I Sank The Bismarck (13 page)

The Swordfish landed on at 1315, by which time the Italian
ships had abandoned the fight and were heading at maximum
speed for Cagliari on the Sardinian coast. They were still
being shadowed by a Swordfish with an observer, my friend
Sub-Lieutenant Henry 'Maxie' Mayes, and he reported at
around 1330 that he had been fired on by an Italian cruiser, a
San Giorgio class, which was stationary in the water, and it
appeared that there was a fire in the after part of the ship. He
thought that she had been hit by a large shell in the after
turret. Mayes circled her for about half an hour before heading
back to the
Ark.

While the first torpedo attack had been taking place, there
was another round of intense activity to prepare aircraft for a
second attack. At 1410 nine Swordfish took off in pursuit of
the Italian battleships. On the bridge they decided that they
would prepare a force of Skua aircraft to carry out a dive-bombing
attack on the stricken cruiser that Mayes had seen
on fire. This decision was a risky one. Some of the Fulmars in
the air had already made contact with Italian bombers
approaching the fleet at around 10,000 feet, and detaching
the Skuas to carry out a dive-bombing exercise would leave
Force H with just one squadron of Fulmars for air defence.
Moreover, most of the crews had carried out at least one if not
two patrols already.

Twenty minutes after the second wave of Swordfish took
off, ten Italian bombers staged an attack on
Renown
and
Force H. They dropped a long stick of bombs from a height
of 13,000 feet, the closest of which exploded over a mile
away, but, sadly, one Fulmar was shot down. The Italian
battleships were continuing their dash to the Sardinian coast,
and if there had been any damage caused by the first attack it
was not apparent when the second wave of Swordfish
approached them, led by 820 Squadron's CO, Lt Commander
Stewart-Moore. They approached from the west, and by this
time they were coming out of the sun. Stewart-Moore saw that
the battleships were in the lead, escorted by ten destroyers,
followed by the three cruisers and four more destroyers. He
had been told by Commander Traill, the commander air, that
he should go for the battleships if possible, but ultimately to
use his own judgement. At the back of both the commander
air's and Stewart-Moore's minds was the relative inexperience
of most of his pilots compared to those in the first wave. He
looked at the position of the ships and realized that, if he
wanted to continue his approach to the battleships in the van
of the Italian ships, he would be seen by their escorting
cruisers, who would have plenty of time to raise the alarm. He
would also be vulnerable to their anti-aircraft fire as his
Swordfish flew past them at a relative speed of just 50 knots.
However, the final fact that influenced him was that they were
now only about 30 nautical miles from Sardinia and he could
see Italian aircraft circling over Cagliari. If he delayed until he
could reach the battleships, then he would be placing his
Swordfish in danger of attack from Italian fighters. He elected
to attack the cruisers, and signalled the other nine aircraft of
his intentions.

They went down in a shallow dive from 10,000 feet, then
about 2 miles out dived to the surface, where they made their
approach. The forward cruiser was shielded by the destroyers,
so Stewart-Moore picked the last cruiser in line and dropped
his torpedo. By now the cruisers were alerted and were firing
at him. They changed course, turning into the attack, and
the following Swordfish turned also to keep them beam on.
The cruisers executed a broad circle and, as they did so, all the
torpedoes were dropped. The destroyers were also firing and
the Swordfish zigzagged away to avoid the anti-aircraft shells.
As they made their getaway, several of the observers thought
they could see a mound of water rise up along the side of the
cruiser, as if it had been caused by an underwater explosion,
and brown smoke poured out of one of the funnels, but they
saw nothing else to indicate that a torpedo had scored a hit.

