The Fleet Air Arm in World War II
During World War II, Britain’s Fleet Air Arm (FAA) seldom grabbed the headlines, being overshadowed by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other countries’ air forces in general. The attack on the Italian Fleet in harbor in November 1940 is regarded as a stunning demonstration of naval air power – it hampered Fascist ambitions in the Mediterranean and served as the blueprint for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 13 months later.
With the notable exceptions of the strike against the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940, the Royal Navy air arm was kept on a close leash in support of the on-scene surface warfare commander. Yet, although burdened by an uncertain parentage and organization, FAA units and their people had their fair share of the action throughout the war from Europe to the Pacific.
The Fleet Air Arm got immense assistance from the Americans. It got splendid assistance. There was the PBY Catalina, which began early in 1940. Many of them were flown across the Atlantic. The supply of Catalinas was very considerable. Then there are the Hudsons of Coastal Command. The Hudsons were coming in great numbers, as many Hudsons as the Air Ministry could handle. As to the output of these firms, they were persuaded to give up some aircraft which were going in other directions in order that the UK might be supplied with essential aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm.
Then there is the Martlet. A modified version of the U.S. Navy's F4F, the Grumman Model G-36A provided the Royal Navy with its first high-performance single-seat monoplane carrier fighter. Named "Martlet I" in British service, these 81 aircraft had originally been ordered by France and were taken over by the British after France surrendered. Powered by 1,240 horsepower Wright "Cyclone" radial engines, the first "Martlets" entered service in September 1940, and achieved the first "kill" for any American-built fighter in British service on Christmas day of that year, when a German Ju-88 was forced down near Scapa Flow. Less famous types of aircraft like the Fairey Fulmar and Blackburn Skua held the line during the first two years of action, yet today remain unknown except by enthusiasts.
Of all the aircraft operated by the Royal Navy since 1912 when the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was formed, the Swordfish aircraft is historically the most important. Swordfish aircraft have the distinction of being one of a very small number of aircraft which were in operational front line service at the outbreak of the second world war, and still in front line service after the declaration of peace in Europe. In so doing, the Swordfish has the added distinction of being the last bi-plane to see operational front line service in any of the three Services of the British Armed Forces.
The Swordfish's distinguished war record include the 1940 Norwegian Campaign, the wonderfully successful attack on the Italian Fleet at Taranto on 11 November 1940, the major part played by the Swordfish aircraft in the destruction of the pride of the German Fleet the battleship Bismarck in May 1941, in addition to operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa Desert Regions and the English Channel area. During the Second World War Swordfish aircraft accounted for the sinking of over 300,000 tons of enemy (Axis powers) shipping - more than any other single Allied aircraft type, and thereby made the an important maritime airpower contribution towards the Allies winning the Battle of the Atlantic and in gaining seapower supremacy in the Mediterranean.
By far the most famous Illustrious is the fourth, a WW2 aircraft carrier which saw extensive combat in the Mediterranean and Far East. She served as the launchpad for the Taranto raid which saw a handful of Swordfish bombers cripple the Italian Fleet in harbor – a deed which is celebrated annually to this day aboard the latest Illustrious. Two months after that raid she was badly damaged by Stuka dive bombers off Italy, and further damaged during repairs in Malta. She had to retire to the USA for repairs.
The Channel Dash as it has become known – officially Operation Fuller on the British side, Operation Cerberus on the German – saw the battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen race from Brest to the safety of German ports in February 1942. The three German ships were shielded by nearly 300 fighters and bombers, while the British response was poorly co-ordinated – much of the fighter cover promised the Swordfish failed to materialize. Despite that lack of cover, Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde – a veteran of the attack on the Bismarck nine months earlier – led his sluggish torpedo bombers in to sink the ships. Although some got torpedoes away, none hit the ships, all the Swordfish were downed and only five of the 18 crew were rescued. Esmonde was not among them; he received a posthumous Victoria Cross.
The fault lay in the fact firstly that there was defective coordination with the Royal Air Force, who should have provided an escort from Manston aerodrome, but primarily, the fault lay in the fact that the Admiralty had been chary of providing the Fleet Air Arm with the up-to-date aircraft which were required. Swordfish, "string-bags" as they were called, whose top rate of speed was only 8o m.p.h., were sent out to attack the "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" making for Germany. They had to attack in the face of bitter fighter cover from the shores of Europe. They were all lost, It was a great tragedy and one that could have been avoided had more importance been attached to the Fleet Air Arm at that time.
