I Sank The Bismarck Read online

  Then the Ark slowed, it was my turn to advance the throttle and I was airborne in next to no time. We formed up over Ark Royal and, flying at 300 feet, set off. We could see that the battle was now taking place; flashes, and plumes of water and thick black smoke were becoming visible. It was our understanding that Admiral Tovey knew about our planned attack, but with shells flying through the air and the gouts of water from exploding near misses reaching 150 feet into the air, we could not make a sensible torpedo run on to the target. As it was, Bismarck was a shocking sight – black and smoking, with crewmen lying or milling around on her decks. We could see pieces of twisted wreckage, a huge gun turret, now all silent, the guns awry, one barrel of a 15in gun pointed almost vertically. There were great holes in her superstructure and a fire blazing amidships where a seaplane crane hung over the rails, blasted from its mounting. She had almost come to a stop, and was rising and falling in the sea like a giant blackened dead thing.

  We flew close to King George V and the squadron CO signalled by an Aldis lamp to ask for orders. I wanted the shelling to be stopped so that we could go in and launch our torpedoes, to finish the job that we had started the day before – I believe that that is what we all wanted. Bismarck was ours if she was anybody's. We circled, waiting for a reply, then Dusty shouted at me, 'Bugger me, Jock, they're shooting at us!'

  The flashes of the guns from the 4.5in turrets on the side of King George V, which we had all observed, resulted in some shellbursts not on Bismarck but in the air around us. God knows what those halfwits were thinking. Dusty said, 'They're flashing a signal telling us to keep away.'

  There was no more fire against us and we circled over Bismarck, smouldering and smoking, listing to port, pitching in the heavy seas, oil covering the surface of the water around her. I saw that both our battleships had finally stopped firing and were now steaming on a course north, away from Bismarck. Tovey's flagship, King George V, had finally reached the limit of her available fuel and had to make urgently for port. Rodney went with her. In retrospect, I believe it was a strange thing to do while Bismarck was still afloat. A heavy cruiser – I now know it was Dorsetshire – manoeuvred close to Bismarck and fired a couple of torpedoes at her starboard side, then circled and fired another at her port beam.

  Our CO led us down to see, I suspect, if we could finally sink this giant beast. We got to a range of about 1,000 yards, flying low with what was now the hulk of Bismarck in front of us, and then I saw a sight that has remained etched in my mind ever since. This enormous vessel, over 800 feet long, her gun turrets smashed, her bridge and upper works like a jagged ruin, slowly, frighteningly toppled over, smashing down into the sea, and her great hull was revealed, the plates and bilge keels glistening dark red as the oily sea covered her. Still leaping from her were men, sailors, and there were hundreds more in the sea, some desperately struggling for their lives, some already inert, tossed by the waves as they floated face down. I saw these hundreds of desperate human beings in the water and I was immediately pierced by the knowledge that they had no hope, and that as I flew just 100 feet above them there was nothing that I could do to save even a single one.

  We flew back to the Ark, and no word was exchanged between me or Dusty or Hayman.

  We went into the circuit and waited for the signal to land on. The flight deck was heaving and pitching even more than the previous day, but we all got in without any more aircraft being damaged. As I had just completed my landing and was unbuckling my harness the air-raid rattler went off. A Heinkel bomber appeared out of the clouds and a stick of bombs crashed into the sea about 500 yards from us. We got the Swordfish down in very quick order, because several Heinkel and long-range four-engined Focke Wulf 'Condor' bombers had been seen in the area. We were pretty defenceless. Sheffield's radar had been damaged by the near miss from Bismarck and it would have taken some time to get the Fulmar fighters ranged, if it had been possible at all in such weather. It was a real demonstration, if one were needed, of how close Bismarck was to the protection of the Luftwaffe and how critical our attack had been. We quickly got the Swordfish lashed down in the hangar, once more the carrier turned beam on to the sea and we headed south-east back to Gibraltar.

  By the afternoon we had found better weather and sunshine broke through on to the flight deck for the first time in days. The next day, the 28th, I was once again flying my Swordfish over the Atlantic, this time on a routine anti-submarine patrol. It was back to normal for me, if that was possible.