Seven Skuas had taken off from the
Ark
at 1500 hours to
administer the
coup de grâce
to the damaged stationary
cruiser that Sub-Lieutenant Mayes had sighted earlier. When
they got to the reported position, however, they found
nothing, so continued to search. About 6 miles away they saw
another group of three cruisers, of the Condotierri class,
armed with 6in guns. They were steaming in line astern at
about 16 knots and were, it seems, entirely separate from
those attacked by the Swordfish led by Stewart-Moore. The
Skuas climbed to 9,000 feet, then dived on the warships,
which were taken completely by surprise. The bombs were
dropped on the last cruiser of the trio at around 900 feet, but
out of seven 500lb bombs aimed at this ship, no hits were
seen. As they flew away, pursued by bursting shells from the
cruisers, they saw a wide oil slick, but nothing to indicate that
the damaged cruiser they had originally been looking for had
sunk.

This was the last attempt to damage the Italian warships
that day, but it was not by any means the last of the action.
Shortly after the Skuas had taken off, three waves of Italian
bombers, flying at around 14,000 feet, headed for
Ark Royal.
Each wave of five aircraft dropped ten bombs, and they fell
extremely close; at one point enormous gouts of water were
cascading on to the flight deck from both sides of the ship.
The noise of the explosions and the fire from the sixteen 4.5in
anti-aircraft guns was deafening. The
Ark
steamed furiously
through the bombardment, heeling over in sharp turns, avoiding
stick after stick of bombs plummeting down. The ship's
photographer had some photos of the
Ark
taken from
Renown,
and she was completely obscured by the explosions.
When I saw them later, I wondered how long it would be
before I was in an attack like this.

After the last attack by the Skuas, and this retaliatory
attack on the
Ark
by the Italian bombers, Admiral Somerville
did not pursue the Italian fleet as it retreated. Their warships
were faster by several knots than
Renown
and the British
cruisers. He was also concerned that to try to close on them
would inevitably take Force H and the
Ark
very close to the
airbases in Sardinia.
Ark Royal
was his biggest asset in Force
H, and if she were lost then Gibraltar might as well close
down. He considered it his main duty to continue to protect
the three cargo ships and the troop-carrying cruisers, escorting
them to where they could be handed over to the
Mediterranean Fleet, which had steamed out of Alexandria to
meet them.

It was Somerville's decision to abandon the pursuit of the
Italian fleet that led to calls in London for his court martial,
and the convening of a court of inquiry into his conduct.
Everybody in Force H was 100 per cent behind him, of
course. As part of this inquiry, evidence was also taken from
the COs and pilots of the squadrons that attacked the fleet.
There had been three attacks by aircraft from
Ark Royal,
but
two separate torpedo attacks by twenty Swordfish and a dive-bomber
attack by seven Skuas had failed to slow any of the
Italian ships down.

It was an unsatisfactory result, and the general feeling was
that there were two problems. Many of the pilots in the
Swordfish squadrons were inexperienced. There was also a
lack of training in torpedo attacks. The Swordfish squadrons
were stretched, with patrol, reconnaissance and antisubmarine
duties to be performed throughout the day, and
there was little time to devote to training. I gathered this was
going to change, and we were scheduled to do more of it. But
there was a general feeling as well that there was a problem
with torpedo attacks on high-speed targets. The results were
not as decisive as had been expected during peacetime
exercises. Many in the wardroom felt that there might be
something wrong with the torpedoes, but nobody was in a
position to do anything about it.

I felt that the inquiry was a bit of a cheek. The target, of
course, was Rear Admiral Somerville, but it was felt to be a
veiled criticism of
Ark Royal,
particularly as many questions
were asked about orders given for the attack and the tactics
adopted. I didn't take part, but questions were asked of some
of the pilots that suggested that the admirals on the board of
inquiry didn't know very much about flying, or about torpedo
attacks. Everyone carried on as normal, of course, but there
was a sense that something was being left unsaid. Fortunately,
the court of inquiry exonerated Somerville of any
wrongdoing.

