I Sank The Bismarck (12 page)

Two days after we had left Gibraltar we were in position. I
was not scheduled for any flying duties, so I had got up to
observe the take-off. One thing that I was beginning to
appreciate was how busy the flight deck of a carrier was. At
daybreak three Swordfish were ranged at the end of the flight
deck for take-off, to carry out the first of the
anti-submarine
patrols ahead of the small fleet of ships. A permanent patrol
was maintained throughout the day, so every two hours
Swordfish were landing and taking off. In addition, other
Swordfish would be launched to patrol an area and inspect
any ships in the vicinity, and to look out for enemy vessels. As
the
Ark
got closer to Sicily, where a large number of enemy
aircraft were based, Skuas and Fulmars were launched to
maintain a combat air patrol, ready to intercept any enemy
bombers picked up on
Sheffield
's radar. When we were at
heightened readiness, there might be sixty or more landings
and take-offs during the day.

On this particular morning the Swordfish took off on their
first patrol, and then the two Skuas were in the air, circling
while the Swordfish bound for Malta set off east into the early
dawn. Long before they had vanished from sight, the ships
had turned and we were heading back to Gibraltar. Later that
day we received a warning that a fleet of enemy aircraft was
approaching, so two sections of Fulmar fighters were
launched to intercept them. They broke up the formation and
I saw the Italian planes drop their bombs some way away,
sending up great spouts of smoke and seawater, the
explosions reverberating in the distance. My first taste of
action in the Med.

When we returned to harbour I was told by my CO that I
was scheduled to carry out my first anti-submarine patrol,
keeping a close lookout in the Straits not only for enemy submarines
but for any strange cargo ships that might be entering
the Spanish port of Algeciras on the other side of the bay. I
was going to use one of the two catapults built into the front
of the flight deck, as I had never carried out a catapult launch
before and needed the experience. These could rapidly
accelerate the plane to its flying speed. I sat in the cockpit, the
engine running at full boost, and when I was sure that the oil
pressure, the revs and everything were fine, I gave a signal and
an engineering artificer in the walkway at the side of the flight
deck released a lever. I shot forward, there was a slight dip
and then I was slowly climbing, leaving the ship behind me.
Another first!

Like all the other aircrew, I was also expected to carry out
ship's duties, like inspections, and quite often be officer of the
watch in harbour. Many of my colleagues in the Fleet Air Arm
found this irksome, but I did not mind; it helped us to become
part of the ship.

It was not long before I was listed to make an appearance
on the bridge, which caused me some anxious moments, as I
had forgotten most of what I had learned about seamanship
in my first months at St Vincent. When I arrived I was aghast
to see so many senior officers standing around. I resolved to
make myself as inconspicuous as possible, but the captain,
'Hooky' Holland, noticing a new face, asked me my name. I
replied, then he said, 'Well, Lieutenant Moffat, would you
report to me how many cables we are from
Renown
?' I must
have looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights at this
question. Thankfully, a nearby lieutenant commander noticed
my panic and said, 'I think this is what you are looking for,
Moffat,' and helped me unship a portable viewfinder with
which I could read off the range of our flagship,
Renown.
After a bit of fumbling I was able to make my report to the
captain. He thanked me with a slight grin on his face.

My other duty when I was not flying was to go to action
stations to man one of the ship's clusters of 0.5in machine
guns. Strangely, this duty influenced my flying, as I will
explain later.

It took me a few days to realize that Force H and its
commanding officer Admiral Somerville had been under a
cloud for the past few weeks. Nobody on the
Ark
was pleased
about this. Somerville was extremely popular, and respected –
two things which don't always go hand in hand. He had been
labouring with two courts of inquiry because of recent
operations. The first was a delivery of twelve Hurricanes, plus
two Skuas to guide them, to Malta on 17 November 1940.
Only four Hurricanes and one of the Skuas managed to reach
the island. There was no sign of the other aircraft, and the
nine pilots plus the observer from the Skua were all missing.
There was little hope that they would be found. It seemed
that there was no hard evidence why so many of these planes
had gone missing; it was assumed that they had hit a strong
headwind and run out of fuel.

The second, more serious inquiry was into a
convoy and
involved some of
Ark Royal
's squadrons. The operation, this
time at the end of November, was to escort some merchant
ships and over a thousand members of the RAF to Alexandria
in Egypt. The RAF men were embarked on two cruisers, HMS
Manchester
and
Southampton,
which, because of the large
number of passengers they carried, were not in a position to
turn and fight if there were any attacks from the
Italian navy.
These convoys were not like the large, slow collections of
merchant ships that steamed across the Atlantic. The
Mediterranean was in many respects a far more hostile area,
with most of it in range of shore-based aircraft in Sicily and
Sardinia. There were Italian submarines on the lookout for
targets and, whilst these tended to gather in the narrow
waters to the south of Sicily, where any ships bound for
Malta had to pass, they were quite capable of lying in wait
anywhere in the western Mediterranean. There was also a
threat from the surface warships of the Italian navy, which
possessed several fast cruisers and battleships. The dangers
were great, so cargo and supplies for the British forces in
Egypt were sent via the long route round the Cape of
Good Hope. The convoys that we escorted through the
Mediterranean were small, generally composed of fast
modern merchant vessels carrying very urgent strategic
cargoes.

In the
Ark
we did not necessarily see the ships we were
escorting, because Force H would take up a screening position
between them and the north-east, from where the main threat
was expected to come. The Italian and German air wings
based in Sicily and Sardinia would have reconnaissance planes
searching for us within a day of our leaving Gibraltar; if we
were spotted, then the next day there would be a concerted
effort to bomb us. It was, I gathered, usually much more
determined than the half-hearted attempt I had recently
witnessed. The general principle adopted by the Italians was
that, once Force H was sufficiently damaged, or distracted by
attacks from the air, then their surface warships would move
in on the transports. Naturally, the main target of their aircraft
was always
Ark Royal.

