I Sank The Bismarck (25 page)

I saw fifteen Swordfish aircraft take off from the deck of
Ark
Royal,
still not certain whether they were heading for
Bismarck
or
Prinz Eugen,
but within a few minutes one of
them, flown by Nigel Gardner, had to return to make an
emergency landing, its torpedo still fastened under the
fuselage. The plane was heavy, with a full load of fuel as well
as the torpedo, but its Pegasus engine was failing and there
was no time to wait to jettison the weapon safely. It landed
without any damage to the undercarriage and was quickly
taken down in the lift for work to be done on the engine.
There were still fourteen planes flying towards the target,
however. It had been part of the original plan of attack to fly
off a section of Fulmar fighters to create a diversion and confuse
the anti-aircraft-gun controllers in
Bismarck,
but the
weather conditions had been so foul that this had been abandoned.
The weather was still very bad over the target, and the
rain squalls that continually engulfed the Swordfish cut visibility
to almost zero.

A Swordfish in the lead section was equipped with air-to-surface
radar, capable of informing the observer of the
presence of a ship and its bearing from the aircraft. Twenty
miles from the expected position of
Bismarck,
the airborne
radar indicated a substantial target. The flight leader signalled
to the rest of the
Swordfish that they were going to descend
through the cloud and make an attack. Down they went, exiting
the cloud layer to find the warship practically dead ahead.
They flew lower and sought out their prearranged bearings
from which to drop their torpedoes. There was no antiaircraft
fire, and the guns of the warship continued to remain
silent as the first and then the second section dropped their
torpedoes. The ship was travelling fast, the hot exhaust gases
and hints of smoke whipping away from her twin funnels as
she steamed in an easterly direction. As the torpedoes entered
the water, the ship rapidly went to full speed ahead, seeming
almost to leap forward in the water, and at the same time she
turned her bows in an attempt to comb the tracks of the
torpedoes heading towards her. There were two explosions at
a distance as two of the unreliable Duplex warheads exploded
harmlessly in the water.

Several torpedo tracks seemed to travel underneath the
ship, but there was no explosion. Three more explosions came
in her wake and then, as the last section came into the attack,
the observer in the lead aircraft saw that a signal light was
flashing from the bridge. It was repeating the pennant number
for HMS
Sheffield.
Captain Larcom, the cruiser's captain,
successfully conned
Sheffield
through the tracks of the
remaining torpedoes without suffering any injury and
resumed his course to make contact with
Bismarck,
as he had
been ordered to do by Rear Admiral Somerville two hours
earlier. The final section of Swordfish pulled away and, as
they flew over
Sheffield,
a ship that had been a constant
companion of
Ark Royal
since the Norwegian campaign and
should have been easily recognized, the TAG in the last
Swordfish signalled, 'Sorry for the kipper.' I don't know what
went on in the minds of the Swordfish crews as they flew
back. They must have had a sense of utter failure, tempered
by relief that they had not sunk
Sheffield.
The emotions of the
crew on board
Sheffield
also do not bear thinking about.
The language was probably strong enough to melt the deck
head.

The fourteen Swordfish returned to
Ark Royal.
The three
torpedoes that remained slung under the fuselages of the last
section of aircraft had to be jettisoned before it was safe for
them to land on the pitching flight deck. One of them failed
to release – I remember how, when the Swordfish carrying it
landed on, this particular torpedo finally came free from the
fuselage and careered up and down the deck with sparks
flying off it. In a moment the flight deck was deserted. I
looked up from where I was standing in the deck level on the
starboard side at the stern to watch the torpedo rolling from
side to side. The commander air literally screamed over the
tannoy: 'Torpedo party report on deck and catch that bloody
torpedo!' It was one time when we all thanked God that the
Duplex pistols in the warheads were so unreliable.

There were naturally some rather hard questions asked of
the flight leader and the other pilots as they squeezed into the
briefing room. Their attack had almost proved an utter
disaster, at a time when the
Ark
and her Swordfish were in
such a crucial position in the action against
Bismarck.
Feelings were running very high, and one observer reported to
the operations officer, 'It was a perfect attack: right height,
right range, right cloud cover, right speed and the wrong
fucking ship!'