  Admiral Somerville gave the order for Ark Royal to precede the rest of Force H into harbour when we arrived at Gibraltar. As we closed the northern entrance the garrison came out to meet us, in small rowing boats, sailing boats and launches. The merchant ships in the harbour signalled their greetings with sirens and the crews on their decks cheered as we passed slowly down the detached mole to our regular mooring. A band of the Black Watch was playing and there was an almost carnival atmosphere. That night the cooks made a very special effort and served up what they called a 'Swordfish Surprise' – fresh swordfish steaks, purchased straight from one of the fishing boats in La Linea I am sure. I told the CO that in my view they had little alternative: it was either that or 'Bismarck Kippers'. The party in the wardroom that night was truly staggering.

  On board the Ark there was a great deal of satisfaction about what we had accomplished, and a general feeling that if the squadrons on Illustrious could pull off the great attack on Taranto, then we in the Ark had shown what we could do with Bismarck. We had, so the stories in the newspapers and newsreels had it, avenged Hood and saved the honour of the Royal Navy. There was also a feeling, held privately, that we in the Fleet Air Arm had been robbed of our rightful victory by the sailors in their battleships and that Admiral Tovey had deliberately not wanted us to take any further share of the triumph over Bismarck.

  I don't know that there is any truth in that last assertion, but it was true that our intervention at the eleventh hour had been the one thing that stopped Bismarck reaching the haven of St-Nazaire. Another few hours and it is clear that the Heinkel and Focke Wulf that we saw would have been joined by other aircraft and we would have had a serious fight with the Luftwaffe on our hands.

  However, on the day that we had returned from watching the end of Bismarck, none of us who had seen all those men in the water felt any joy or elation at all. We sat in the wardroom, not talking, a stiff drink in our hands, thinking our own thoughts. Sadly, none of the other people in the cockpits of those twelve Swordfish that flew over Bismarck when she capsized and sank is still alive. It is, after all, something that happened almost seventy years ago. All I know is that there has not been a single day of my life when the image of those poor men struggling in the freezing oily water has not entered my mind, and I do not expect to see a day when it doesn't.

  14

  After the Bismarck

  Back in Gibraltar we had a few days' rest before embarking on another mission into the Mediterranean. The navy had been suffering some terrible losses. Germany had invaded Greece at the beginning of 1941; the British army had retreated to Crete. In May German paratroopers had landed there and attempted to send troop ships in support of them. There were very heavy casualties on both sides, with most of the German troop ships sunk by the Royal Navy, but the Germans managed to capture the airfield on Crete and from that moment the battle was lost. Reinforcements arrived by air and, at about the same time that we had been flying over Bismarck, Admiral Cunningham in Alexandria was told to organize the evacuation of British troops from the beaches on Crete.

  We had almost no air cover and the Luftwaffe really went for the warships, whose only defence was the anti-aircraft guns on the cruisers and battleships. The carrier that had been sent to replace Illustrious, HMS Formidable, suffered damage from several bombs at the beginning of the German campaign and, like Illustrious before her, had to leave for repairs in a US shipyard. I had seen Formidable in the fitting-out yards at Harland and Wolff in Belfast when I had l
earned to fly solo. She had not been in service for long. These armoured carriers carried so few planes, and their supply was so erratic, that when she was under attack Formidable was able to launch just six serviceable Fulmars. There were at times almost four hundred German aircraft based in Sicily and Italy, so it was no surprise to learn that the evacuation of the British and New Zealand armies from Crete had cost Cunningham dearly. It was a real trial of strength between the Royal Navy and the German air force. Unfortunately, we lost. Two battleships, Barham and Warspite, were put out of action for months, as was Formidable. Seven cruisers were either sunk or badly damaged, six destroyers were sunk and around two thousand sailors were killed. But seventeen thousand soldiers were evacuated from Crete.

  When not bombing ships, the Luftwaffe was bombing Malta, and keeping that island defended and alive occupied Ark Royal's time after our return to Gibraltar.

