Torpedoes Running Strongly

If it does not it will either hit the bottom and there explode or be diverted, or move up and down as though on a switchback, "porpoising " as it is called and then break surface. Moreover, its delicacy of construction makes it impossible to drop it if the aircraft is flying too fast. It cannot be dropped too near the target or it may pass beneath it, and this means that the pilot must become very proficient in judging distance.

Pilots and crews go through a course of intensive training in which they learn as much as they can about the idiosyncrasies of the torpedo. By means of simple and ingenious photographic machinery the pilot under instruction who has attacked a target with dummy torpedoes, and the fully trained pilot who has loosed his torpedo against a ship, are enabled to discover the exact distance from the target at which they dropped them. 

The torpedoes are beautifully made and covered with anticorrosive paint, which gives them a dark blue colour. This paint is very effective against the action of sea-water, and torpedoes have been known to remain in the sea for as long as thirteen years and still be perfectly serviceable.

The Beauforts operate on cloudy days or, if the weather is clear, with a fighter escort, and during moonlight nights. They, too, find the enemy by means of a Rover patrol or a 11 strike " directed against a ship or a convoy which has previously been discovered by reconnaissance.

To explain more fully the way in which a torpedo-carrying squadron works here is an account of the start of an operation as seen in the Operations Room of a squadron which has taken a very active part in the onslaught on enemy shipping. The time is the early summer of 1941,when torpedo attacks on enemy shipping were very frequent.

[Telephone rings in Operations Room - Controller, Group Headquarters, wishes to speak to Controller.]

CONTROLLER. "Controller Selsey here, Sir."

CONTROLLER (GROUP). "Controller Group speaking. A "Jim Crow" reports an 8,000-ton tanker, a 3,000-ton merchant vessel, and five escort vessels, course Westerly, speed 6 knots, time 16.30. Six aircraft of X Squadron loaded with torpedoes to rendezvous over Pevensey Bay 17.50 hours. Fighter escort will be provided."

CONTROLLER. "Right, sir. I'll bring them to immediate readiness." [Controller replaces telephone and addresses Navigator.]

"Strike on for X Squadron. Six aircraft. Lay on and plot course to Beachy Head, thence to Le Tr6port. Aircraft are to rendezvous to pick up fighter escort at Pevensey Bay at 17.50 hours. I should allow ten minutes for the aircraft to formate and set course".

[Controller rings Squadron Commander.]

"Instructions from Group-six aircraft for immediate strike. Will you please come over for the gen."(1)

[Controller then rings Station Commander and passes information received from Group.]

NAVIGATOR (to Controller). "Crews to report to Operations Room 16.30 and to be air-borne by 17.30".

[Controller telephones Met. forecaster and asks for weather report.]

[Navigator, having worked out track times and distances, calls to N.C.O.]

"Sergeant, issue Form Green to Squadron for this strike and forms to Group, will you ?"

CONTROLLER (to W.A.A.F. clerk). "Inform A.L.O.(2)/Buxted,/C.C.L.O.(3) Fighter, Ops. Steyning, of times of take-off and return of the six aircraft of X Squadron."

(To A.C.W.(4).) "Bring six aircraft under orders on State Panel (5) and bring it up to date. (To Intelligence Officer.) Will you get out the gen ?"

[The Intelligence Officer prepares his material for briefing and instructs the Photographic Section to fit the necessary cameras.]

[Enter Squadron Commander. To Controller.]

SQUADRON COMMANDER. "What's all this about?"

CONTROLLER. "One 8,000-ton tanker and one 3,000-ton merchant vessel and five escort vessels steaming at 6 knots on a Westerly course". [Exit Squadron Commander to interview Intelligence Officer.]

CONTROLLER (to Navigator). "It's time these chaps were here - time's getting on."

NAVIGATOR (to Controller). "Everything has been checked and is ready. Has Group confirmation arrived yet"

W.A.A.F. "Just arrived, sir". [Hands to Controller and takes copy to Intelligence Officer.]

[The Station Commander arrives and asks the Controller if' everything is correct. The Controller gives more information concerning the strike, about which he has previously given brief particulars over the secret line, and shows the Station Commander confirmation sent from Group to him.]