In their defence, the flight had not been told about
Sheffield
's presence. Somerville's signal to her and to the
Admiralty sending her forward to trail
Bismarck,
which had
been merely copied to the
Ark,
had not been deciphered in
time. None the less, it was extremely worrying that eleven of
the pilots had mistaken a very familiar 9,000-ton cruiser with
two funnels for a 50,000-ton battleship with one. Force H's
report to Admiral Tovey about the success of the attack made
no mention at all of the near
destruction of a British cruiser,
stating merely that
Bismarck
had received no hits.

Time was now running out and we had to get a second
strike in if we were to have any chance of stopping
Bismarck
or salvaging our reputations. There was a serious concern that
we didn't make a mess of this again. By now we were under
no illusions about how important this was to the navy, and to
Churchill, and we felt under enormous pressure to pull it off.
But we knew that if we did find the right target it would not
be like attacking
Sheffield
again.
Bismarck
was a powerful
and well-defended battleship. The previous attack by 825
Squadron from
Victorious
had shown that she could just
shrug off direct hits, and the anti-aircraft fire would be very
hot indeed.

I knew that we would be making another strike that day –
I had been expecting it even if the first one had managed to
attack
Bismarck.
We were short of available aircraft, so many
of those that had just returned would have to be used again.
This time the attack was to be led by Tim Coode, my CO in
818, and I was to fly; in fact, I was second aircraft in his
section. Amidst all the tumult, I felt quietly proud. While the
Swordfish were being refuelled and re-armed, we met and had
a final briefing about the mission. I was told that the
Ark
would be moving closer to
Bismarck.
We would need to find
Sheffield
first and she would give us a bearing on to the target.
By the time we were in the air above her, it was expected that
she would be in visual touch with
Bismarck.
In fact, she saw
her on her radar at about 1745. There would also be some of
our destroyers between the
Ark
and
Sheffield,
and we had to
be aware of them.
Sheffield
would be making her call sign on
the radio to help us in direction-finding, but we would also
have some of the Swordfish fitted with radar with us.

The CO told us that he wanted to change the fuses on our
torpedo warheads from the magnetic Duplex ones to contact
pistols. Eleven torpedoes had been fired at
Sheffield
and not a
single one had scored a hit. In particular, some of them had
exploded when they hit the water, and Coode was responding
to the general feeling that these magnetic pistols were too
unreliable. In fact, I learned that both he and Stewart-Moore
went to see the captain of the
Ark
and insisted that they be
allowed to fit the old-fashioned contact pistols instead of the
magnetic ones. Obviously the captain had agreed, because
the contact pistols were fitted. This meant that we had to get
direct hits against the hull in order for them to be effective,
and we had to set the running depth of the torpedoes for a
ship the size of
Bismarck,
which ought to have been 22 feet.
There was some disagreement about this because of the
weather, which had started to deteriorate again. If the battleship
was pitching as severely as the
Ark
was, then a torpedo
set to run as deep as her keel might pass underneath. In the
end a decision was taken to set the running depth at a shallow
10 feet.

The Swordfish were brought up to the flight deck and I
went out via the side ladder on the starboard side. The
weather was atrocious. On the flight deck, out of any shelter
from the side gallery, or by the bridge, the wind hit you like a
hammer, threatening to knock you down. The flight deck was
still heaving and visibility was very bad. The deck crews were
really struggling with the aircraft, spray was coming over the
side and waves were breaking over the front of the flight deck.
The CO had decided that the first three aircraft would be
from 818 Squadron: he would lead and I and another pilot,
Sub-Lieutenant Eric Dixon-Childe, would be his wingmen.
Dixon-Childe and I had gone through training school
together; he was a quiet lad, more of an introvert while I was
the gregarious type. By picking us, Lt Commander Coode had
picked two hostilities-only recruits, each with less than 250
hours' flying time. Why he did this I cannot say, but it was his
call. I was second to take off, so climbed up into the cockpit,
with Dusty Miller and Hayman settling in behind me. They
had been briefed as well, and it was a simple procedure. We
were to stay close and watch for hand signals after
contact with
Sheffield.

