Chapter 7; Seeking the Raider in His Lair

ON 9TH APRIL, 1940, the problems of Coastal Command became of larger consequence by reason of the German invasion of Norway. From that date the enemy began with increasing speed to possess himself of bases not, indeed, invulnerable, but well protected by nature from assault by sea and air, and so situated that his conduct of the Battle of the Atlantic became a simpler task.

His U-boats and surface raiders could now move out from their harbours in the North Sea or the Baltic up the long Norwegian coast close inshore, through water among the most sheltered in the world, into the Atlantic, where an area of battle vast in extent, and therefore very difficult to patrol, awaited them. To their number was soon to be added a third menace, the four engined Focke-Wulf Kurier.

In a short month the enemy brought his advanced air and sea bases to within 350 miles of Britain. But worse was soon to follow. By the end of May he had acquired all the bases of Holland and Belgium. On 17th June France sued for an Armistice and on the 21st its terms were signed. Under them Germany obtained ' among much else, the right to occupy the whole coast-line of France with all its harbours, roadsteads, estuaries and ports from Dunkirk in the North to Bordeaux in the South.

Thus, before June 1940 was out, the Germans had the whole coast-line of Western Europe under their control, with the exception of that of Spain and Portugal. The second and grimmer phase of the Battle of the Atlantic was about to begin. It seemed that the advantage lay all with the enemy.

Reduced to its simplest form the problem of countering the activities of surface raiders, U-boats and long-range bombers consists in destroying them either in their bases or when they are out looking for shipping to attack. After the fall of France, Coastal Command increased its reconnaissance activities, and patrols were established and maintained from the North of Norway to the Spanish border. They were, and are, an addition to the normal convoy patrols, which altered in character after the German occupation of so much of Europe's coast-line had very greatly increased the danger of air attack upon convoys sailing through the Channel.

Cherbourg. A low-level reconnaissance photograph showing great damage to warehouses and quayside installations.

This work of reconnaissance is not carried out without opposition. There have been many encounters with the Luftwaffe, who are able to use short-range fighters for the defence of their country's ill-gotten gains, whereas we must send out Hudsons, Blenheims, Beauforts and flying boats because of the distance separating this island from the areas to be reconnoitred. This disadvantage, while it adds to the difficulties and dangers of the task, has not prevented its fulfilment. It is performed in all weathers, though in daylight cloud cover is almost essential.

"By skilful use of a diffused layer of cloud, which was at 7,000 feet, he succeeded in entering the port of Brest, obtaining his photographs and dropping his bombs. . . ." " In brilliant sun the three aircraft set out on their patrol to Cherbourg. Just outside they encountered six of the enemy. The three Blenheims turned into the sun, forming line astern, but one failed to close into formation successfully. This machine was engaged by the enemy and when last seen was diving steeply towards the sea with smoke pouring from both engines. . . ." There are many such reports. They illustrate clearly enough the importance of cloud cover.

Flying boats have also been used and have made some remarkable flights. On 21st January, 1941, a Sunderland flew up the Norwegian coast from Trondhiem to Narvik. Twenty miles from that town German soldiers were seen on parade. They received a general purpose bomb and the rest of the load was dropped on a barracks, a motor convoy and a large ship in the harbour of Narvik. Immediately afterwards the Sunderland was hit by two bursts of A.A. fire, the first putting both front and rear turrets out of action, the second damaging the tail-plane. On the way home, as the flying boat was nearing Scotland, the clouds closed right down. A landing was made on the sea near an island and the boat had to be taxied up and down in the lee of a cliff for the whole night, thirty-one vain attempts being made to get the anchor to hold. The Sunderland was towed at dawn to a nearby cove and beached. Its subsequent adventures included a duel with a Me.110, which it beat off, though armed only with a borrowed tommy gun, when on passage to the South of England for final repairs.

St. Nazaire, a U-boat nest frequently raided by Coastal Command during 1940-1941. 1. The dock gate later destroyed by H.M.S. "Campbeltown" in the Combined Operations raid. 2. " M " Class Minesweepers in the Outer Harbour. 3. U-boat Pens under construction. 4. Shipyards. 5. French aircraft carrier " Joffre," dismantling in dry-dock.