The mood on the
Ark
was affected not only by the court of
inquiry sitting in Gibraltar, but by the news of a stunning
attack on the Italian fleet at its harbour in Taranto. I was still
in Arbroath at the time, waiting for a posting to a front-line
squadron. I was very excited, as was everyone in the Fleet Air
Arm, because at the time it looked like a real knock-out blow.
In our view it showed how vital naval aviation was, and how
much of a threat a properly trained squadron of torpedo
bombers could be. At last, we thought, the navy will wake up
and begin to take notice of us. When I got on to the
Ark,
however,
there was a slightly different attitude. Everyone was very
pleased, of course, with the success of the attack, but there
was also a feeling that the spotlight of publicity had shifted
away a bit from the glamour boys of
Ark Royal,
especially as
the efforts against the Italian warships in November had not
resulted in any losses on their part. But this operation and the
earlier attack on
Strasbourg
had been spur-of-the-moment
things, rapidly assembled groups of aircraft flown off to
intervene in the middle of a surface action. The raid on
Taranto, on the other hand, had been planned for years.

The Mediterranean was a very important area for Britain.
Our interest in it had never diminished since Nelson beat
Napoleon in 1798 in the Battle of the Nile. Egypt and the Suez
Canal gave access to the Middle East and India, so control of
the route from Gibraltar through the Med was vital. The
Mediterranean Fleet before the war had been second in size
only to our Home Fleet. To be in command of it was an
important step to very high rank in the navy.

When Mussolini came to power in Italy he wanted to
expand the Italian empire in North Africa and the Horn, and
started to build up the Italian navy. The Italians began modernizing
Their First World War battleships and building new
ones. Their submarine fleet, in particular, became very large.
In short, Italian influence in the Mediterranean was expanding
and there was a good chance that they would soon
challenge Britain for control of the sea.

Admiral Sir Dudley Pound was in charge of the
Mediterranean Fleet in 1935 and, before he moved on to
become First Sea Lord in the Admiralty under Churchill, he
started drawing up plans to attack the
Italian fleet if it ever
came to war. There were several important ports around the
Italian coast, but Mussolini had promoted the construction of
a major new one in the town of Taranto, a natural harbour in
the large Bay of Taranto inside the heel of Italy. It was
naturally defendable and with the construction of large breakwaters
to create an outer harbour it was hard to attack in any
way other than from the air.

In 1938, at the time of the Munich crisis, Pound's plan was
looked at again by Captain Arthur
Lyster, who was then in
command of
HMS
Glorious,
at the time attached to the
Mediterranean Fleet. As a result of his concern about an
alliance between Germany and Italy, Lyster started to put
some of the groundwork of the plan into place. The two
squadrons of Swordfish on board
Glorious
started carrying
out exercises in night flying, and nighttime torpedo attacks.
They started to look at improvements in launch and recovery
techniques, and after two months Lyster and his commander
air came to the conclusion that, with the right preparation, a
surprise attack on Taranto was possible.
Glorious,
however,
was later replaced by HMS
Eagle
in the Mediterranean Fleet
and was sent with the
Ark
to operate off Norway, where of
course she was sunk by
Scharnhorst
in June 1940.

The Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean needed to be
strengthened and, in August, HMS
Illustrious
was sent down
from the UK, travelling through the Med to help boost the air
cover available for
Admiral Andrew Cunningham's fleet in
Alexandria.
Illustrious
was a modern carrier, designed and
built after
Ark Royal
expressly to serve in the Mediterranean.
The proximity of
Italian airbases caused the Admiralty to call
for a carrier that would be better protected against air attack,
so
Illustrious,
and all the carriers that followed her, were
designed with armoured flight decks, armoured anti-aircraft
gun turrets and a thick belt of armour around the hull.
Because of this increased weight above the waterline, she had
to be built with a single hangar deck to reduce her freeboard.
The consequence, however, was that she could not carry as
many planes as the
Ark
and had a total complement of just
thirty-six aircraft. On board
Illustrious
was the man who had
worked on the fine planning of the Taranto operation,
Captain Lyster, who had now been promoted to Rear Admiral
and was going to take command of both
Illustrious
and
Eagle
under Cunningham. With both carriers, Lyster thought that
he had enough Swordfish aircraft to carry out an attack on
the Italian fleet in its harbour.

