FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1948
1948 - 0726.PDF
560 FLIGHT MAY 20TH, 1948 EXERCISE "DAWN" Bomber, Coastal and Fighter Commands in Action I T was a friendly war which raged up and down the NorthSea just prior to Whitsun, when " Exercise Dawn "brought into competition—and very close co-operation— the Senior and Junior Services. While Service chiefs were caret ul at the outset to point out that these were not manoeuvres but training exercises, once things got moving, a healthy and cheerful spirit of rivalry developed between sea and air, typified by the incident which marked the close of "Red Fleet's" participation. Two battleships, an aircraft carrier, a cruiser and their attendant escorts had been harried up the length of the North Sea for two days by fighter-bombers, torpedo-bombers and heavy bombers. Ploughing through choppy seas in bright sunlight 60 miles castof the Shetlunds, they lnd their last air attack. Lincolns and Lancasters of Bomber Command swept over at 15,000ft in theirbombing run, with Sea Furies buzzing round them like wasps. Then from Admiral Russell's flagship Superb flashed a signal,"Come down and let us see you." Bombing leader snapped up the challenge, and down went the seventeen Lincolns to 3,000ft overthe great " battlewaggons " in a final "beat up." As the bombers turned away on their course for Peterhead and their East Anglianbases, the Admiral flashed " Thanks"—as polite a conclusion to an air raid as we remember! The same spirit of friendly rivalry and co-operation prevailedeven more markedly at the nerve centre of the Tixercise—Area Combined Headquarters at Pitreavie Castle,- Dunfermline. There,beneath 80 feet of concrete, in the air-conditioned Operations Room, where so much of the work of our Fleet and Coastal Commandwas planned and ordered in wartime, air marshals and admirals rubbed shoulders, captains and wing commanders compared notesand signals and watched the moves they had initiated working themselves out as symbols on the great painted wall chart. As Capt. J. Boutwood, R.N., chief of staff to the Flag Officer,Scotland, so fairly commented in his final summing up: " I can- not over-emphasize the value of the combination factor in thisexercise. Its chief value has been the experience that we—R.A.F. and Navy—have gained of working together. Neither Air Forcenor Navy can, in the foreseeable future, ever hope even to exist, let alfme achieve success, without complete co-operation; and themore we are together, the better we shall be. In this' exercise, it has perhaps appeared that a preponderance of the air has beenpitted against a surface fleet, but in no sense has that been pure competition. . ." he added.And at the preliminary briefing aboard the aircraft oaxriei'-'Theseus at Rosyth before the exercise started, Air Vice-Marshal E. J. King-ston-McClougbry, C.B.E., D.S.O., D.F.C., A.O.C. of No.' 18 Group,' turned to his joint controller, Admiral Sir Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton, K.C.B., and smilingly commented: "I can't tell you how glad I am that I shall have an admiral alongside me ashore.So often in the old days we had to deal with an admiral swanning about in the fog at sea! " Fortunately, no one had to any " swan-ning " about in the fog. A cold front went through the sea area just before operations began, leaving patches of ^Jinck cloud overthe North Sea for a while; but these broke up jus* in time, and thereafter the weather conditions could hardly'have been better. Vice-Admiral Sir Rhoderick McGrigpr, C.-'m-C. Home Fleet, boards his Expediter at Lee-on-Solent prior to leaving for Exercise Dawn. " Exercise Dawn " was primarily planned by the Admiralty tojustily the statement of the Minister that a balanced and powerful Home -Fleet could put to sea at short notice. "Red Fleet" wasperhaps, more of a task force than a Fleet; but a strong one, with the battleships Auson and Howe, the fleet carrier lmplucublr, ihtcruiser Superb and 15 escort vessels. Embarked in liuphicabL' uas the 1.7th Carrier Air Group, consisting of the 13 Sea Furies ol S07Squadron, the 12 Firefly IVs of 810 Squadron, and six Barracuda anti-submarine aircraft of 815 Squadron. The Group has beenworking up at Egliuton; and this was the first time that either Sea Furies or Firefly lYs had operated as a squa'dron from a "carrier.The air defence of the fleet was supplemented by the 12 Sea HOIIKI> ol 801 Squadron operating from R.N.A.S. Arbroath. Opposed to the Ked forces—assumed