  Most of June was spent on anti-submarine patrols in combination with convoys. The major effort was to keep supplying Malta with Hurricane fighter aircraft, which were brought down from the UK either in Argus or in Furious. The latter, like her sister ship Glorious, which sank off Norway in 1940, was a conversion of a First World War battlecruiser with a flying deck built over the hull and the bows projecting a fair way forward of the flight deck. She had a small island located in the same place as that on a modern carrier – that is, on the starboard side amidships – but there was another small bridge on the port side that was used for navigating and directing the flying operations.

  We must have delivered about 130 Hurricanes to Malta in a month, with only one serious incident. The Swordfish could be launched from the Ark using the forward catapults, so we still carried out our early-morning anti-submarine patrols just as dawn was breaking, and then the first Hurricane would roll down the flight deck. It was important to get the Hurricanes off the Ark quickly, because if we were attacked by the Italian or German air force, we would want to start operating the Fulmars. On one mission in June Furious started launching her own Hurricanes, but the second plane that went down the flight deck veered sharply to port, smashing into the navigating position. One of the Hurricane's long-range fuel tanks was ripped off and the plane crashed into the sea. The fuel spilled out, caught fire and started spreading along the port side. The carrier had to turn quickly out of the wind and come to a stop while the fire was dealt with. Nine people were killed, and as the smoke rose up into the sky we realized it was not a very healthy position to be in: in full daylight the chances of the column of smoke being spotted by an Italian reconnaissance aircraft were quite high. However, the fire was put out, and the flying off continued.

  At the end of the month my squadron, 818, was due to be rotated back to the UK and replaced by 825 Squadron. I was eager to get back home, but I was told by the CO that another pilot and I from 818 were going to be assigned to Furious. I was not pleased. Leaving Ark Royal to go home was one thing; leaving to go and fly off a converted battlecruiser was something else entirely. However, there was little I could do, except look forward to an endless round of flying antisubmarine patrols as the old Furious plugged her way through the Bay of Biscay on her return to the Clyde.

  The accommodation in Furious was not up to the standard of the Ark, but more important to me was that there was not the same sense of purpose and camaraderie on board. There was no feeling that the ship was run for the benefit of the air group, rather than vice versa. I came in for some special attention because I had served in the Ark and also, I suspect, because I had taken part in the Bismarck attack, although I did not make a big thing out of it.

  The exhaust from the boilers on Furious was not vented through a vertical funnel, but was instead channelled along large ducts that ran down both sides of the hangar deck and poured out a stream of hot gases at the rear of the flight deck. This sometimes caused a bit of turbulence when aircraft were landing on and I was always cautious with it. There were instructions about how to land on and the atmosphere on the carrier made me feel that I should play by the book, so I was meticulous in my landing-on procedures. One day, however, I was summoned to see the captain, who complained to me about the time I was taking to land and how long he had to remain out of line while I did so. He ended the meeting with the remark, 'I thought you Ark pilots were meant to be the best!' and dismissed me.

  I thought, 'How dare he!' and was determined that I would show him. At the end of my next patrol, instead of landing on in the normal way and following the directions of the deck landing officer, I flew through the convoy, approaching along the side of the carrier from the bow, level with the flight deck. I saw everybody, including the deck landing officer, looking at me with their mouths open, then as I reached the round down I pulled back on the stick, went vertically up and executed a stall turn. I rolled the plane through 360 degrees and then, with a blip of the throttle, settled her down gently to land squarely on the flight deck, catching the second arrestor wire. Nobody said a word while I unbuckled and climbed out, but the tannoy bellowed out a message: 'Sub-Lieutenant Moffat to report to the captain.'

  He could have thrown the book at me, and looking back it was a very stupid thing for me to have attempted, but curiously all he said to me was, 'Moffat, I haven't seen flying like that since the last time I was at the Hendon flying display. Don't repeat it,' and he walked off. 'And **** you too,' I thought.

  That was the last I heard of it, and it was the last time that I heard any comments about either Ark Royal or my ability as a flyer.

