I Sank The Bismarck Read online

  Next morning we took to the air, with the observers carrying haversackloads of flour-and-water bombs to launch at the poor lads struggling up the beach. We arrived over the exercise area and there below us were the landing craft, just grinding through the breakers, their ramps crashing down and the army charging out of them. Thunder flashes were going off and there was the noise of gunfire – blanks, fortunately – from some of the machine guns that had been set up. We were to commence our dive-bombing attack five minutes into the landing. To our surprise, the army was accompanied by a naval officer in his blue uniform with shiny black gaiters. He was obviously acting as the beachmaster, the officer in charge of the landing area, responsible for the unloading and organization of immediate supplies and ammunition stocks. Without any communication between us at all, we immediately realized that we had the perfect target, and in turn we took our Swordfish down into a dive directly at him. In an instant his lovely uniform was covered in sticky white flour, while he stood impotently shaking his fists at us.

  Extremely well pleased with ourselves, we formatted on to Shaggy, the CO, to return to Machrihanish. As we turned over the harbour at Campbeltown to make our approach, his engine started faltering and he began to lose height. I continued to follow him, with Shaggy standing up in the observer's position waving desperately at me to shear off. I would have none of it, thinking I would do the decent thing and keep him company, when I realized that his Swordfish was going to land in Campbeltown harbour and I was going to follow him. He had run out of petrol. He went down and down and down. I pulled up as his Swordfish hit the sea with a splash. I flew on, landed at Machrihanish and couldn't wait to tell everyone the news: 'The CO has landed in the water at Campbeltown. Drinks all round – Shaggy is buying.' He got his own back the next day, however, because I was ordered to go to the diving school established by the navy in Campbeltown, where I had to assist with the recovery of the aircraft. All day I stood on a pontoon as the divers secured ropes and buoys to the Swordfish, which was stuck in the mud 30 feet below the water. By the time the main plane appeared out of the murk, I was absolutely chilled through and through.

  There were no official repercussions from our attack on the beachmaster, although we never tried it again. The exercises continued throughout the time I was in Machrihanish and I was to learn later that they were preparations for landings at Diego Suarez in Madagascar. The art of amphibious landings was in its infancy. All the landing craft, with their ramps or with big bows that opened to unload troops or tanks, were quite new inventions and were still being developed.

  In September I was taken out of 818 Squadron yet again and drafted on to that old floating shoebox, Argus – although this time I got on board without having to resort to a fast motorboat as the carrier steamed out to sea. I was one of two Swordfish crews escorting a convoy bound for Gibraltar. When I got aboard I was astonished to find that there were also Wrens on the carrier. They were all of petty officer rank. This must have been the first time that Wrens had been allowed on board a warship at sea and they had the best accommodation, because all the officers in Argus, including the captain, had given over their cabins to them. They were the finest bunch of young ladies that you could imagine and as the voyage progressed they naturally became even more attractive. I struck up conversation with them as soon as I could and discovered that they were special cipher clerks on their way to work in the signals and radio listening stations on Gibraltar. They had been rushed aboard Argus because they were replacements for an original detachment of Wrens who had been killed when their passenger boat was torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay. The fate of their predecessors cannot have been a very comforting thought to them, but they seemed to cope with it admirably and they were marvellous company on the two-week voyage. If I hadn't had to go out on patrol in the Swordfish, the whole cruise would have been just marvellous.

  There was no let-up in the hunt for enemy submarines. I tried to point out to one of the Wrens, to whom I had taken a particular liking, that I was in the front line in defending them from harm and I had no doubt that, if I had been around then, their former colleagues would have arrived safe and sound in Gibraltar. As it was, I was risking life and limb every time I took off.

  Unfortunately, this line turned out to have more truth to it than I cared for. One day during the voyage we had had an uneventful patrol quartering the sea for 10 miles in front of the convoy, keeping our eyes peeled for the track of a periscope in the water, the most obvious sign of a U-boat shadowing the convoy, or for any other disturbance that might reveal a submerged wake or a fuel leak. However, as usual we had seen nothing.

