The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (14 page)

At about the same time, flights of Swordfish had been conv
erging on the three light cruisers in the harbour. The first of these to be attacked was the Emden. As with the Scheer, the 12 planes from HMS Courageous had split up into two groups of six, attacking this time in pairs due to the need to aim for the gaps in the torpedo nets. The attacks from the starboard side were a failure, all six failing to thread the gap in the nets and hit the cruiser. Almost ironically, one of the torpedoes swam past the Emden and impacted with unerring precision on the destroyer Bernd von Amim, which soon started to sink. The attacks from port were more accurate, the gaps in the nest were slightly greater for their angle of approach, and that made all the difference. A total of three Mk XII torpedoes hit her, two slightly forward, one aft. The old, small cruiser had never been designed to handle this amount of damage, and as the water poured in she rapidly took on a list that was to prove fatal. Not long after the attack, her crew abandoned ship as the Emden rolled over onto her port beam and capsized.

Next in line for the loving attention of the FAA was the Koln. Again the Swordfish split their attack, the 12 planes from HMS Formida
ble managing to get a total of four hits on her, two on each quarter. Since the damage was (albeit accidentally) fairly well distributed the ship didn't develop a fatal list as had the Emden, but the water entering was again too much for her and over the next hour she slowly settled before finally sliding under the water

The final light cruiser in the harbour was the Leipsig. She had been seriously damaged by
the submarine HMS Salmon some two weeks earlier, and having been temporarily patched up was presumably waiting for proper repairs (it was in fact found out after the way that she was considered a total constructive loss) and was in fact just there while it was decided how best to strip her for parts!) Attacked by six Swordfish from HMS Formidable, she was hit twice. As she had nothing but a skeleton crew on board, and in fact still had many of her watertight doors open, she sank quickly (later reports indicated the blast of the torpedoes had opened some of the patches over her earlier damage, and she went down in 10 minutes.

While the Swordfish were attracting the attention of the defences (if only by some of the bizarre low-speed acrobatics some of them were doing to keep out of the way of some of the harbour equipment and barrage balloons) , the dive bombers had been circling ready to pounce. As planned, additional flares were put down specifically for them, and in groups of three the Cormorants from the Illustrious stooped on the biggest prize in the harbour - the huge bulk of the battleship Tirpitz, sitting massively in the fitting-out basin.

The planes were carrying 1,000AP bombs. It was not certain how well they would penetrate the ships decks, as only estimates of her protection against bombs had been made. However the FAA had one big advantage - Tirpitz wasn't completed, she was fitting out with no crew aboard, and the Royal Navy knew exactly what a disaster waiting to happen a ship in that condition was. The aircrew had been undergoing intensive training for this particular attack, included some hair-raising practice at night divebombing. As a result devices had been fitted which should pull the plane out of its dive at a predetermined point. Even so, it wasn't easy targeting a ship at night, lit only by flares and the moon (which was mainly visible through the broken cloud), even when the target was a big
a ship as the Tirpitz. Of the six groups of three that attacked, only four bombs hit the ship, one forward which did little more physical damage than blow her anchor away. The other three hit the main body of the ship, but all three failed to penetrate the main armour deck, although splinters from the bombs did slice deeper into her hull. In addition, one bomb fell close enough in the water to breach her hull, causing water to start to fill one of her engine rooms.

However sinking the Tirpitz by bomb damage wasn't what the attackers had in mind, A ship being fit
ted out is a firetrap - full of wood, paint, gas tanks, even fuel for some of the equipment, with her watertight doors open (indeed, not fitted in numerous cases to allow the finishing work to be made easier. The white hot splinters from the bombs had already ignited numerous fires inside her, and as the total crew consisted of four night watchmen (who had, with remarkable sense, taken cover as soon as the air-raid sirens went off), at the moment no-one even knew of the damage.