These examples by no means represent the whole duty of Coastal Command. Obviously, if a submarine or surface raider can be dealt with in harbour, it will not be able to play an active part in the Battle of the Atlantic. To attack them there is work for the Royal Navy and for Bomber Command, but Coastal Command has had a hand in the business from the beginning. No time was lost in opening the attack, although, as with the invasion ports, the assault was not on a heavy scale. Coastal Command is not exclusively equipped for bombing. Nevertheless it made 682 attacks on land targets between 21st June, 1940, the date of the Armistice between France and Germany, and the end of December 1941.

Excluding aerodromes, which the Command attacked 130 times in France, 30 times in the Low Countries, 44 times in Norway and thrice in Germany, there were during that period 28 attacks on French fuel dumps and electrical power plants, 36 attacks on Dutch oil installations and eight on Norwegian. There were also 69 attacks on other miscellaneous targets. The bulk of the effort, however, naturally directed against docks and harbours and the shipping in them. Brest heads the list with 62 attacks ; Boulogne follows with 50. Then comes Lorient with 30, Cherbourg with 28, St. Nazaire with 21, Le Havre with 16, Calais with 13 and Nantes with five. Many other places containing such targets have also been attacked less frequently.

The raids have been made mostly at night. To describe them in detail is impossible within the compass of a short account. They were, and are, harassing operations designed to destroy valuable stores and necessities for the prosecution of the battle and to interfere as much as possible with the lives of men on garrison duty in foreign and hostile lands. As such they have been very successful, and if their scale is now diminished, it is because that work can now be performed by Bomber Command, of which the strength is steadily increasing.

More and more of the offensive power of Coastal Command is now being directed against shipping, as will be explained in due course. At the beginning, that is to say after the fall of France, the effort made by Coastal Command was not inconsiderable having regard to the numbers of aircraft available. One squadron alone, for example, made 28 attack-s on French ports, involving 136 individual sorties, in six weeks.

In the early days Ansons, too, played a part before they were relegated to training Groups. In the fortnight following 23rd September, 1940, an Anson Squadron carried out a series of attacks on Brest, dropping their bombs from heights as low as 2,000 feet and then diving to 500 feet to shoot out searchlights. They were often accompanied by Albacores of the Royal Navy awaiting the completion of the aircraft carrier which was to be their home. Lorient, too, came to be important, for it was soon made one of the main bases for German submarines. The primary target was at first the power station and later on the Submarine moorings.

Blenheims attacked both on 8th, 13th and 11th October, and again on 7th and 8th November, being accompanied on these last two raids by Beauforts and Swordfish. The attack on the 13th was very successful and large fires were caused. In December German submarines were discovered farther South in the Gironde, near Bordeaux. They were attacked by Beauforts carrying land-mines on 8th and 13th December. Large explosions and fires followed.

The pilots who carried out such attacks are only slightly less laconic than the official reports. " The bombs caused an enormous explosion," said one of them who flew a Beaufort in an attack on Brest on 13th January, 1941, " which shook the aircraft so violently that the crew thought they had received a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire. Showers of sparks accompanied the explosion, which sent up a column of smoke to the height at which the aircraft was flying - 10,000 feet." During a raid on St. Nazaire a Blenheim looped the loop when an anti-aircraft shell exploded immediately beneath its fuselage. " The concussion stunned the second pilot, knocked out the rear gunner and left the pilot dazed."

When they recovered consciousness the Blenheim was in a dive from which the pilot was unable to pull out until 500 feet from the ground. On regaining a level keel it was found that all the instruments were out of order and that everything loose on the navigator's table, including his charts, had disappeared, flung out of a hatch which had been forced open. The pilot succeeded in climbing up to 8,000 feet. "The Blenheim was see-sawing up and down like a switchback and we thought we should have to bale out." He was able, however, to keep control until a patrolling Beaufighter was sighted off the English coast in the dawn. The Beaufighter escorted the Blenheim to an aerodrome where it made a safe landing.

Sometimes attacks were made by day. On one occasion a Beaufort was off La Pallice at 9,000 feet. " Alongside the wharf," says the observer, " we could see a ship of about 7,000 tons discharging cargo. The crew were busy on the deck and workmen were coming and going about the wharf. The pilot pointed to the ship and said : 'Shall we bomb it ? ' I nodded, thinking he meant to do a little high-level bombing. The next thing I knew was that I was flat on my back. The pilot had put the nose right down in the steepest dive I have ever been in. We dropped from 9,000 to 100 feet. At the bottom we let go the bombs and then began to pull out, dodging between the cranes on the wharf. For a moment we were actually flying under the German flag, for as we beat it over the dock I saw out of the corner of my eye a swastika flag hanging from a staff about fifty feet above us. The ship's stern was wreathed in smoke as we left."

