The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (17 page)

There was also a new torpedo under development, the Mk XV, which would exploit the full capability of the new planes, but this would not be ready for use until early in 1941
at best. It would be heavier, with a larger warhead, and somewhat faster. It was hoped to get a warhead of 545lb into it, which would make it a much more effective weapon against heavy ships. The torpedo would be around 200lb heavier than the Mk XIV, but the warhead is 50% heavier. Research work was progressing on the possibilities of a more powerful explosive (certain compositions showed promise, but need research), as the RN would like to get the aerial torpedo into the damage range of the pre-war 21" torpedo, which would make a huge difference to the effect of torpedo strikes. Current aerial torpedoes damage larger warships - the Mk XV could sink them.

The RN was reasonably happy with the performance of its 500lb and 1,000lb bombs, although use and tests had indicated the fuses were not as reliable as they would like. Indeed, when the fuses were tested at random some 25% failed to work. A temporary solution had been better selection at the factory and careful work on them by the carrier crews (since the FAA cannot drop very large numbers of bombs over a number of nights onto a target as the RAF can, it is far more important that the bombs they do drop work correctly). As with the torpedoes, work was ongoing as to the possibilities of a more efficient explosive - this was of particular interest to the Admiralty due to the relative small number of bombs they drop compared to the RAF. A larger bomb of around 1,600lb was being developed as an AP version for use against heavy ships - this would penetrate the armour of anything other than the latest battleships.

Changes at the Admiralty

On January 6th, Admiral Pound, the First Sea Lord, had what was an apparently innocuous slip on some ice outside the Admiralty building. Due to his damaged hip, this forced him to a hospital bed for some days as he was unable to walk on that leg. While he was there, however, in an apparently unrelated conversation, his doctor happened to mention to a colleague that 'he wondered if anything was being done to treat the Admirals brain tumour'. While he had known about this for some time, it had not been mentioned to other doctors or the Admiralty.

As a result of this becoming known, Pound was given a thorough medical, where it was shows that he was suffering from some sort of growth on the brain, hence the distortion of his eye that some of his colleagues had already remarked upon. As a result of this, it was decided that it was impossible for him to continue in the role of First Sea Lord, especially with the terrific strains war imposed on that office. It must be admitted that there was a certain amount of internal Admiralty politics at work here. There had been acrimonious discussion about the building program for the next year (a plan, agreed on pre-war, had been implemented in September, but it was in the process of being reviewed so as to set the program for the next year or two, especially important for the larger ships). Pound had been particularly keen, if not almost fanatical, in promoting the battleship program, suggesting that the carrier program be halted or cancelled completely in order to make capacity available. This had not been popular in those sections keep on the FAA, and as the air arm's stock was riding high after Wilhelmshaven, an Admiral with a more balanced view was looked for. The airmen fully recognised that a balanced fleet was still needed - the carrier was essential to this now, but it could not yet defeat an enemy fleet on its own - but were not prepared to accept the abandonment of the carrier for what they felt was a class of ship now in its twilight - especially after the years of fighting and struggle to get the FAA prepared for war.

The problem was who to replace him with. A number of senior officers had had to retire in the last few years due to injury, and indeed Pound had only become First Sea Lord because of the untimely illness and death of his predecessor, Admiral Backhouse. Looking at the number of senior naval officers who had died in the last few years, and with a reluctance to remove what was seen as some of its best fleet commanders whose services would be very much
in need, it was decided to appoint Admiral Bruce Fraser from Third Sea Lord to the post, at the same time promoting him to Vice Admiral. He was an officer of proven ability, with experience both in gunnery and having commanded a carrier. He was to hold this post with distinction for the rest of the war.

One of the things the raid had done was cause revived interest in the Royal Navy carriers abroad, particularly in America and Japan who had their own carriers (and lobbying Admirals!). One of the first things the RN did after the reports of the raid had been broadcast (and in the case of the USN, an 'unofficial' source had disclosed more details than went out on the public newsreels) was to analyse what effect the now-revealed abilities of the Fleet Air Arm would have on foreign navies. The report came to the following conclusions.

France

France was of course concentrating the bulk of its resources on its army and air force, not helped by the state of confusion its over exuberant mobilization has caused (France had called up so many reservists as to cause serious industrial problems, and had had to release some back into civilian life).

The aircraft carrier being constructed (the Joffre) is expected to be available in early 1942. There have been discussions about the British selling them a light carrier, but at present the RN needs all it has for itself, and a new build wouldn't be ready any sooner than the Joffre - in any case, British yards are at full capacity
(indeed, overfull capacity).

Germany

Germany's first aircraft carrier (the Graf Zeppelin) was launched in September 1938, and is expected to be ready soon (intelligence estimated in May 1940). There still seems no sign of development of any torpedo plane for the ship, and it is now suspected she will only use fighters and dive bombers, which will seriously limit her effectiveness against capital ships. Current intelligence indicates this will be carrier-conversions of the Me109 fighter and the Ju87 dive bomber. As yet the navy has inadequate data on their performance. As this will be the Kriegsmarine's first carrier, the RN does not expect it to be actually operational until the spring of 1941. The second carrier, Peter Strasser, is expected to launch around the middle of 1940.

Italy

Italy seemed to have no plans for a carrier, perhaps not surprising in view of the land bases it has available to cover its navy. It has been noted that the country seems to be strengthening its land-based planes used for maritime support, with increasing numbers and a speeded-up development work on successor planes. The FAA have expressed no worries about the current generation of planes, but are less certain about their replacements. It does seem that the Italians, unlike the Germans, do rather seem to like torpedo planes. Of course at the moment Italy is not an enemy power, but in view of the relationship between Italy and Germany, and the nature of the Italian government, it must be viewed as an unfriendly neutral.

