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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 0751.PDF
472 FLIGHT Coastal airship C*\ on the landing ground at East For- tune. (Below) A heavily armed F.1A flying-boat patrolling ov<Sr the North Sea. BRITISH NAVAL FLYING between Sicily and Libya. Fairey Fulmar eight-gun fighters dida fine job in destroying shadowing aircraft, and Swordfish and Albacores from Malta struck by night against the enemy's supplyships. The Navy was able to extend another helping hand to the R.A.F. by flying-off fighters for the reinforcement of Malta. Just as Taranto was a classic illustration of deftly appliedNaval air power, so the actions against the Italian fleet at Matapan, and in pursuit of the battleship Bismark in the Atlantic, willendure as object lessons in co-operation; for, although the torpedo aircraft failed to achieve any sinkings themselves, they inflictedsuch damage that heavy warships were delivered up to the Fleet for the coup de grace by gunfire. Having survived numerous air attacks, the Ark Royal was sentto the bottom by a German submarine on November 14th, 1941. Said the First Lord of the Admiralty: "In her short but activecareer she has paid the nation a rich dividend." February, 1942, will be remembered as the month of theheroic but disastrous sortie by Swordfish, under Lt. Cdr. Esmonde, against the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, as they fledthrough the Channel. Only five men survived the slaughter and Esmonde was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Hewas the first member of the Fleet Air Arm to receive it. By 1942 the Battle of the Atlantic was in its grimmest stages,but escort carriers, with three or four Swordfish apiece, were playing a decisive part in co-operation with long-range, shore-based aircraft of R.A.F. Coastal Command, and new types of anti-submarine vessels, by that time in service with the RoyalNavy. The Mediterranean sea lanes continued to be bitterly contested, but here again new equipment, including radar, wasbeginning to tell. Against one convoy in August, nearly 300 Axis aircraft did their worst; but while our ships were under fighterprotection they came to little harm. An elementary but successful pathfinder technique was de-veloped by Fairey torpedo bombers operating with the R.A.F. in North Africa. The story of their exploits against land and seatargets reads like a boys' adventure book. Consider this gem, from Lt. Cdr. B. J. Hurren's Swordfish Saga:- A young lieute-nant of a Swordfish squadron secured permission to make a one- man raid. He dispensed with every unwanted item, includingthe navigator and radio operator, and had the Swordfish decked out with 250 lb bombs and flares. For good measure he stowedaway ten 20-pounders with screamer attachments. The "String- bag" trundled off into the desert night. Normal maximum flighttime was accepted as four hours. After 4^ hour the ground crews began to get a little anxious; after 5 hour they were surethe Swordfish was down; after 5 hour 15 minutes it came home. Only, said the pilot, by hitting a hump in the ground had hebecome airborne at all. An R.A.F. Blenheim set out next day to check up. The "Stringbag's" wheelmarks extended over ameasured distance of ni miles. In detail the story may be apocryphal; but in essence it is typical of F.A.A. resourcefulness. Two more carriers were lost in 1942—Hermes, off Ceylon, andEagle, in the Mediterranean—but, in addition to escort carriers, the fleet carrier Indomitable (subject of the special pictorial fea-ture in this issue) was commissioned during the year. Operations in Madagascar and North Africa showed how carrier-borne air-craft could cover amphibious assaults. In North Africa, particu- larly, the newly introduced Vickers-Supermarine Seafire fightersshowed their mettle. Like the Hawker Sea Hurricane, the Sea- fire had been developed from a proven R.A.F. machine. America supplied more escort carriers during 1943. Hundredsof Fleet Air Arm pilots were trained in the U.S.A. and some excellent American carrier-borne fighter and strike aircraft sawservice on British carriers. In the Pacific, aircraft from the Victorious landed aboard a carrier of the U.S. Navy, while Ameri-can machines paid a return visit. In the Atlantic the escort carriers, with their collaborators, went from strength to strength.One running fight lasted for several days, during which H.M.S. Biter was responsible, in co-operation with surface vessels, forattacking twelve U-boats. Two were destroyed, three others probably destroyed, and several damaged. When the heavily-armed U-boats began to remain surfaced to fight it out with attacking aircraft, the practice was instituted of pairing a Martletfighter with each depth-charge-laden Swordfish, the Martlet being responsible for dealing with the U-boats' high-angle guns.One submarine surrendered to a Swordfish. "For the four months ending September 18th, 1943," reported Mr. Churchill,"not a single merchant vessel was sunk by enemy action in the North Atlantic." In the Channel, Fairey Albacores of the F.A.A. were thescourge of enemy shipping. In hundreds of sorties they struck with torpedoes and bombs or stealthily sowed their mines. In September, 1943, Seafires covered the Salerno landing.Twenty-six of them flew ashore and made 74 patrol-sorties be- fore the R.A.F. arrived to take over. New types of aircraft, including the Fairey Barracuda andFirefly, came into the limelight during 1944. "Barras" were in action on April 3rd against the Tirpitz, and soon afterwardsstruck at installations in Northern Sumatra. Swordfish, Aven- gers and Wildcats safeguarded the Russia-bound convoys againstattack by sea and air. On the fateful D-Day, June 6th, 1944, the Fleet Air Arm wasprominently on the scene, one wing alone flying over 400 sorties in the day. In the Far East, Corsairs and other Naval machineswere spreading destruction on land and sea and in the sky, while in the Mediterranean, between August 15th and 23rd, the car-riers Emperor, Khedive, Searcher, Pursuer, Hunter, Attacker and Stalker flew off an average of one aircraft every six minutes fromdawn to dusk in support of the landings in Southern France. Late 1944 and early 1945 was a period of heavy Naval/airassaults in the Far East, mounted from thf fleet carriers Illustrious, Formidable, Indomitable, Victorious and Indefatigable againstJapanese oil refineries. In later actions both Indefatigable and Victorious were hit by Japanese suicide aircraft, but survived.Then, at mid-summer, in company with aircraft of the U.S. Navy, British Naval air power struck at the Japanese mainland.
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