to be an enemy fleet attempt-ing to break out through the North Sea to harry Atlantic shipping —was Blue Force, a "mixed bag" of K.A.F. Fighter, Bomber andCoastal Command aircraft and others from Naval Aviation, con- trolled from Area Combined Headquarters at Pitreavie. FighterCommand was represented by 12 Hornets of 65 Squadron, which moved up from Lmton-on-Ouse to Acklington for the exercise. Un-fortunately, they were available for only the first day of the exer- cise; and the long-range bomber attack on the second day had tobe mounted with only a "theoretical" fighter escort. Coastal Command's contribution was ten G.R. Lancasters from 120 Squadron(Leuchars); 203 and 210 Squadrons (St. Eval), all operating from Leuchars for the exercise; and five Sunderland flying boats from23a and--2oi Squadrons, which flew up from Calshot to Alness, in the Far North. • >Bomber Command Bomber Command, contributed 19 Lincolns and seven Lancasters.From 1 Group there were operating from Binbrook three Lincolus of 101 Squadron, three of 617 Squadron, and one each from y and12 Squadrons; and from Hemswell there were two Lincolns from 100 Squadron and one each of 83 and 97 Squadrons. From 3 Groupthere were operating from Wyton three Liricolns of 15 Squadron, two of 138 Squadron and one each from 44 and 90 Squadrons; whilethe Lancasters which formed the " window,"-dropping decoy force operating from Stradishail were drawn three from .207 Squadron,two from 35 Squadron and one each- from 115 and 14V Squadrons. Naval Aviation contributed to Blue Force 11 Firebrands of «ijSquadron and three Mosquitoes of 772 Squadron, all operating from R.N.A.S. Arbroath, and the 14th Carrier Air Group, which oper-ated from R.N.A.S. Donibristle after moving up from F'ord. Tbis consisted 6t 13 Seafire 47s arid 12 Firefly IVst the naval strike winsbeing commanded by Lt. Cdr. j. Sleigh. There were thus 136 aircraft taking part, 83 of them Naval. Short-based aircraft were almost exactly equally divided, an indication of the growing strength of this side of Naval Aviation. Also in BlueForce were ten submarines of the 3rd and 5th Submarine flotillas, seven of them of the post-war A class fitted with " Snort," ourversion of the U-boat Schnorkel apparatus. The exercise began at 6 a.m. on Thursday, May 13, when theRed Fleet was steaming north off the Fife cOast, about 100 miles out. Lancaster F-Freddy of 120 Squadron, airborne at 0529 andon patrol half an hour later, first picked up the fleet on radar at "0045 and reported back to H.Q. "• Freddy's " job was to shadow un-obtrusively, operating below the enemy radar horizon (except lor the brief periods when it became necessary to close the distanceto replot the target position), shadowing at maximum range ami from a variety of bearings to avoid lighter interception. Airborneat odoo was Lancaster G-George, whose job it was to lay the "Gate" for the bomber force, and half an hour later, Lancaster V-Victor,to home- the decoy force of Lancasters from Stradishall. At 0040, the Bomber force took off from East Anglia, where earlymorning fog made things difficult. At Stradishall, gooseneck flarts aert used, in visibility down to 100 yards, to get the Lancasters wa\ to time—a very creditable performance. At 0738, the bombri*18 Lincolns led by three from Binbrook, flying in loose vie fonn- .tion—made rendezvous with the escort of ten Hornets over Ack-iington and carried on North, homed by G-George. The homing was successfully made and the bombers given a-ector to the target; but the whole area was covered with thick cioud down to 3,000 feet, and, though the bombers flew over thelicet at 0820 at 17,000 feet, the attack was officially deemed abortive, as a visual attack could not be made. The bombers turned southto return to base. This was a disappointing start, but the Lincoln* made a fine "come-back." Combined Headquarters, advised 1>Vtheir "met men" that the cloud was breaking up, signalled them to reassemble and renew their attack, visually, if possible, hutby blind bombing on radar fixes if necessary. This signal ex- perienced some delay and was too late to stop the Wyton Lincolns.landing; but the Binbrook and Hemswell bombers returned to the .ittack. In the meantime, however, first blood had already beriidrawn. The " window "-dropping Lancasters had done their i"l» of drawing off the Fleet's fighters, and V-Victor, which hon.e'lthem, was " shot down " by Sea Furies. (7"o be continued.)
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