The rigger was not quite as boisterous as he normally was.
A lot of stokers and other deck hands had been gathered
round the planes to make sure the aircraft didn't slide about,
particularly as the
Ark
headed into the wind. As she turned
broadside on to the waves, there was a real danger that she
would heel and Swordfish could slide sideways. Standing
close to the propeller and turning that heavy starting handle
was going to be a tough job on a day like this. The flight deck
officer, Commander Pat Stringer, had a rope round his waist
and was lashed to the flight deck so that he wouldn't get
blown overboard. He was 6 foot 4 inches tall and in a very
exposed position, but a lot of the deck crew had the same
trouble with the wind and the pitching deck but had to be
able to move about.

Stringer was a lifesaver that day. He would signal to start
the take-off when he sensed that the ship was at the bottom
of a big wave, so that even if I thought that I was taking off
downhill, the bows would swing up at the last moment and I
would be flying above the big Atlantic swell rather than into
it. I felt that I was thrown into the air, rather than lifting off,
and I was struggling to control the aircraft while the wheels
were still on the deck, watching for a sideways gust that might
push me into the bridge, praying that we would clear the tops
of the mountainous waves.

It was hard work in the air as well: the winds were gusting
and there was very low cloud, as low as 600 feet, with some
strong updrafts. We were thrown about, and I fought the
plane through the turbulence. It was cold, the wind was fierce,
but we had no need to worry about the drift because we did
not have far to fly. I was fighting the wind all the time, circling
was like riding a roller coaster, hitting a sudden headwind,
then blown sideways, then thrown forward by a tailwind.

Eventually we formed up over
Renown
and headed off
south into a heavy cloud of rain, looking for
Sheffield.
Bismarck
was just 38 miles distant, on a bearing of 125
degrees. All my training – at Abbotsinch, in the practices we
had carried out from the
Ark
as we approached Gibraltar, and
in the interminable hours that I had been ploughing the air
above the oceans – was now focused on an attack on the
biggest, most heavily armed warship at sea.

I was in the thick of it now, well aware of how important a
mission this was. For the last two days every single person in
the
Ark
had known what was up – and that it was down to
us to somehow stop
Bismarck.
I would not say that responsibility
weighed heavily on me. I was concentrating on staying
close to my CO, keeping an eye on my instruments and
suppressing the butterflies in my stomach.

We found
Sheffield
and this time we recognized her. I
followed Coode round her and she signalled by lamp that
Bismarck
was 12 miles further on. Dusty Miller relayed the
heading to me. We were at low altitude, about 500 feet, and
Commander Coode signalled us to start our climb, passing
through thick cloud. It was difficult to keep in touch with
each other. At 6,000 feet we broke cloud, there was a big drop
in temperature and in about six minutes ice was forming on
the leading edges of the wings and the main struts, causing us
to lose power and stability. This was worrying, because we
could not allow too much ice to build up. I wondered how
long we could go before needing to descend to some warmer
air. Even though I was in clear sky with blanket cloud
beneath, after ten minutes shells burst all around us with
black clouds of smoke. We knew then that
Bismarck
was
nearby and we assumed she had found us on her radar.

Commander Coode signalled to form a line astern, then he
dived down through the cloud. We tried to go down together,
but the cloud density was such that it was impossible to maintain
formation. Watching the altimeter, I knew that I should
be clear at 600 feet. We were gaining speed and I was worried
that my plane, with a ton of torpedo slung underneath, would
not stand the strain when levelling out. The altimeter
unwound – 600, 400, how low was this cloud? – then,
suddenly breaking out of it at 300 feet, I realized we were
diving at the sea, but I managed to pull out perfectly, the
struts and frames taking the pressure. There on my starboard
beam was
Bismarck.
I had overshot to the west so she was
about 2 miles away, and I turned right towards her. Even at
this distance the brute seemed enormous to me – this was a
huge ship, much bigger than the
Ark.