The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (8 page)

Ark Royal, the first purpose-built aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy, commissioned in July.
The carrier was earmarked for an immediate series of trials and exercises, with the squadrons embarking with the new Goshawk and Cormorant as soon as they were considered operational.

Only days after this, an incident at the Marco Polo bridge in China developed into a full scale war between Japan and China. This caused mixed feelings in the Navy - on the one hand it would probably require more strength to be sent to the area to act as a deterrent. On the other, if the Japanese were spending their resources on a land war, that left them less money to expand their fleet, which was already worryingly powerful
.

As a result of increasing war tensions, especially in Germany and Japan,
the Royal Navy carrier building was speeded up. Two more fleet carriers were laid down in April to the 'Formidable' design, and two further light fleet carriers would be laid down in May. There was insufficient armour making capacity in the UK to allow the armouring of the new ships (the production capability had been heavily run down during the 1920's, and although it is being increased this takes time). Accordingly an additional 8,000t or armour was ordered from abroad (bringing the total up to 20,000t)

For some years the British Government had been trying to get Australia to buy a modern capital ship to strengthen its (admittedly weak) defences, but Australia had always found the idea too expensive. Consideration had been given to 'gifting' them a ship built around the 4 spare 15" turrets still held in stock from WW1 , but even this way it would still cost around £5.5M

Given the new light carrier design, a
different suggestion was made - why not buy a light carrier, plus its airgroup, and a few escorts? This would cost half of what a battleship would cost (the running costs were only slightly smaller, but they didn't stress that point). The function of the RAN was, after all, not to fight the Japanese fleet. It was to supplement RN forces, and provide a reasonable basis for showing Australia was doing enough to justify RN reinforcement. If the Japanese attacked and RN forces were not in place, their job was to buy time for a fleet to arrive from UK waters. A carrier would actually do a better job in many respects than a battleship; it could cover a much greater area with its planes, and discommode light forces over a greater area. If a second was purchased, these and their escorts could cover 2-3 places at once, while only costing the same as a battleship, while together they would be a formidable striking force against anything not supported by its own carriers.

Secondly, such a purchase would solve the problem of the RAAF, who had no modern fighters. The Gloster Goshawk would be very suitable to the land based
role - it could fly off unprepared or primitive strips, it was tough (built to handle carrier landings), fast and capable of outperforming anything in the area, sea or land based. Licenses could be arranged for the aircraft and engine, and the Australians could start to supply their own aircraft in a couple of years (by the time the carrier could be delivered). The naval version would equip their carrier.

Australia was quite interested in the idea. It still couldn't afford a battleship, but the new war in China made it clear that they couldn't just keep on ignoring Japan, and getting the bonus of a modern fighter, built in Australia made it a very interesting idea to them. It was also a good deal for the UK (who were involved in arranging generous licensing terms), as they were running out of shipbuilding ways (or more accurately the manpower to build ships as fast as required), and orders in hand were already at the limits of the British aircraft industry. The new China-Japan war was the final argument, and a deal was made that a light carrier would be built in the UK for Australia (the indigenous shipbuilding capacity couldn't handle so large a ship), being laid down in September 1937 for delivery in November 1939. A production line for the Goshawk and the Hercules engine would be set up in Australia (although some equipment would, at least initially, have to come from the UK). Two carrier escort destroyers would be built in the UK, and two in Australia (with the assumption that further escorts would all be built in Australia). Australian pilots would be trained as part of the FAA, to gain experience ready for the delivery of the carrier.

The other big development as far as the FAA (an
d indeed the rest of the Navy) was concerned was radar. This had now been under development for 2 years, and the results had been very promising. There was an initial parallel development program with the RAF, but this only progressed slowly (which was of increasing worry to the FAA, as they saw it as essential to efficient operation of their new planes and carriers), and it was decided to bring the programs under the overall coordination of Watson-Watt, and as a result a prototype version of the Type 79 air warning radar was successfully demonstrated in the middle of the year. HMS Glorious was due to go in for her refit and modernisation in September, expected out in January 1938, and she would be fitted with the first model for full evaluation. HMS Rodney and HMS Sheffield would also be fitted at about the same time for an evaluation of its use with a surface force.

Planning was also started
for the refit of HMS Courageous. It was expected to allow for the installation of a radar system during the refit. Taking the two old carriers out of service for refits was inconvenient - it had originally been intended to wait until the new light carrier was fully in service, and they refit the ships one at a time, but the increasingly worsening international situation meant some risks had to be taken.

Of equal interest was the demonstration in August of a prototype AS
V radar developed by Eddie Bowen. This showed it could be possible to fit a radar capable of detecting surface ships on an aircraft, which if it worked would expend the capability of the FAA to detect ships in poor weather and night immeasurably. While it was currently fitted on an Anson, it was felt that if it worked it could be carried by the Swordfish. If necessary the FAA was prepared to dedicate a Swordfish to the role, as the effect on the capacity of the FAA to conduct night strikes (still a closely held secret) would be huge.

Good news in October was that the Hispano 404 was fully licensed for prod
uction in the UK. The version had been modified from the original version, with a stronger spring mechanism to allow it to work properly sideways, and a belt feed to allow a larger ammunition supply and to fit properly into the thin wings of the new fighters. The FAA was allocated a proportion of them. During the modification period they had been experimenting with a wing containing two cannon plus two .5", and one with 4 cannon (the original RAF experiments indicated that 4 cannon was the best solution). While both are suitable for use, due to the initial shortages of cannon, the intent is to produce the first 150 planes with 4 .5", the next 150 with 2 cannon and 2 .5", and then to move to four cannon for follow-on orders.