A lot of preparations had to be made before the plan could
be set in motion. Lyster did what he did when he was in
Glorious
in 1938: set in motion a programme for the aircrew,
deck-handlers and riggers to be trained in night operations.
There are a lot of extra dangers when the aircraft are brought
up out of the hangar and ranged at the end of the flight
deck at night. Any mistake, stumble or misjudgement could
damage a plane or kill or injure someone.

It took several weeks before Lyster was confident that the
planes could be assembled and take off safely, and that they
could navigate and recognize their target in the dark. Once
the crews were in an efficient state, good reconnaissance
was the next essential. The attack would be successful only if
there were sufficient Italian warships at anchor in the
harbour. The RAF flew regular reconnaissance missions over
Taranto from Malta, using American Glenn Martin bombers,
and the photographs that they were bringing back showed
that the harbour was full, with plenty of valuable targets. The
strike was planned for 21 October, Trafalgar Day, when there
would be a full moon.

Then, with a few days to go, a fierce fire broke out in
Illustrious
's hangar deck, destroying several of the Swordfish
that were needed for the attack. The attack was postponed
until another full moon.

It was fortunate that it was, because the continued reconnaissance
flights now showed that there had been some
drastic improvements in the air defences around Taranto. The
Italians were increasing their number of anti-aircraft gun
emplacements and they had put sixty barrage balloons
around the outer harbour, with a line of them moored from
barges in the middle of the harbour. In addition, they had
lowered some torpedo nets around the battleships moored
there to create a defensive enclave on the eastern side of the
port. This meant that there was a very limited line of
approach for the Swordfish to get a clear shot at their targets.

The operation was now scheduled for 11 November, when
again a few days before there was another problem, this time
in
Eagle
's fuel-storage system, which supplied petrol for the
Swordfish. It had sprung several leaks and was in need of
urgent maintenance. Several Swordfish from
Eagle
had
carried out forced landings because their fuel was contaminated
by seawater, and it was clear that
Eagle
could no
longer take part in the operation. In order to prevent any
more delays, five of her Swordfish and eight of her most
experienced crews were embarked on to
Illustrious.
A total of
twenty-one aircraft were going to take part in the attack, and
those from 813 and 824 Squadrons on
Eagle
were included in
the second wave of nine Swordfish.

At 2200 on the 11th
Illustrious
was in position to begin the
take-off of the first wave. Some last-minute information from
a late reconnaissance flight had revealed that a sixth battleship
had just anchored. The aircraft had been fitted with
auxiliary tanks to give them extra range. These were installed
in the cockpit where the observer normally sat, so the
observer moved into the TAG's seat. These tanks were ramshackle
things; I remember they quite often leaked, and it was
not a comfortable feeling to think that 60 gallons of high-octane
fuel were right behind you.

The Swordfish took off, but the last one of the last flight
was damaged in a collision on the flight deck and needed
repairs to its fabric covering. The crew were anxious to get
away and pressured the riggers to hurry up. The plane was
repaired and they took off on their own thirty minutes later.
There was enormous expectation about this raid: it was a
major attack against the Italian navy and everybody involved
was completely keyed up. After the weeks and weeks of training,
nobody wanted to be left behind.

The large battleships and cruisers in the Italian fleet were
moored in the outer harbour, and the first wave of the attack
was going to split up so that the planes could approach the
ships from two different directions. Hopefully, it would divide
the anti-aircraft defences by giving them two different targets
to aim for. The leader of the second wave, Lt Commander
Hale, decided that he would keep all nine of his aircraft in one
formation, make an approach from the north-west and then
turn south. Approaching at this angle meant that they would
increase their chances of hitting one of the ships at its mooring,
because their silhouettes overlapped each other: it would
be like hitting fish in a barrel. It did, however, mean flying
over a concentration of anti-aircraft guns and then through a
line of barrage balloons.