  We were escorting a 10-knot convoy of slow merchant ships from Gibraltar to the Clyde. It was dreadfully monotonous, carrying out patrol after patrol, and the only consolation was that I was heading home. It seemed an age since I had journeyed in the reverse direction, to Gibraltar, a young man fresh out of training without even a single deck landing to my credit. Now, just a few months later, I had recorded eighty deck landings, seven catapult take-offs and four hundred hours of flying time in my logbook. Plus one torpedo attack.

  Furious came to anchor, finally, in the Clyde and I was posted back to my old squadron, 818, which had in my absence taken up residence in Arbroath. We had a new CO, a Lt Commander Terence Shaw, who was known as 'Shaggy' because of his beard. We had got to know each other in the Ark, where he had been an observer with 820 Squadron. Although he was a likeable enough sort, for me he did not have the charisma of Lt Commander Coode.

  While I was at Arbroath I took every opportunity to fly to HMS Sanderling at Abbotsinch so that I could pursue my courtship of my dear Marjorie, the girl to whom I had proposed so impetuously after that Sunday afternoon tea party. We had corresponded all the time that I was away, and her letters had been extremely important to me – a reminder that there was another life, separate from the broad expanse of ocean and the routine of existence on board the carrier. She lived about 10 miles south-west of Glasgow at a place called Shilford.

  I would take the tram to Barrhead, where she would meet me in her Morris 8. She ran a hairdressing business on the south side of Glasgow and one of the strange vagaries of wartime regulations was that this was considered an essential occupation. I can't think why, unless it was thought vital to the maintenance of civilian morale, but it meant that Marjorie could not join any of the women's services and was given a petrol ration for her car for her daily business use. It was a real joy to go for a spin in the countryside. I had not seen Marjorie since I had left to join Ark Royal and a great deal had happened in the intervening months. Much of what I had seen and felt had affected me deeply, but I was loath to unburden myself on to her. I knew that I would most likely have to leave for another tour of duty soon and I did not want her to worry unduly about what might be happening to me.

  Also, I wanted to enjoy the peace and calm of her company without disturbing it by talk of bombing raids. It was an abrupt transition between life in the Ark and my relatively tranquil days in Scotland, and I wanted to keep them separate. I was becoming extremely attached to Marjorie, and I hoped I could s
ee a long-term future with her, stretching way past the end of the war, if I managed to survive it. I wasn't that keen to go away again, so my next posting with 818 Squadron suited me down to the ground. It would have been marvellous to stay in Arbroath, or even better Abbotsinch, but at least we were still almost in Scotland, although in a place with the unfortunate name of Twatt, in the Orkneys.

  Twatt was only half finished during our stay, so we were billeted in half-finished sheds nearby and were driven into the base by lorry every day. The place was awful, a sea of mud. We had a lot of new members in the squadron and spent a great deal of time trying to get them into shape, with dive-bombing practice and various other exercises. We also started to carry out joint manoeuvres with the army. This lasted for a few weeks at Twatt and then we moved yet again, this time to Machrihanish, at Campbeltown in Kintyre. This was particularly disliked by the southerners in the squadron, who hated the weather and couldn't pronounce the name. It was always Machri-bloody-Hanish to them. Here our joint exercises with the army were part of the development of planning for amphibious operations.

  Like most pilots everywhere, we were constantly on the lookout for ways to brighten up the day and have a little fun, particularly if we could play a practical joke on the pongos – our not very complimentary nickname for soldiers. On one of these exercises four of our Swordfish were to play the role of enemy aircraft. The army was going to be storming the beach from landing craft and at a crucial moment we were going to dive-bomb the troops. They would then be expected to get into their positions to set up what anti-aircraft defences they had and deal with casualties. Having been briefed on the exercise the day before, we decided that we would make it a little more realistic for them. We spent the next few hours raiding the cookhouse and the sickbay. From the cookhouse we took sacks of flour, which we divided up into smaller paper bags. We debated taking potatoes, but someone pointed out that they could cause serious injury if they were dropped from any height. In the sickbay we liberated a large number of condoms and filled them with water.