During
the year Naval Intelligence had been keeping a close eye on the developments in naval aviation in rival countries.

In Germany, they had
noted an increase in priority in the building of the Graf Zeppelin; this seems to have been achieved at the expense of the Tirpitz. Oddly, they do not seem to have been able to detect any developments in torpedo planes, or dedicated naval aircraft. Their current assumption is that Germany will navalise a fighter, most likely the Me109, and probably a variant of the Ju-87 as divebomber, but they are concerned that they haven't detected a modern torpedo plane. The Intelligence staffs are instructed to concentrate their efforts on finding it.

Japan is of co
urse rather busy in China. It was much more difficult to get details on Japanese construction, but indications are that the demands of the war have if anything slowed naval construction. The Navy was keeping an interested eye on the use of Japanese carriers to support land operations.

The Japanese have a new torpedo bomber undergoing flight testing, the Nakajima B5 'Kate'. It is assumed that the testing will be accelerated to allow it to be combat tested in China. There is limited intelligence on this plane, but it is thought to be fast and long ranged. They are also thought to have a new dive bomber under development, but as yet little is known about the plane.
Naval Intelligence recommends placing observers and intelligence specialists in China, as this seems to be the best place to actually observe the new aircraft in use.

France was
now considering a replacement for the aged Bearn, and looking with interest at the Royal Navy's light carriers, which they see as more cost-effective for them than a fleet carrier. Negotiations are in hand for one to be built in British yards, with a possible second ship to be built in France. The main problem for the RN is that there is now very little available space left in the shipyards for the long slips required by a carrier. The Admiralty was considering the diplomatic advantages of delaying one of their own carriers to allow a French purchase to be laid down.

Italy was
heavily involved in Spain, and as a result seems to be rather neglecting its naval aviation, although the traditional naval building program continues. Development seems to be on prototype aircraft, and it is assumed that the demands of Spain on the small Italian aircraft industry will continue to limit any major deployment of aircraft. The Italians have debued a new dive bomber, the Breda Ba.65, in the Spanish Civil war, and its performance is seen as good, although its range is thought to be limited

In America, the issue wa
s, as usual, politics not resources. A new carrier, the USS Hornet, was to be laid down in September 1937, and it was thought the bringing forward of this ship was due to the RN building program. Or maybe the China-Japan war. Or maybe for some other non-understandable American reason; the Admiralty often has difficulty working out the logic of the US building program.

The Americans have a new torpedo bomber entering service, the Douglas TBD Devastator. This has considerably better performance than the Swordfish, and one of the aims of the new torpedo bomber design is
to comfortably improve on the Devastator. They also have a new fighter, the Brewster F2A Buffalo, due to fly late in the year. This comes as no surprise as the performance of their current biplane fighter is well below that of the Goshawk, an initial data suggests the new plane will have a similar performance (although it isn't expected into service until 1939)

Chapter 7

1938.

The level of tension in the international scene ramped up yet again as Germany announces a peaceful union with Austria, absorbing the country into the third Reich in March. It's not clear to observers why a peaceful democratic union requires quite so many German troops.

The increased tension plays a part in the crisis in Czechoslovakia in May, when the country almost goes on a war footing as a result of what they think is an impending German attack.
While this proves to be a false alarm, one of the effects is to move British war preparations along more rapidly, as the country is at this point nowhere near ready for war.

The tension
also had effects on the allocation of British defence spending; it was deemed that the major threat was from the air, and the RAF was going to get priority in resources. This was obviously bitterly resented by the other two services. The Navy's shipbuilding wasn't terribly affected, as this, and much of the equipment for the ships, was specialised and not able to do anything for the RAF anyway, although there were difficulties with some of the general engineering firms used. The FAA, however, considered it likely to have much greater impact on their planned air program. A certain amount of discussion went on behind closed doors, as a result of which the navy kept its priority for airplanes along with that of the RAF, but agreed to use its fighters to cover its own bases, and land-based attack squadrons would also be available to Coastal Command. To some extent this was already the case, the FAA and Coastal Command (which included quite a few ex-navy senior officers), already had quite a good relationship, and in any case it had been pointed out that the RAF's airframe requirements were limited to some extent by engines the Navy didn't use. It also pointed out that the Goshawk was as good a fighter as the Hurricane in everything but rate of climb, and it would be foolish to disrupt or stop its production line to produce more Hurricanes, especially as it was looking likely the Merlin could not be produced in sufficient numbers yet. The political issue of planes needed by the carrier under construction for the RAN was also used to bolster the FAA case.

The Navy was obviously concerned with the flow of planes needed for the carriers coming into commission in 1939; the pilot training program had been arranged with the assumption the planes would be available, and it would be embarrassing to have the carriers sitting there without their aircraft. In case, production for the FAA was only about 10% of what was being produced for the RAF.
The FAA was looking forward to a considerable expansion of planes at sea in 1939 as the new carriers commissioned.

The situation on Radar was somewhat confused. The FAA had been pushing the need for a radar able to detect planes at long range, and also something which could have a shorter range but which would allow them to control their planes, ideally in a manner similar to that of the RAF command system. While this had impressed them, it obviously wouldn't fit on a ship, and something simpler and less capable, but which
was at least ship-sized, was needed.