  As we approached the carrier to land on, my observer received a signal asking us to drop our depth-charges astern of the convoy. They gave no reason, but we assumed that an asdic operator on one of the escort vessels had picked up some echoes that suggested a U-boat might be following us. We had no indication of where the target might be, but I turned round and made a wide circuit to do as I had been instructed.

  I flew across the combined wakes of the carrier and the merchantmen about 1 mile astern of the convoy, flying at about 50 feet above the sea, with the intention of dropping my two depth-charges in a line. It might not sink a U-boat, but the explosions might persuade the captain to stay submerged for a while longer, where his speed was reduced, or further slow him down by making him take some evasive manoeuvres.

  I pressed the button and no sooner had the depth-charges released from the racks under the wings than there was an almighty explosion and I was physically pummelled by a massive blast, the Swordfish being flung into the air from 50 feet to a height of 300 feet. A wave of very hot air engulfed us and the smell of burned explosives filled my nostrils. For some strange reason, the depth-charges had exploded on the surface of the sea, rather than at what should have been their pre-set depth in the water. The equivalent of 500lb of TNT had exploded directly underneath us with an enormous force.

  The Swordfish was wallowing around and I immediately struggled to get it under control. To my alarm, I saw that the bottom main planes had been torn open by the blast, revealing the ribs and stringers over which the canvas was stretched. There was no floor left in the cockpit and I could see down past my flying boots to the sea below.

  I had lost communication with my crew so had no idea what condition they were in. There was a good chance that they had received more of the blast than I had, but I was preoccupied with the effort to keep the Swordfish in the air. With the control column pushed as far forward as possible I could just manage to keep her level, but it took an enormous force to hold the stick forward and I had to use my feet as well as my hands. I shouted down the Gosport tube that connected me with the rear cockpit to anyone who might be listening to fire a red emergency flare. I do not know whether anyone did or not. I managed to steer a course to Argus, adjusting the height to a degree by using the throttle. As we headed for the flight deck I saw the deck landing officer vainly waving his bats, but I was in no position to respond. We were sinking fast: I thought I had misjudged my height and I was going to crash straight into the open quarterdeck beneath the flight deck at the stern. I saw some ratings start to run from their gun stations as they realized I was heading directly for them, but I managed to lift my Swordfish nose up with a blip of maximum power on the throttle. This was not a time to worry about elegance – we were yawing from side to side, and as soon as I saw that the round down was underneath us I cut the engine and we smashed down on to the metal plates of the flight deck in the heaviest landing I have ever made.

  To my relief, my observer and TAG were unharmed, although probably pretty shaken up and confused by now. They were able to drop straight out of the bottom of the fuselage on to the flight deck, for they had been hanging on in their harnesses with their feet and legs exposed to the slipstream. The bottom part of the fuselage had been completely blasted away. Later that evening my rigger and fitter asked me to meet them in the hangar. I was told to look up under my rudder bar at
the bottom of the petrol tank and there, sticking into the tank, was a large piece of shrapnel from the depth-charge casing. I was told that I was very lucky because the metal would have been red hot from the explosion. The rigger turned to me and said, 'Well, at least you know that a self-sealing petrol tank does work!'

  There was, however, some consolation to this almost fatal disaster. The Wren, who had become somewhat blasé about my line-spinning of the dangers I faced every day, had witnessed the whole incident. That evening she went out of her way to be extremely comforting. I was very sad to see her go when we got to Gibraltar.

  We escorted the next convoy back from Gibraltar to the Clyde with more anti-submarine patrols, then I was back once more with 818 Squadron, to be told that we were changing over to a new aircraft called the Albacore. This was a modernized version of the Swordfish and had an enclosed cockpit, but it did not have the handling ability of the old Stringbag. The engine, a Taurus radial, was not as reliable as the Pegasus and I don't think you would find a Swordfish pilot who preferred it.