The other 12 Cormorants from HMS Formidable this time, had a different target, the Admiral Scheer. Already in serious danger from the torpedo hits, and with no power, the crew didn't even respond to the diving aircraft -
indeed, it was possible they didn't even see them in all the confusion. The first three planes missed the target completely, merely drenching her in spectacular plumes of dirty water. The second flight was rather more dramatic. The first two bombs were close, enough to cause shock damage, but nothing more serious. The final bomb was far more spectacular, as 1,000lb of bomb sliced through the ships armour, forward of her bridges, and ended up in the forward 11" magazine. Bombs and magazines don't get on too well, and even as the pilot was recovering from the pull-out after his dive, the entire forward part of the ship seemed to lift itself out of the water in an explosion which lit the entire harbour, and actually fired the huge turret some distance into the air. A Swordfish pilot was later heard to complain about this, as he considered it rather excessive for an ant-aircraft weapon, and surely in breach of the Geneva Convention.

As the first wave of aircraft left, the harbour was already full of damaged and sinking ships, and the burning hulk of the Scheer (at least, before it slid to the bottom of the harbour). Just in time for the second wave to arrive. First to arrive were the 12 Cormorants from the Courageous. They were carrying 1,000 SAP bombs, and their target was the Tirpitz. These bombs weren't intended to penetrate deep into the ship, instead the idea was to cause serious damage to the superstructure (full of equally generous amounts of inflammable material as the hull), and of course to impede any fire-fighting and damage control that was in action after the first attack (in fact, this still hadn't been reported, and in the confusion no-one had as yet taken any action to inspect the ship)

This ti
me they managed four hits, but one of the bombs didn't explode due to a faulty fuse, However the three that did went off most satisfactorily, leaving parts of the ships superstructure ablaze (the more serious fire was deep inside, but this couldn't be seen by the aircrew)

Next in line were the 12 Swordfish from the Formidable. They had been sent as backup if the initial attacks on the cruisers hadn't been successful, but in view of the circumstances they change
d to their backup targets, the six destroyers. One of these was obviously already in serious trouble (it was the one struck by the errant torpedo in the first wave), so their attentions were concentrated on the other five. One received two hits, which caused it to settle and sink (although it was, eventually, salvaged), while a second had its stern seriously damaged, and settled until the stern of the ship was stuck in the harbour mud.

The final strike of the second wave were 18 Swordfish from HMS Illustrious, carrying 500lb bombs. In view of the devastation clearly visible, they ignored the burning and sinking ships, and headed for their main target, the U-boat slips and fitting out area, which they peppered with a total of 54 bombs. Ironically, in what had been seen as the most dangerous attack against the defences, all the AA was so busy concentrating on the planes attacking the ships that not one of the planes was hit. As a result, one U-boat and one under construction were heavily damag
ed (both were later declared total constructive losses and broken up), and two under construction badly damaged (although both were eventually rebuilt). As well as these, serious damage was done to the fitting out basins and the slips, which would impact the construction facilities of the port for the next six months.

Last plane to leave was that of the raid leader, Lt-Cdr Edmonde, who despite the AA fire had been circling and observing the raid while directing some of the attack waves to their targets. His actions in this and in leading the raid (indeed, due to his staying over the target his plane barely made it back to the carrier) led to his award of the Victoria Cross.

The devastating raid had not been without loss.

Of the first wave, two Swordfish and two Cormorants
had been lost to flak. One Swordfish had run into a balloon cable and crashed, and one damaged plane, originally though lost, was later found to have crash-landed in Denmark (much to the astonishment of the Danish farmer whose field it landed in, when three rather battered Navy airmen knocked on his door in the middle of the night). One divebomber was also lost when it failed to pull out of its attack on the Tirpitz and flew into the water

Although smaller, the second waves suffered nearly as badly. Another four Swordfish were victims of the by then thoroughly aroused flak, and one damaged so badly it had to ditch just outside the harbour (the crew survived, although captured). One Cormorant was a flak victim, and a second damaged so badly it ditched - sadly this time the crew did not survive.

