I Sank The Bismarck (18 page)

We landed on by 0845, the
Ark
rendezvoused with the rest
of Force H and then we went west for safety. The return
journey was equally tense, with several Italian aircraft that
were attempting to shadow us intercepted and shot down by
our Fulmars. There was also an attack by two bombers, but
their bombs, dropped from around 3,000 feet, easily missed
us. There was clearly a lot of activity as the Italians hunted
for us. We could hear the sound of aircraft overhead as we
skirted along the southern coast of France. There was a thick
sea haze and this must have given us a protective cover,
because they didn't find us. Intercepted signals indicated that
Italian warships had also put to sea, but they too failed to pinpoint
our location. When we got back to Gibraltar, there was
a feeling that we had pulled off something pretty impressive
that would be a real shock to Mussolini and the Italian armed
forces. Their morale, already damaged after Taranto, must
have taken another blow.

I could not help but think about that Italian warship in La
Spezia and the fact that its presence had never been mentioned
in any of the briefings. There was a real lack of reconnaissance
carried out for Force H and I felt, and still do,
that if we had had more support we could have achieved
much more in the way of attacks on Italy and would have
diverted Italian forces away from the Mediterranean Fleet in
Alexandria. All we had were the Swordfish in our squadron
on the
Ark,
and they would not have lasted long if they had
been used for reconnaissance over the mainland.

Nevertheless, I had taken part in my first real aggressive
mission, and I felt pleased that I had done as creditably as I
could.

I didn't want to take part in action through any bloodthirsty
motive – far from it. I had a need, as a young man of twenty-one,
to prove myself to more senior and experienced
colleagues, and I felt that I ought to be engaged in the fight. It
was akin to the feeling I had when I had looked up at the sky
during that local village cricket match in the summer of 1940.

Whenever we went out into the Med, escorting a convoy to
Malta or Alexandria, we knew that it was us on the
Ark
who
were the target for the Italian bombers that came overhead. If
they had their way, we would end up like
Illustrious
after
being hit by the German Stukas – a smoking hulk; or worse,
like the cruiser
Southampton,
which had been destroyed in
the same bombing attack, with hundreds of her crew killed.
We knew that London, Liverpool, Coventry and other cities
in Britain were receiving a pounding from the Luftwaffe every
night and thousands of civilians were being killed. I think it
was natural for us to want to fight back, but we would all
have been happy to see the war come to an end tomorrow if
that had been possible.

An incident that involved one of my colleagues in 818
Squadron,
Sub-Lieutenant Penrose, sums up the situation
perfectly. He was an observer in a Swordfish and had been
flying on a raid over
Cagliari when his plane was attacked by
a couple of Italian fighters,
Fiat CR.32s. These were biplanes
with an open cockpit, rather like the Swordfish itself. They
were fitted with two forward-firing guns and were pretty
obsolete. But one of them came in from the side and fired a
few bursts at Penrose's Swordfish while the other made a stern
attack. They seemed to make no impact, the Swordfish easily
outmanoeuvring them. Both Italian pilots then throttled back
and took up formation on either side of Penrose's aircraft, no
doubt feeling that they had something in common with
another biplane and obviously thinking that they were no
threat to each other. One of the pilots seemed quite amused by
the whole affair. Penrose carried a service revolver and drew
it from its holster. Resting the barrel on the side of the cockpit,
he took careful aim at the nose of the CR.32 on the
starboard side and fired. The Italian fighter banked and, to
the Swordfish crew's amazement, dived steeply and smashed
into the sea. The chance of hitting the target with a service
revolver must have been a thousand to one. The other fighter
roared off and disappeared.

Penrose was congratulated for this act of bravery, but in
fact he was distraught. He was convinced that his shot had
killed the Italian pilot, for a single bullet would not have
caused enough damage to the plane, and he felt that his
behaviour had been utterly beyond the pale. Nothing I or
anyone else could say would alleviate his remorse. In the
wardroom he became a little like the Ancient Mariner and we
all wished that he would snap out of it. He did eventually, but
continued to feel guilty about taking someone else's life, as he
felt, in an underhand way. Yet I am sure if he had managed to
bring the fighter down in the heat of a battle, he would have
felt completely different. This is how I believe it was for most,
if not all, of us, particularly the hostilities-only pilots.

We were very exultant at our success in the attack on the
Italian ports, but had little time to spend congratulating ourselves.
No sooner had we put into Gibraltar than there was an
urgent call to raise steam once more and prepare for sailing
within two hours. We were called out to defend a homeward-bound
convoy that had just left Gibraltar, because there had
been a report that the German battlecruiser, or pocket battleship,
Admiral Hipper
had been observed in the eastern
Atlantic. It turned out that an unescorted convoy of ships
journeying from Freetown, in Sierra Leone, to the UK had
come under attack from
Admiral Hipper
and had scattered.
Seven merchant ships out of the nineteen in the convoy had
been sunk or taken as prizes. We had to go and hunt for the
German warship while rounding up the remains of the convoy
and providing an escort. So once again I headed out into the
Atlantic, carrying out long-range patrols from dawn to dusk.
We managed to shepherd the freighters into some sort of
order and they were taken off under the wing of the old
battleship
Malaya.