  In November 1941 came the news that Ark Royal had been sunk coming back from another Malta supply mission. She was torpedoed just outside Gibraltar. I was extremely sad to hear this news. It was a minor miracle that all bar one man had been rescued, but I felt the loss personally. My experience of the Fleet Air Arm so far was that the Ark was a remarkable ship, not just because she was more modern than any other carrier I had served on, and more comfortable, but because I thought she was superbly well run. Someone remarked to me that on the Ark food was ready when you wanted it, not when the galley said it was. This seems a petty thing to say, but if you were a mechanic or armourer, struggling through the night to get sufficient planes ready to range on the flight deck by first light, it made a big difference if you knew that food would be available no matter how late you finished your work. The Ark had been my home for nine months, and it was on her that I felt I had won my spurs and found a maturity and pride that up to then my life had been lacking. I looked back to the time when we had turned round in a gale to launch our attack on Bismarck, superb manoeuvres as bombs and torpedoes narrowly missed us, the riggers and fitters who never gave me a duff aircraft, and I didn't think I would ever again serve on a ship that had the same easy pride in her abilities. Subsequently, talking to other former crewmembers, I knew that I wasn't the only one to think this.

  In January 1942 we were, I think, the only front-line Fleet Air Arm squadron in Britain. At the end of the month we received a signal in the duty office at Machrihanish to mobilize and head to Hatston in the Orkneys. The German battleship Tirpitz, the sister ship of Bismarck, had been moored in the German port of Kiel and reconnaissance indicated that she was no longer there. The possibility that she was trying to break out into the Atlantic like Bismarck was alarming. After Pearl Harbor, we were now fighting a war in the Pacific against the Japanese and the surface fleet was even more stretched. Prince of Wales, one of our most modern battleships, which had been part of the initial engagement with Bismarck, had been sunk by Japanese bombers along with the battlecruiser Repulse, the sister ship of Renown, our old companion in Force H.

  We flew up the Great Glen, the big glacial valley that cuts through the Highlands and carries Loch Ness, heading northeast. We encountered snow all the way up, then the weather followed us towards Wick. We eventually landed at Hatston that night. The squadron arrived in one piece, despite the poor conditions, but half the aircraft could get no hangar space. The Met office had issued a gale warning and it seemed every aircraft for miles around had landed for shelter. Eight of us ended up in perimeter bays, where we covered and tied down our aircraft as best we could.

  The gale hit Orkney that night while we were still eating in the wardroom. The temperature plummeted as the wind whistled round the buildings. We could not get to our bunks in a Nissen hut, as the snow was blowing horizontal and there was a white-out. Anyone going outside would barely be able to stand up and would inevitably get lost, with fatal consequences. So we stayed that night in the wardroom, keeping the fire going and sleeping in our uniforms on the leather-covered chairs and settees.

  Next morning the blizzard had abated, but the snowfall had been very heavy. We had to dig ourselves out of the snowdrifts that had heaped up against the doors and then trudge through 2 feet of snow down to our aircraft. We got an enormous shock, because the bays where we had left our Albacores the night before were completely empty. These aircraft, weighing over 3 tons each, had been picked up by the gale-force winds and blown for hundreds of yards, some of them as far as the waters of the bay next to the aerodrome. None of them was flyable without major repairs. There was nothing left for us to do except wait for replacement planes.

  We were stuck there for over two weeks, kicking our heels, and while I was there I heard not about Tirpitz, which had moved north to anchor again at Trondheim in Norway, but about the awful tragedy surrounding the escape of the two German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. I had searched for these two raiders over thousands of square miles of Atlantic Ocean, until an aircraft from Ark Royal had finally found them, but it was too late – there was not enough daylight left to mount an attack. So they had escaped us and had made it safely to the French harbour at Brest. A month or so later they were joined by Prinz Eugen, the heavy cruiser that had accompanied Bismarck.