Designed as a powerful two seat carrier-borne naval fighter reconnaissance aircraft, the prototype Firefly first flew on 22 December 1941. The Fairey AS7 was the last variant to be built other than a few pilotless drones. Provision was made for a crew of 3, with 2 radar operators behind the pilot. Fairey Fireflies Mk1 Both 1770 and 1771 Squadrons took part in operations in Norway in 1944 flying from HMS Indefatigable and HMS Implacable respectively, including attacks on the battleship Tirpitz. In 1945, 1770, 1771 and 1772 Firefly Squadrons were in the thick of operations with the British Pacific Fleet. Korean War 1950 - 1953. Several Firefly squadrons saw active service in the Korean War.
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War 2, at its height from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943. The Battle of the Atlantic demonstrated the enduring importance of control of the sea to provide a highway for the transport of raw materials, munitions, and men, to maintain the nation’s security and to project power across the globe. The Battle of the Atlantic was pivotal to the success of the allied side in World War 2. After the fall of Europe, the main supply route for the continued prosecution of the war was between north America and the UK across the North Atlantic. Ultimately it was the successful protection of this vital sea corridor by British and allied ships from the German surface and U-boat threat that led to success in North Africa, at D-Day and ultimately resulted in the fall of Germany.
Flying anti-submarine aircraft from auxiliary aircraft carriers (CVEs) fell foul of other military priorities. After the successful, but short-lived, deployment of the small CVE, HMS Audacity, in late 1941, the next ship, HMS Archer was deployed into the Central Atlantic off Sierra Leone to support convoys against encroachments by German surface raiders. In May 1942, the Admiralty commented '...that with adequate and efficient air escort', the U-boat '..."wolf-pack" attack on a convoy should be impossible'.
The next CVE, Avenger, was needed to provide fighter and anti-submarine support to the Arctic Convoys PQ 18 and QP 14 in September 1942. The next two, Biter and Dasher arrived in the Home Fleet ready to work up for the Atlantic, but, along with Avenger, were diverted to support Operation “Torch”, the Allied landings in North West Africa in early November. Later that month, Avenger was sunk by a U-boat while supporting a “Torch” convoy.
he ground element of “Torch” took longer than expected to capture Tunis. More merchant ships were needed to lift the considerable additional reinforcement and their maintenance supplies. This had a very serious effect on British imports and led to the retention of the CVEs in the support role for longer than had been anticipated. It was not, therefore, until the early spring that the first of these ships, Biter, and then slightly later, Archer, were available for North Atlantic convoy support work in the critical mid-Atlantic air gap.
The parallel plan for the conversion of suitable grain-carrying merchant ships and oil tankers to Merchant Aircraft Carriers (or MAC Ships) accommodating a few Swordfish anti-submarine aircraft was also constrained by the critical shortage of ships in their primary role to continue to carry food and oil to the UK (especially with the heavy diversion of shipping associated with Operation “Torch”). The first to be converted was not deployed into the North Atlantic until the end of May 1943, sailing with Convoy ONS 9.
Flying from the pitching decks of escort carriers and hastily converted MAC ships (Merchant Aircraft Carriers), Royal Navy aircraft and their aircrews played a vital role in protecting the convoys and hunting U-Boats. But the contribution of the FAA to the Battle of the Atlantic extended beyond its contribution to the defeat of the U-boat threat. It was also instrumental in combatting the enemy's surface ship and the aircraft atacks on Allied merchant shipping.
The primary need of the Fleet Air Arm had always been a very fast fighter. That was the primary requirement which the function of the Fleet Air Arm imposes upon it. Yet only in the fourth year of the war was the Fleet Air Arm given the Seafire. The naval version of the Spitfire, the Seafire, saw action in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic against German battleships and with the British Pacific Fleet. They were also in the Pacific, arriving in-theater in mid-1942 during operations against Japanese forces from Malaya and Australia up to India. The Royal Air Force had the Spitfire before the war and is now using Spitfire IX. Yet the Fleet Air Arm has to fight the same enemy and the same machines in the same air as the Royal Air Force. That was the position in the fourth year of the war. The Fleet Air Arm had only now got a fighter comparable to the fighter which the Royal Air Force had before the war.
The liberation of southern France cost the lives of at last 13,000 Allied servicemen – the majority Free French forces – but their sacrifice is often overshadowed historically by D-Day and the fighting in Normandy which were on a much greater scale and lasted considerably longer. The Dragoon landings effected by sea and air on August 15 1944 helped to drive the Germans out of southern France. A good three dozen Royal Navy warships were committed to the operation, including a task force comprising five escort carriers.