The total losses were eleven Swordfish and five Cormorants, a loss rate of 15%. This was very satisfying, as the loss rate had been predicted at 40% (although the crews hadn't been told that!) Another dozen aircraft were in fact written off after landing due to damage.

Chapter 11

The Run Home

The last of the strike waves landed at 0515, and the fleet immediately turned to the NW and increased speed to 25kt. The idea was first to get out of range of the short-ranged single engine fighters. They knew the longer ranged Me110 would still be able to reach them, but the fewer fighters they had to intercept, the easier it would be to shoot down the bombers they were expecting. Crews were all at action stations, but somewhat relaxed as it was going to be a long day. At 25 knots, if there weren't any problems, they expected to be out of range of any serious attack by the next morning.

The carriers were
maintaining a constant CAP of nine planes (three from each carrier), with six more ready on deck. This would hopefully allow up to 27 planes for interception duties, with a further 27 ready in the hangers if needed. So far, the Germans seemed to prefer to attack in squadron or perhaps two-squadron force, so this was thought to be the best solution to defend themselves for the entire day. It was assumed that German efficiency would have worked out the most likely area they would be in (they had no option but to go NW as the escape route to the west was blocked by a German minefield. And a British one.)

In fact, the speed with which the Germans could coordinate a concerted attack in response had been overestimated. It wasn't helped, of course, by the fact that it was a naval base that had been attacked, and that the Luftwaffe was needed to find and attack the fleet responsible. It had taken a series of increasingly acerbic telephone calls between the two organisations to get the planes into the air. It wasn't until 1200 that the first reconnaissance plane was spotted by one of the cruisers at the edge of the formation. A Goshawk was vectored in to attack it, but passing the message to the carrier by signal lamp , and then to the plane, took time, and before this happened the plane was transmitting a contact report.

Up until now, the fleet had been operating under radio and radar silence - the whole policy of emission control verses detection ability was in its infancy, and in fact a perfect solution was never attainable. Radar was still unreliable and not terribly accurate, so it had been decided not to transmit until the first reconnaissance plane detected them. Given the circumstances, it was felt highly improbable that an attack would be launched until they had been found. Once they were detected, the radars would be used to spot any other enemy planes.

The German plane, having made its report, tried to get away by hiding in the cloud cover, but there was far less cloud than the day before, and it wasn't long before the far faster Goshawk sent it tumbling flaming into the ocean. By this point the fleet was the best part of 200 miles from land, and rather further from the Luftwaffe airbases. far enough in fact that they were out of effective range of the Me109 fighters. However the first planes to attack were not escorted by any fighters.

This was a staffel of 12 He115 floatplane torpedo bombers. These had been allocated to support for the Kriegsmarine, and for a floatplane had a very good performance - indeed, considerably better than the Swordfish. Unfortunately for them, the Mk5 torpedo with which they were armed was a very different story - while its warhead was heavy by the standards of aerial torpedoes in 1939 at 440lb of explosive, it only had a speed of 33kt for 2,000m, and had to be dropped at 75kt. Indeed, most if not all of the ships in the fleet could run away from them!

The torpedo planes approached initially at about 5,000feet, presumably in order to locate the fleet. Unfortunately for them, this made them quite detectable by the carriers radar, and as soon as they were detected at
some 40 miles at 1400 another nine Goshawks were being attached to the catapults (while the planes could easily achieve takeoff from a run along the deck, using the catapults meant the ships didn't have to break formation to put the wind directly over the deck). By the time the attack had closed to 10 miles 12 Goshawks were on top of them. In the resulting fight, the fighters shot down seven of the He115's for only one loss (a fighter which had to ditch, although the pilot was picked up by one of the destroyers). Of the remaining five, all were in full retreat, one trailing smoke, having dropped their torpedoes to make a faster getaway.