[The crews arrive at the Operations Room, where they are briefed as follows :]

"An 8,000-ton tanker, a 3,000-ton merchant vessel and five escort vessels have been reported by a 'Jim Crow' to be steaming at 6 knots in a Westerly direction down the French coast off Le Tréport. The 3,000-tonner is being led by an ' E ' or ' R ' boat followed by the larger tanker, which has a small escort vessel astern, two more on the seaward side of her and another ' E' or ' R' boat on the landward side. They have a pretty effective screen.

"We will take off from here at 17.30 to give us ample time to get to Pevensey Bay for rendezvous with fighters. Three squadrons of Hurricanes will be giving close escort, and there will be others giving cover above. We will set course from Pevensey Bay at 17.50 for a point 10 miles West of the convoy in view of the report of haze, so that if we hit the coast we can't fail but find them if we turn East. All aircraft will keep low on the water going out.

"As there is only one escort vessel on the port side we will come in and attack from the land. Another advantage of this will be that we'll be more difficult to see coming up on the approach. Just before reaching the target the fighters will go in ahead and keep the escort ships busy. We'll fly in two ' Vic' formations of three aircraft. Robinson, you*11 lead the sub-section and position yourself about 100 yards away on my port quarter. On sighting the target I will give you orders to spread out from echelon to port. This will mean that we shall all be able to drop roughly together and cover a wide area, thereby increasing our chance of a hit, and ensuring that avoiding action by the ships will be made more difficult.

"When you see my fellows taking up echelon, put yours in echelon also and open out to about 150 yards intervals. Take individual and violent avoiding action yourselves as you approach to drop, but take care to get a good steady release in spite of the flak which will probably be plentiful. Don't drop outside 800 yards. After dropping. break away and re-form in tight ' Vic ' as soon as possible to starboard.

"We will take the tanker and you should be in a good position for a good shot at the merchant vessel. Take off and form up in the usual manner.

"Wireless operators, stand by cameras throughout attack and take as many photos as possible during turn away. This should be simple with the hatch on the right side for a change. W/T operators will obtain their instructions from the Signals Officer.

"Navigators will keep an ' Air Plot ' in case aircraft are separated and have to return individually."

[The Intelligence Officer then addresses the crews.]

"This tanker is taking oil down to Brest, so I need not stress her importance. The 3,000-ton merchant vessel is a possible raider. Have a good look, because it's very important to identify her. You've all got cameras. Don't forget to use them. Photographs are invaluable.

"You won't be worried by flak from the shore, but there will be plenty of light stuff from the escorts, which are all ' R ' boats. They may have a balloon or two, so watch out. The nearest Hun fighters are at Blank, where there is a staffel (an operational unit of the Luftwaffe), but anyway you've got a fighter escort to look after them."

[The Operations Navigator then briefs the aircraft navigators on tracks, times, etc., and gives them any information regarding our own forces and obstructions en route to the target. The Signals Officer then speaks about communications and the Met. Officer about the weather likely to be encountered. The pilots and observers leave. Soon the sound of aircraft taking off is heard.]

We have watched the start of a typical strike."

Swift approach and swift getaway is the secret of a successful " strike." A Beaufort torpedo-bomber dives out of the clouds.

The pilot, however, succeeded in flying his aircraft safely home by juggling with the throttle and elevator trimmer. " Surprisingly enough the elevator had a marked effect on the aircraft's trim despite the fact that the fore and aft controls were severed." On reaching base in very bad weather, with clouds down to 50 feet, he was seen to pass over the aerodrome, but he could not turn the aircraft in its crippled condition enough to regain it. He followed the coast and, although the flaps of the Beaufort were out of action, made a successful landing on another aerodrome with most of his crew wounded.

More than one reference has been made to crash-landings in this account. They have to be made when the undercarriage is unserviceable and the wheels will not, therefore, drop. Here is what happened on a March day in 1941 to a Beaufort which had scored a hit on a destroyer off the Ile de Batz and had been hit by a shell which destroyed the hydraulic system, rendering all the turrets and the undercarriage unserviceable.