Japan

The carrier Hiryu was commissioned in July of 1939.The Shokaku was launched in June 1939, and is expected to be ready in early 1941. her sister ship the Zuikaku launched on the 27th November, and is expected in later 1941. Once these ships are completed the IJN will have 6 large fleet carriers available, which is of considerable worry to the RN as they will have to find the ships to match them in the Far East (US involvement, although likely, cannot be counted upon as the Americans are still resisting any formal commitments). As yet the Japanese do not seem to be laying down anything similar to the British light fleet carriers. It is suspected that, like the American navy, this is due to the lesser protection given to trade routes and the long ranges needed to operate in the Pacific Ocean.

The use of the IJN carrier force to assist operations in China, and the use of some of their squadrons on land, has given more information on the aircraft expected to be used on the carriers.

The A5M 'Claude' is a lightweight plane and agile, but considered under-armed with 2 7.7mm machine guns. It isn't fast by the standards now being applied by the RN (indeed, it is barely faster than the Cormorant dive bomber), and as it has been in service since 1936 the navy is anticipating a replacement appearing soon. It is very difficult of obtain intelligence in Japan, but there are indications that a new Mitsubishi fighter flew in the spring of 1939. Efforts are being made to find out more on this aircraft, as it is suspected that this will be the new IJN fleet fighter

The B5 'Kate' torpedo bomber is now confirmed as the main torpedo plane, and its performance is better than was originally thought; it s speed seems to be around 200kt, which means it isn't that inferior to the SeaLance, although once the engine issues are fixed the SpearFish is expected to comfortably outperform it. It also seems to have a good range, and the FAA and RAF boffins are puzzling how it gets the reported performance on a 1,000hp engine. It is suspected that the reports are exaggerating the planes performance.

The current dive bomber, the Aichi D1A 'Susie' is a biplane, and the performance of this dive bomber is considered unexceptional at best by current standards. However it is known that a replacement has been under development (this was expected by the navy), and intelligence suggests it will be operational some time in 1940. It is known to be a monoplane design, and presumably with much better performance than the Susie, but until the IJN (hopefully) uses it in China little information is available.

USA

The new US carrier, USS Wasp, commissioned on the 18th December 1939. Another carrier, the USS Hornet, was laid down on the 3rd March 1939, and is expected to be ready in the second half of 1941 - the building program has been expedited to speed up her construction, and the Americans seem to be using double construction shifts.

No other carriers of this class have been announced, but unofficial talks between the USN and the RN have revealed that due to the war situation the Americans are working on a new class of carrier, broadly similar in capability to the British Audacious class, but as yet they are still working on the design. The UK is (unofficially) keeping the US informed of the results of their wartime experience, and a number of USN officers (sorry, Canadian officers...) have been attached to some British ships.

The new fighter for the USN, the Grumman Wildcat, is expected to be operation in the summer of 1940 (the Americans have been pushing the development after getting performance reports on the Goshawk and the German fighters). The F4F-3 is expected to be broadly similar to the Goshawk in performance, although the FAA considers it under
-armed. A new fighter, the F4U Corsair, is being developed by Vought aviation, and is expected to fly in may-June 1940. The RN are interested in this plane, as it uses a similar large engine to their Goshawk replacements, and would like to see how it solves some of the problems they have been experiencing.

The USN has two new dive bombers under development; the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver (expected to fly at the end of 1940), and the Douglas SBD Dauntless, expected to fly in April 1940.These are expected to be broadly comparable to the Cormorant dive bomber.

Work has begun on a successor to the Devastator torpedo bomber, but as yet no development contracts have been placed.

It is of course too soon to see any foreign reaction to the raid itself; France sees no issues as Germany doesn't have aircraft with the range to attack its Atlantic ports. The Americans have a similar expectation - their continental ports are out of range, and they consider Hawaii also outside range of carrier attacks, although they admit their bases in the Philippine Islands could be at risk. As the Japanese navy does (or will soon have) a carrier force capable of replicating the Fleet Air Arm strike, a committee is being organised to look at strengthening the defences (particularly against night attack) of its potentially vulnerable bases.

Chapter 13

The ships available to the Royal Navy for deployment did not only come from Britain. At the start of the war, the other countries in the Empire had also made their ships available to the Admiralty, in particular Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Both Canada and Australia were engaged in building or obtaining aircraft carriers.

The Canadian Aircraft carriers
.

The first of the new very light 'Escort Carrier' design, HMS Audacity, had com
missioned in Dec 1939 (slightly delayed from her original schedule due to the huge amount of early wartime conversion work in the shipyards). While she had been finishing, the Admiralty had been talking to the Canadian government and their navy about the best way in which Canada could contribute to the naval war. Canada had decided that, as they had no heavy ships, and that the Atlantic was obviously the critical convoy area, that they would concentrate on light escort ships to add to the antisubmarine effort in the North Atlantic. This also fit in well with the abilities of the Canadian shipbuilding industry - it was capable of building merchant ships and simple vessels, but gearing up to build the more complex naval vessels would take considerable time (for example Canada could not manufacture complex items like a ships Gyro-Compass) and the early ships would be slow in completing.

The Admiralty were quite happy with this concept - they already knew they were short of the numbers they wanted for light escorts, and passed on details and plans of the new Corvette class. However based on their early experience in the first months of the war, and their projections, they suggested an alteration, which was to also build a couple of escort carriers. This would allow the Royal Canadian Navy to field a couple of balanced escort forces as well as just building corvettes. The Escort carrier was basically a
modified merchant ship, so should be easily in the capabilities of the Canadian shipyards. They would supply the machinery (they had, after all, around 50 sets of turbines just sitting in a warehouse), and all that had to be done was to build the hull. By the time it was complete, there would be Swordfish available that had been replaced by SeaLance for the air complement.