Inevitably as time went on attacks became concentrated on Brest, especially after the last week in March 1941, when the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau," or " Salmon and Gluckstein," as they are known throughout the Royal Air Force, took refuge in that naval base on their return. from commerce raiding in the Atlantic. Coastal Command attacked them, either alone or as part of an operation by Bomber Command, 63 times in 1941, including an attack on the " Scharnhorst " on the 23rd July when she had sought temporary refuge at La Pallice. The defences of Brest, always formidable, grew stronger and stronger.

On one occasion a Blenheim was forced by the failure of both engines to glide through them. It circled slowly round above the harbour while the pilot still tried to get into a good position from which to drop his bombs. " It looked as though we should come down in enemy territory," he said, " so I thought we might as well drop our bombs in the best place possible." The first attempt did not succeed, and before releasing its load the Blenheim glided three times round the docks, each time going lower and lower. At last a good target came into the bomb-sight and the bombs were dropped at the very moment when both the engines picked up simultaneously. The Blenheim reached base unscathed.

One attack must be specially mentioned. It was made by a torpedo-carrying Beaufort of Coastal Command at first light on 6th April, 1941. Six Beauforts were given the task of torpedoing one of the battle-cruisers known to be lying alongside the quay in the Rade Abri at Brest. The aerodrome in the South-West of England from which they started was rain soaked and three of them became bogged when trying to take off. These took no part in the operation. The fourth failed to find Brest in the haze which preceded the dawn and returned with its torpedo. The fifth went in to attack a few minutes too late.

"When I arrived at Brest," reported its pilot, " it was full daylight. I crossed the. spit of land at the South-West corner of the harbour, coming under fire from shore batteries. I then came down to a few feet above the water and flew towards the mole protecting the Rade Abri, behind which the battle-cruiser lay. I passed three flak-ships . . . and nearly reached the mole itself. By then I was being fired at from batteries all round the harbour.... Continuous streams of fire seemed to be coming from every direction. It was by far the worst flak I have ever encountered. When I was nearly up to the mole I saw that the battle-cruiser herself was completely hidden from me by a bank of haze.

I therefore turned away to the East and climbed into cloud." The sixth and last Beaufort had attacked a few minutes before. It crossed the same spit of land South-West of the harbour entrance at a lov. height and found an enemy battle-cruiser, almost certainly the " Gneisenau," lying alongside the quay on the North shore, where it was protected by a stone mole curving round from the West. The Beaufort came in very low and was at once under the fire of some 270 anti-aircraft guns of varying calibres established on the rising ground behind the ship and on the two arms of land which encircled the outer harbour. To the formidable concentration of fire which these guns immediately produced was added the barrage from the guns of the warship itself and from those of the three flak-ships already mentioned.

Moreover, having penetrated these formidable defences, the Beaufort, after delivering its low-level attack, would have had the greatest difficulty in avoiding the rising ground behind the harbour. All these obstacles were known to the pilot, who, " despising the heavy odds, went cheerfully and resolutely to the task." He passed the anti-aircraft ships at less than mast height, flying into the very mouths of their guns. Skimming over the mole, a torpedo was launched point-blank at a range of some 500 yards. The battle-cruiser was hit and damaged below the water-line. Subsequent photographs showed that she was undergoing repairs.

The Beaufort did not return. There is a story that it fell on the deck of its quarry. It was manned by a graduate of Cambridge University, a Canadian from Toronto, a farmer from Somerset and a chauffeur from North London. They are of that company

Who wore on their hearts the fire's centre

Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,

And left the vivid air signed with their honour."

Their ranks were joined on 12th February, 1942, by the crews of those naval Swordfish which on that day attacked the same ship and her consorts in the English Channel. The pilot of the Beaufort and the leader of the Swordfish were each posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

One of the objects of Coastal Command in attacking fringe targets is to prevent, if it can, German sailors and airmen who are taking an active part in the Battle of the Atlantic from obtaining the rest they need. Another is to harass the German troops in occupied countries.

Finse in Norway is a well-known winter sports centre. It consists of a small railway station with an hotel near by, and a few mountain huts and chalets. The railway passing through it is protected from avalanches by a number of snow-sheds, which are wooden tunnels some hundreds of yards in length. It was known that the hotel contained a large number of German officers and Norwegian quislings enjoying a ski-ing holiday. There were thus two objectives: to destroy or damage the sheds, which would interrupt communications of great importance almost certainly for the whole of the winter, and to put out of action a number of the enemy and of the traitors helping them.