As they flew over the sea at 7,000 feet, they entered thick
cloud and were suddenly flying blind, relying on their instruments
to maintain a straight and level course. When they
passed into clear sky again, four of the Swordfish were no
longer to be seen. There was nothing to do but hope they
would find Taranto, so the diminished group pressed on. As
they got closer they could see that the anti-aircraft defences
were already alert and firing shells and tracer into the night
sky. The sky ahead over Taranto looked like a giant fireworks
display. One of the missing aircraft had been flying faster than
its companions and had reached the target first.

The leader of the first wave,
Lt Commander Williamson,
flew parallel to the outer breakwater, then turned and dived
to release his torpedo. As he turned to get away, he was hit by
machine-gun fire and lost control, the Swordfish plunging
into the water. Luckily, he and his observer were not injured;
they were rescued and became prisoners-of-war. His torpedo,
however, hit the water, functioned perfectly and motored
towards its target. It struck the battleship
Cavour
just forward
of the bridge and the ship started to settle in the water.

The next aircraft of the first wave were now desperately
jinking to avoid the exploding shells and tracer, the whole
area was surrounded by winking flashes of gunfire pointed in
their direction, and they were in no position to be fussy about
their targets. Two torpedoes missed
Cavour,
exploding harmlessly.
Lieutenant Kemp flew in low along a line of cruisers
that began firing on him. He held his plane steady and
launched his torpedo at a huge ship looming in front of him.
It ran true and tore a hole that was later found to be 49 feet
long in
Littorio.
Another pilot,
Lieutenant Swayne, chose a
different course, coming at
Littorio
from the other side. He
too had a hit and
Littorio
's hull was ripped open again. Some
of the Swordfish were armed with bombs and they took what
targets they could identify.
Captain Ollie Patch dropped his
bombs in a steep dive on a cluster of destroyers in the inner
harbour and got away as quick as he could. Another
Swordfish couldn't identify any ships, so dropped his bombs
on the seaplane base, where there was a huge explosion and
the hangars and fuel tanks started blazing furiously into the
night sky.

The second wave had to fly into this mayhem. They were
detected some way out and the defenders' fire was redoubled.
One of the aircraft released flares, shining bright white
magnesium light over the whole harbour. The pilots could
smell the reek of burning petrol and gunsmoke. Hale, the
leader, also aimed for
Littorio
and succeeded in ripping a
third hole in her. The second plane in to the attack, flown by
Lieutenant Bayly, was hit and crashed near
Gorizia.
His body
was recovered the next day, but his observer, Lieutenant
Slaughter, was never found. Another torpedo found
Duilio
and blasted open her hull below the waterline. The crew,
already desperately working up the ship in preparation to
escape the inferno, realized that there was no alternative but
to beach her to stop her sinking altogether.

Lieutenant John Wellham had taken off in the last wave. As
he flew close to the harbour he started his dive, but nearly
collided with a barrage balloon at 4,000 feet. He did a tight
downward turn, then tried to straighten up. As he did so he
felt the control stick almost ripped out of his hand and found
that he could not lift the port wing. Something, a cable from
the balloon or a piece of shrapnel, had damaged his aircraft,
but it was impossible to say what. He struggled for control of
the Swordfish but, when he managed to regain some response
to the stick, he realized that he had been losing height and was
diving straight into the city of Taranto. He levelled out into a
right turn, but found that the plane would fly only with one
wing down and at a slight yawing angle. It was not ideal for
an accurate torpedo drop, but he pressed on and, with every
gun in Taranto apparently firing at him, he dropped his
torpedo at what he hoped was
Vittorio Veneto,
then zigzagged
wildly and headed for the clear night sky as fast as he
could. He was hit again, but got away and turned towards the
position where they would rendezvous with
Illustrious.
He
managed to get down on to the flight deck, but once in the
hangar his rigger found that his port aileron rod was split in
two and there was a jagged hole in the lower port wing. A
large piece of metal had broken several wing ribs and cut the
controls. He had been lucky.