When I flew off on a patrol, the main task was searching
ahead of our line of advance for signs of enemy submarines,
but I might also be ordered to fly farther to gain sight of the
Italian fleet if we suspected it was at sea, or to maintain a
visual contact with the merchant ships. In all these operations
it was the Swordfish and their crews that were the workhorse
of Force H. I had volunteered to fly Swordfish because of
what I saw as their exciting torpedo-carrying role, but I
quickly learned on the
Ark
just how much flying the
Swordfish had to do, and how much of it involved patrols and
reconnaissance.

On this operation in November, which was codenamed
Operation Collar, Force H was going to escort three cargo
ships as well as the two cruisers carrying the RAF personnel.
The merchant navy ships did not stop at Gibraltar; they went
past and we had to make a rendezvous with them. On the
morning of 26 November a Swordfish was sent off to locate
them, while another flight was ranged up to be sent on
anti-submarine patrol. This pattern was kept up all during
that day.

Next morning there must have been some intelligence
report that there were enemy ships at sea. I know now that a
great number of enemy signals, both
Italian and German,
were being received and deciphered, but at the time this was
obviously secret. We were never given any information about
intelligence matters, but I do know that the
Ark
could pick up
Italian radio traffic, and if there was a lot of activity on
frequencies associated with the Italian navy, then it was easy
to draw the conclusion that something was up!

That morning nine Swordfish were sent out on a wide-ranging
patrol, searching the seas as far as 100 miles to the
east and north. These reconnaissance patrols could be a test
of endurance. You had to cover the area methodically, making
sure the navigator was keeping track of the position; he would
be constantly monitoring the wind speed and its direction so
that he could take account of drift and keep in mind the route
to be taken back to the carrier. The area on the horizon had
to be scanned, because it was important not to be close to any
ship we spotted, otherwise the target would be alerted and
would take evasive action. Once a ship was spotted, a report
was sent back to the
Ark,
and the Swordfish would then settle
down to a cat-and-mouse game of staying in contact while
trying itself to remain unnoticed, until relieved by another
aircraft.

Later that morning, one of the patrolling Swordfish from
820 Squadron signalled back to the
Ark
that it had spotted a
group of warships. Ten minutes later these were confirmed as
two battleships and an escort of destroyers. The Italian fleet
was at sea, and it was heading towards Force H.

There was immediate activity in the
Ark.
At the first report
of a sighting there were six Fulmar fighters in the air, on a
combat air patrol, and two relief shadowers were on their
way to take over trailing the Italian warships from the three
Swordfish that were still in contact. The remainder of the
reconnaissance aircraft had to be landed on, as did a third
section of fighters that needed refuelling. As soon as these aircraft
landed, a strike force of Swordfish had to be ranged and
launched. The Fulmars landing on would be taken down on
the forward deck-lift, where they could be re-armed and
refuelled in the hangar decks, while the Swordfish would be
brought up on the rear deck-lift. They had been armed with
torpedoes the night before in readiness, all nine of them, and
they were ready to go. Two more Swordfish were now armed
and made ready.

Meanwhile, the crews were being briefed and told about
their expected targets. The latest information was that, as well
as the two battleships with their escort of destroyers, there
was another group, some miles way, of three heavy cruisers
also protected by destroyers, bringing the total possibly to as
many as seventeen warships. This was a sizeable fleet, bigger
by far than Force H. The observers quickly mugged up on the
identification silhouettes, the pilots checked the latest weather
updates, and the TAGs made sure that Force H and
Ark Royal
had the up-to-date identification codes for friendly ships. The
orders from the commander air to the operation leader, who
was
Lt Commander Mervyn 'Johnnie' Johnstone of 810
Squadron, were to
attack the battleships if at all possible, and
because of this the torpedoes had been set to run at a depth of
34 feet. This was the second torpedo strike from the
Ark
in
just five months.

When the crews came out on to the flight deck the folding
wings were already locked in place and the riggers and
mechanics made final checks while waiting to start up the
engines. All the propellers were turning before the attack
leader would start his take-off. The noise was overpowering,
and the aircraft behind the leaders trembled in their propeller
wash. None of the riggers and other ratings manhandling the
aircraft was on their feet at this point; they were kneeling by
the chocks, keeping their heads down, trying to prevent themselves
from being blown over.

Then one by one they were off. The signal to prepare for an
attack was received on the
Ark
at 1030; in an hour the planes
in the air had been recovered and eleven swordfish had been
launched and were on their way to attack the Italian fleet.

In the meantime,
Renown
and the rest of Force H were
steaming at full speed towards the enemy, preparing to open
fire once they were in range. The guns of both sides started
firing while the Swordfish were still twenty minutes away, and
they could see the first British shells landing, the second salvo
in amongst the cruisers. Then the Italian cruisers stopped
firing and started laying down a thick smokescreen. The two
Italian battleships had not yet begun to fire, but instead were
still steaming towards Force H, and the attacking Swordfish
approached them at about 6,000 feet. They were identified as
Vittorio Veneto
and
Giulio Cesare.
Lt Commander Mervyn
Johnstone went into the dive and launched his torpedo at the
rear battleship from about 1,500 feet, then pulled away. The
remainder of the Swordfish aimed at the forward battleship.
There was heavy gunfire from the battleships and the escorting
destroyers, but none of the Swordfish was hit. Some of the
pilots saw a column of brown smoke rise up from the far side
of the leading battleship, but it wasn't until they all returned
to the
Ark
that they could be debriefed and a possible hit on
one of the targets was reported to the captain of
Ark Royal
and Admiral Somerville on
Renown.