Fairey Swordfish
The Fairey Swordfish was a torpedo bomber built by the Fairey Aviation Company and used by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Affectionately known as the "Stringbag" by its crews, it was outdated by 1939, but achieved some spectacular successes during the war, notably the sinking of one and damaging two battleships of the Regia Marina (the Italian Navy) in the Battle of Taranto and the famous crippling of the Bismarck. It was operated primarily as a fleet attack aircraft; however, during its later years, it was also used as an anti-submarine and training craft. Designed in the 1930s, the Swordfish outlived several types intended to replace it, and remained in front line service through the end of the war in Europe The Swordfish was based on a Fairey Private Venture (PV) design; a proposed solution to the Air Ministry requirements for a spotter-reconnaissance plane, spotter referring to observing the fall of a warship's gunfire. A subsequent Air Ministry Specification S.15/33, added the torpedo bomber role. The "Torpedo-Spotter-Reconnaissance" prototype TSR II (the PV was the TSR I) first flew on 17 April 1934. It was a large biplane with a metal frame covered in fabric, and utilized folding wings as a space-saving feature for aircraft carrier use. An order was placed in 1935 and the aircraft entered service in 1936 with the Fleet Air Arm (then part of the RAF), replacing the Seal in the torpedo bomber role. The primary weapon was the aerial torpedo, but the low speed of the biplane and the need for a long straight approach made it difficult to deliver against well-defended targets. The problems with the aircraft were starkly demonstrated in February 1942 when a strike on German battleships during the Channel Dash resulted in the loss of all attacking aircraft. With the development of new torpedo attack aircraft, the Swordfish was soon redeployed successfully in an anti-submarine role, armed with depth-charges or eight "60 lb" (27 kg) RP-3 rockets and flying from the smaller escort carriers or even Merchant Aircraft Carriers (MAC) when equipped for rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO). Its low stall speed and inherently tough design made it ideal for operation from the MAC carriers in the often severe mid Atlantic weather. Indeed, its takeoff and landing speeds were so low that it did not require the carrier to be steaming into the wind, unlike most carrier-based aircraft. On occasion, when the wind was right, Swordfish were flown from a carrier at anchor. Swordfish-equipped units accounted for 14 U-boats destroyed. The Swordfish was meant to be replaced by the Albacore, also a biplane, but actually outlived its intended successor. It was, finally, however, succeeded by the Fairey Barracuda monoplane torpedo bomber. The last operational squadron was disbanded on 21 May 1945, after the fall of Germany; and the last training squadron was disbanded in the summer of 1946. De Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito was a British multi-role combat aircraft that served during the Second World War and the Post-war era. It was known affectionately as the "Mossie" to its crews and was also nicknamed "The Wooden Wonder". It saw service with the RAF and many other air forces in the European theatre, the Pacific theatre of Operations and the Mediterranean Theatre, as well as during the post-war period. Originally conceived as an unarmed fast bomber, the Mosquito was adapted to many other roles during the air war, including: low to medium altitude daytime tactical bomber, high-altitude night bomber, pathfinder, day or night fighter, fighter-bomber, intruder, maritime strike aircraft, and fast photo-reconnaissance aircraft. It was also used by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) as a transport. When the Mosquito entered production in 1941, it was one of the fastest operational aircraft in the world. Entering widespread service in 1942, the Mosquito supported RAF strategic night fighter defence forces in the United Kingdom from Luftwaffe raids, most notably defeating the German aerial offensive Operation Steinbock in 1944. Offensively, the Mosquito units also conducted night time fighter sweeps in indirect and direct protection of RAF Bomber Command's heavy bombers to help reduce RAF bomber losses in 1944 and 1945. The Mosquito increased German night fighter losses to such an extent the Germans were said to have awarded two victories for shooting one down. As a bomber it took part in "special raids", such as pinpoint attacks on prisoner-of-war camps to aid the escape of prisoners. It targeted Gestapo, German intelligence and security force bases as well as carrying out tactical strikes in support of the British Army in the Normandy Campaign. Coastal Command had seven squadrons equipped with the FB.VI, and later also received the 27 FB.XVIIIs. The Mosquitos were used for anti-shipping strikes, mainly against coastal traffic. Because this brought them within the range of land-based Luftwaffe fighters, good performance was essential. But the coastal convoys were also well protected with anti- aircraft guns, and attacks were dangerous. Mosquitos in Coastal Command were also involved in the Battle of the Atlantic, attacking Kriegsmarine U-Boat and transport ship concentrations, particularly in the Bay of Biscay offensive in 1943 in which significant numbers of U-Boats were sunk or damaged.
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