This he did and the aircraft skidded 120 yards along the runway, structure and dust flying up on either side. The starboard propeller shot off and spun along in front of the aircraft on its tips like a wheel. The pilot thought at any moment that it would pierce the perspex windows of the cockpit. ' The funny thing,' he said afterwards, ' about getting out of a crashed aircraft is when you step down. You go straight on to the ground without having to climb down by means of the usual footholds.' "

Much has also been said of the activity of the flak-ships. The Germans are using them in ever-increasing numbers to protect shipping, of which the value, always great, grows daily. Sometimes as many as five have been observed escorting a single merchant vessel. Their crews are not unnaturally light on the trigger. " Just as we were right over the ship it spotted us," reported the pilot of a Hudson who met one such vessel off Norway. " The Germans opened up first with machine-gun fire, then the heavier guns started firing. It seemed to me, at that moment, that they were throwing up everything at us except the ship herself." It was bombed and left burning.

The torpedo attacks continued, the majority being carried out during Rover patrols. On 23rd October, 1940, for example, a German convoy off Schiermonnikoog, made up of nine merchant vessels and three flak-ships, was attacked by two Beauforts, the largest vessel being sunk and the second largest left listing heavily to port. Here again the anti-aircraft fire was intense, but its accuracy poor, possibly because the Beauforts, when retreating after loosing their torpedoes, had the help of a 40-mile-an-hour wind behind their tails. 

On 8th November three Beauforts attacked a merchant ship off Norderney. All torpedoes missed, but in taking avoiding action the ship ran aground and became a total loss. The next day a torpedo running strong and straight towards a vessel off Borkum hit a sandbank and exploded, doing no harm. The state of the tide had saved the enemy.

During 1941 torpedo attacks increased. They were made not only off the Dutch, Belgian and Danish coasts, but also along the Norwegian coast. On 9th February, for example, three Beauforts attacked six destroyers off Norway and hit two of them. On 2nd March a large merchant vessel was hit off the Danish coast and left on fire. On the 12th an enemy destroyer was blown up in moonlight off the Norwegian coast.

Early in September a fierce action was fought near Stavanger between Beauforts seeking to torpedo a large tanker and Me.109s which came to its rescue. . The tanker was hit by two torpedoes, an escort vessel by one, and a Me. 109 shot down. One Beaufort was lost. Another which returned safely entered cloud cover only twenty yards ahead of the German fighters. A little later in the month a cargo vessel was set on fire near the Lister Light.

The catalogue of attacks is a long one. A few items in it have been mentioned. There is not space for more. In twelve months 126 attacks by torpedo were made. Between January and September 1941 87,000 tons of enemy shipping were sunk. Two more attacks must be described. On 12th June, 1941, a Blenheim on reconnaissance emerging from clouds some miles South of the Lister Light saw, 1,000 feet below, four or five enemy destroyers screening a much larger vessel, coloured light grey, steaming North-West. 

The larger vessel was almost certainly the "Lützow," and it seems probable that she had put out with the object of raiding our commerce in the Atlantic. In addition to her destroyer escort, the pocket-battleship bad an escort of Me.109 and Me.110 fighters. The Blenheim slipped back into the clouds. It was then one minute before midnight.

On receipt of its message a striking force of Beauforts was sent from a Scottish aerodrome to attack with torpedoes. At 2.20 in the morning of the 13th June-it must be remembered that in those latitudes, at that time of the year, there is almost no darkness-one of the Beauforts attacked the enemy. It flew low, crossed just above one of the protecting destroyers, and released its torpedo at a range of 700 yards. As the aircraft broke away the air gunner and wireless operator both saw a column of water leap from the "Lützow " amidships, and this was followed by a dense cloud of smoke.

The pocket-battleship " Lützow," sighted on 12th June, 1941, was attacked by Beauforts which almost certainly scored two torpedo-hits.

Beauforts carrying torpedoes delivered attacks off Holland, which were possibly more successful. One Squadron did so only at its second attempt. At the first the enemy was not found. At least three torpedoes were observed to be running strongly towards the targets and one crew reported that they had seen an enemy warship listing badly with smoke pouring from her bows. The Beauforts were subjected to very fierce anti-aircraft fire and to severe fighter opposition.

