish pilots who had taken part in the Taranto raid were killed and many others were gravely wounded.