Three attacks were made-on 18th, 20th and 22nd December, 1940. So that the crews taking part in them should have as clear an idea as possible of the nature and look of the place, they had been shown a pre-war travel film containing excellent shots of the station, the hotel and the surrounding slopes of snow. The first attack was only in part successful, for despite the film which they had seen and the special maps which they carried, several of the -crews did not find the target. Two nights later it was repeated and Beauforts scored direct hits on the snow-sheds and the railway line. A train in the station took refuge in a shed from which it did not emerge. In the third attack the hotel was hit. It was subsequently discovered that two mechanical snow ploughs had been destroyed in the railway station and that the line was, in consequence, blocked for many weeks.

The leader of the .first attack, carried out by Hudsons, flew up and down above the target with his navigation lights on, in order to show the way to the rest.

The part played by Coastal Command in the Combined Operations raid on Vaagso on 27th December, 1941, may be mentioned, for this operation was an attack on a fringe target carried out by the Royal Navy and the Army. It was the task of Blenheim fighters and Beaufighters of the Command to provide protection from the air while Blenheims of Bomber Command made an attack on enemy aerodromes within range. The sky was clear and the Beaufighters, which were over the target about 1.0 p.m., Successfully prevented the German Air Force from interfering. Several combats took place ; four He. I I I s were shot down for the loss of three Beaufighters.

One Blenheim returned to base with the observer and rear gunner both badly wounded. It fought two Me.109s over the ships and during this engagement the rear gunner was put out of action. It turned for home when it encountered a Me. 110 very low over the water. The observer was attending the wounded rear gunner, whom he had taken from the turret. He manned the guns, but was himself wounded a moment later by a burst of fire from the Me. 110.

"Just then," reported the pilot, " I heard a swishing noise and spray flew in from my open side-window. An engine began to cough. I had hit the water with one propeller, but fortunately, beyond bending it a bit, there was no serious damage and the engine picked up again." Within 50 miles of base the observer succeeded in reaching the wireless set, though it took him ten minutes to cover the six feet separating him from it, and sent out a distress signal. The Blenheim, with flaps and undercarriage unserviceable, made a successful belly landing. The crew survived.

This account of attacks on land targets is best ended by the story of the Beaufort raid on the docks of Nantes on the night of 26th/27th October, 1941. The Beauforts set out in formation and flew a hundred feet above a stormy sea.

" We were so low," says the leader of the attack, " that when we reached the French coast I had to pull up sharply to avoid the sand-dunes. Every time we came to a clump of trees we leap-frogged over them and then went down almost to the ground again.... It grew darker as we went farther inland and then began the most surprising experience of all. It was as though the whole of that part of France were turning out to welcome us. Every village we went over became a blaze of light.

People threw open their doors and came out to watch us skim their chimneypots. In other places hamlets would suddenly light up as if the people had torn the blackout down when they heard us coming.... I remember one house with a courtyard fully lit up. I saw a woman come out of the house, look up at us, wave, and then go back. She switched off the outside lights and then I saw a yellow light from inside stream out as she opened the door."

The docks were bombed from 300 feet. Then the Beauforts turned for home just above the roof-tops of Nantes, which, in the bright moonlight, " looked like a city of the dead." " Then I began to see white pin-points on the ground and one by one lights appeared as we raced over the chimney-pots. . . . We were at top speed, but even so we could see doors opening and people coming out. I felt that we had brought some comfort to the people of Nantes."

They were in need of it. A cordon of German troops had for some days surrounded the city, and within there were fifty hostages awaiting execution as a reprisal for the killing of the German governor. These were shot the next morning. Yet the lights which were switched on that night have been seen on subsequent raids. Through them shines the indomitable spirit of the Bretons.

Attacks on land targets by Coastal Command have yielded in the last months to attacks on shipping, The work of dealing with U-boats and surface raiders in their lairs is now for the most part being performed by Bomber Command. Yet those earlier days when Blenheims, Hudsons, Beauforts and flying boats went in to the attack must not be forgotten. They harassed the enemy-some 6,000 metric tons of fuel oil were destroyed in two attacks on St. Nazaire alone, sufficient to fuel a U-boat for six to eight sorties - and prevented him from developing his full strength in the Western Approaches to Great Britain.

What is being done to attack the enemy lurking in the depths or in the skies of the broad Atlantic must now be considered.