Most of them found the enemy by the simple process of running into heavy flak fired by unseen ships. One made three attempts to attack, but was by that time so badly damaged that its torpedo could not be released. " I saw my leader waggle his wing," runs the account of one pilot. " That meant that he had seen the ships. . . . The 'Prinz Eugen' was steaming along very slowly at the head of a tremendous line of ships. Destroyers were trying to lay a smoke-screen round her. . . . At that moment I saw two Me. 109s fly across in front of me. . . . They circled to get on our tail and the "Prinz Eugen" was in my sights." 

He dropped his torpedo and then the Beaufort became involved in a heavy fight with the Messerschmitts. One of them was shot down and the other made off. " My Beaufort was hit in twelve places. . . . A bullet had gone through a propeller and a cannon shell had ploughed a furrow in the tail-plane. The action was fought very near to Over Flakee Island off the Dutch coast. We thought the nar6 appropriate in the circumstances."

In this confused and unsatisfactory action the palm for courage, cold and unshaken, has rightly been awarded to the Swordfish of the Fleet Air Arm, which, operating from one of the South coast bases of Coastal Command, delivered their attacks about noon. They  came in low in two flights of three in the face of tremendous and accurate anti-aircraft fire, with swarms of enemy fighters about them, and all discharged their torpedoes. They were all shot down, and of the eighteen members of their crews only five survived.

The next occasion on which the "Prinz Eugen" was attacked by Coastal Command was on l7th May, 1942, when she was found off the Southern tip of Norway steaming southward. She was on her way to a German port for repairs made necessary because of the damage inflicted on her by H.M. Submarine "Trident." The attack was carried out by Hudsons and torpedo-carrying Beauforts escorted by Beaufighters and Blenheims. It was pressed home with the greatest determination in the teeth of heavy anti-aircraft and fighter opposition. 

The Beaufighters, sweeping ahead, raked the decks of the German vessels with cannon and machine-gun fire while the Hudsons and the torpedo bombers went in to the attack. In this action the rear gunner of one of the Beauforts beat off a series of attacks by enemy fighters lasting 35 minutes, though one of his guns had jammed and he himself had been wounded in the face, hands, legs and head. Five enemy fighters were shot down, and we lost nine aircraft.

The attacks by Coastal Command on enemy shipping have, as yet, reached no climax and no end. All that they have so far achieved cannot be known. Not every German convoy is sighted, not every ship attacked sinks. ' The other side of the North Sea is often shrouded in mist, literally and metaphorically. At times it lifts for a moment to disclose a tanker or a supply vessel with their waspish escort of destroyers or flak-ships, and it is possible to catch a glimpse of what the enemy is using to maintain the flow of his supplies and of the difficulties and troubles he is encountering. That these are great and increasing there is much evidence to show.

The success of our operations, however, is not to be measured merely in terms of shipping sunk. If the enemy loses a large number in any one place the obvious inference is that he is using this particular route very frequently, and that therefore for each ship sunk several very probably get through. On other routes the number of sinkings may be smaller because the menace of air attack is so great that the Germans can no longer accept the losses incurred by following them, and have been obliged to find other means of transport. There is no doubt that important trade routes have had to be abandoned in the face of our air attacks.

It is impossible for our air attacks, with the resources available at present, completely to stop all coastwise traffic. Moreover, the state of the weather must always be a factor of cardinal importance. Aircraft of Coastal Command cannot, as yet, operate heedless of cloud cover. Fighter protection is not always possible ; the waters in which targets are to be found are too far off. Blenheims, Beauforts and Hudsons must still go out into the murk of a foggy day alone and unescorted to strike at such targets, themselves the target for German fighters, swift to engage from aerodromes near the coast, and for the fierce fire of ships desperate in defence.

Sometimes a "strike" is what the word implies-one clean stroke carried out in the course of a single flight. Sometimes it is a running engagement which must be fought against opposition that will increase as the minutes and the hours go by. In the two short hours which must elapse between the moment when the presence of a ship within range is signalled and the moment when the striking force arrives to attack it, that ship can vanish into a protecting curtain of mist or a narrow, cliff-bound fjord. To fight such an enemy is often to fight a shadow.

Shall I strike at it with my partisan ? Tis here, Tis here, 'Tis gone. Yet a steady toll is taken. Day by day the score mounts, the burden on the enemy's railways, roads and canals increases. A time will come when it will prove too heavy, and then the sustained effort, the unwearying persistence of Coastal Command will have their reward.