  There these three ships had remained, with Prinz Eugen in dry dock undergoing lengthy repairs. Late in 1941 photo reconnaissance carried out by the RAF showed that Prinz Eugen was now afloat, and that the two battlecruisers had also left the dockside and were moored in the harbour. A build-up of smaller warships, including destroyers and motor torpedo boats, had been observed at Brest. Germany had to do something with these ships – the question was what? Would they make another foray into the Atlantic, to be joined by Tirpitz, and hope to pursue the mission that Bismarck set out to do? Or would they make an effort to return to port in Germany? The Admiralty had even considered the possibility, now that the Ark had been sunk, that these heavy units of the German navy might make a run through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Med to operate out of Genoa.

  British intelligence took the view that a return to a German port was most likely, but that still left open the route they would take. Over the month of January the ports all along the coast of France and Holland were the scene of increased movements by motor torpedo boats and minesweepers, and it looked as though the Germans would try to get their three big warships back home via the English Channel. This was not as absurd as it might seem, because this route would give the German navy the best air cover they could hope for during the day, and it was assumed that they would attempt passage through the Straits of Dover at night. All that remained to discover about their intentions was the date that these ships were going to put to sea. The main striking force against them, if they attempted to pass up the Channel, was going to be some twin-engined Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers operated by the RAF, but the Fleet Air Arm's 825 Squadron of Swordfish aircraft was sent to Manston airfield in Kent to take part in the attack. Under Lt Commander Esmonde, 825 had of course flown off Victorious to attack Bismarck and had then subsequently replaced 820 Squadron on Ark Royal. We had had a fine old party when they joined us in Gibraltar, and I vaguely remember winning a wrestling contest with one of their pilots, Percy Gick, later that night. When the Ark was sunk most of the squadron on board were temporarily disbanded, so 825 had only just been re-formed. With just six Swordfish, it was placed on standby, ready to intercept the German warships. The RAF constantly carried out reconnaissance patrols of the approaches to Brest harbour, so it seemed that we were ready to deal with any breakout by Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen.

  On the night of 11 February four radar-equipped RAF Hudson aircraft were patrolling the approaches to Brest, but two of them suffered an equipment failure. In one of those horrible coincidences, the three large German warships slipped out to sea at the same time, accompanied by a fleet of almost thirty dest
royers and fast torpedo boats. This nighttime move took us completely by surprise. The assumption had always been that the Germans would seek the cover of night to negotiate the Straits of Dover, and in order to obtain this they would have to leave Brest and sail up the western approaches in daylight, giving the Royal Navy and the RAF ample time to intercept them. Leaving Brest when they did meant that they would be in the Channel at Dover in broad daylight, but their departure had given them an advantage of secrecy which they were now able to continue to exploit. The large number of ships steaming around the Cape of Ushant and up the Channel was observed twice by us. The first time they were spotted by two reconnaissance Spitfires, but their pilots assumed it was just one of our large convoys; and the second time the RAF pilots who saw the ships recognized them for what they were but did not report their sighting until they had landed for fear of breaking radio silence! All the forces that had been mobilized to stop the German warships were now caught on the back foot and were desperately struggling to regain the initiative. There was still snow on the ground when at 1055 on the 12th, 825 Squadron at the RAF base in Manston received news of the German ships' approach up the Channel.

  Esmonde quickly got most of his crews together, although one of the six Swordfish was carrying out some practice torpedo drops in Pegwell Bay, and the armourers and ground crew started loading torpedoes and topping off the fuel tanks of the five at Manston. A joint attack with the Beaufort torpedo bombers from Thorney Island near Chichester, part of the original plan, now seemed very difficult to execute. There was just not enough time to coordinate the routes, radio frequencies and rendezvous times.