After ten days at sea, without any sign of
Hipper,
which
had in fact reached its haven in Brest, the German-occupied
port on the west coast of France, we once more returned to
our home, Gibraltar. It was certainly about time for us,
because long periods of patrol at sea were a strain on the aircraft
and after several days there began to be fewer available
for flying each morning. Some repairs and maintenance tasks
either needed more time than the mechanics and riggers had
or needed the space and equipment of the North Shore airfield
in Gibraltar. We, the aircrew, also got tired and a period of
leave in Gibraltar was always welcome. We could catch up on
mail and the news from home. I had been sent a rugby ball by
one of my teachers at Kelso High School and we often played
a scratch game of rugby on the flight deck of the
Ark
when
she was tied up. It was a great way of relieving a lot of the
stress of operations. I still have that rugby ball today.

Ark Royal
was a famous ship, and of course very imposing,
so if any dignitaries were being entertained by Admiral
Somerville a tour of the carrier would always be included in
their visit. These would sometimes be leading Spanish politicians
and military figures, or sometimes British officials and
top brass passing through. I was in a party of five, which
included Captain Holland, formed up to show two distinguished
guests around the ship. To my surprise, one of them,
a lady, turned out to be my opponent from the Greenwich
College dinner. During wartime the ship's port-holes were
kept closed while in harbour. Going below decks, the captain
said that any further would take us into the ratings' quarters.
The lady said that she would like to see where the men lived,
and so the captain said to me, 'Open the hatch, Sub-
Lieutenant.' I did so and immediately the lady grabbed a
handkerchief from her handbag, saying, 'What a horrible
smell of men!' – whereupon Captain Holland retorted, 'Have
you any idea what it would smell like if the ship was manned
by women?' I was so proud of the captain: he had paid her
back for her rudeness.

Since I had been on the
Ark
as part of Force H, we hadn't seen
any sign of the German air force that had moved into Sicily,
punishing Admiral Cunningham in Alexandria with so many
casualties. The German navy was, however, making its
presence felt in the North Atlantic and it was this that
occupied most of our time in February and March. Up until
now it had been U-boat packs hunting in the Atlantic that had
caused most of the British losses, but by March there were
three German pocket battleships preying on the Atlantic
convoys.
Admiral Hipper
had brought us into the Atlantic in
February, and her two sister ships – we referred to them as
'the Ugly Sisters' –
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
which had
sunk
Glorious
off Norway, had now resumed active service.
Both ships had managed to take the northerly route past
Greenland into the North Atlantic to attack UK-bound
convoys leaving from Halifax in Newfoundland. They sank
four ships here, then steamed rapidly east to rip into another
one, part of a convoy from Sierra Leone to the UK. Here they
were spotted by the crew of the battleship
Malaya,
which was
the convoy's escort, and the German warships made off.
Malaya
had on board a catapult-launched Swordfish fitted
with floats to act as a spotter and they launched it. If the aircraft
could maintain contact, then other escort ships in the
North Atlantic could be directed to them and convoys could
be diverted.
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
were fast ships, however,
much faster than the old
Malaya,
and the Swordfish ran
out of fuel attempting to stay in touch with the enemy. The
ships disappeared, but this sighting was enough for us to be
ordered to raise steam and leave Gibraltar, heading once more
to the west.

We rendezvoused with the convoy, adding our strength to it
as escort. We operated up to a very high state of alert for more
than seven days as the convoy steamed north, so I was
permanently on the lookout, not only for U-boats but also for
the two German raiders on the loose.

We had at least six Swordfish in the air at all times and I
was flying patrols to a depth of around 80–130 miles from the
line of advance. In case we spotted
Scharnhorst
or
Gneisenau,
the Skua squadron was kept armed with 500lb semi-armour-piercing
bombs, and a striking force of Swordfish armed with
torpedoes was maintained in readiness as well. Three
Swordfish were always on patrol, armed with two depth-charges
each, and three were kept at readiness on the
Ark,
also 'bombed up' with depth-charges. If a submarine had been
sighted on the surface then it would have been hit by six
depth-charges from the patrolling aircraft and there would
have been a follow-on attack of six more from the standby
aircraft. At night the torpedo striking force stood armed and
fuelled in the hangar, with another two aircraft carrying flares
and flame floats. One of these last aircraft remained on the
deck, as did another one armed with depth-charges, so that
they could be flown or accelerated off with the minimum of
delay.

So determined were we to maintain this state of preparedness
that I never went below, but slept and ate in my kit in the
briefing room underneath the navigating bridge. If I wasn't
flying, eating or sleeping, I was in the ready room.

On 11 March there was quite severe weather and the
carrier was pitching so badly that there was almost 30 feet of
vertical movement on the end of the flight deck. It made for
extremely hazardous landings and I thought we were flying at
the very edge of our limits. Little did I know! In fact, the
motion of the flight deck was a severe handicap. The antisubmarine
patrols were loaded with two depth-charges, one
under each wing, but this proved to be too heavy for landing
in such conditions. Three Swordfish damaged their undercarriages
and another broke its tail wheel, so the rest of the
patrols were flown with just two 100lb bombs. On the 14th
we had further news of
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau,
which
were now again off the coast of Newfoundland, where they
attacked a convoy of tankers, four of which they captured.
Scharnhorst
had put a German prize crew – a crew put in a
captured vessel to operate her in place of her own – on each
of these ships and they were heading, so it was assumed, back
to Brest.

Next day another convoy was intercepted by the two
raiders, with tragic consequences. Thirteen merchant ships
were sunk, bringing the damage that they had inflicted on us
in just this one single cruise to twenty-two vessels.

We didn't need any motivation to take the
search for these
two battleships extremely seriously, but it was a gargantuan
task. There were hundreds of thousands of square miles of
ocean into which
Gneisenau
and
Scharnhorst
could disappear.
It was like looking for a tiger in the jungle. It took its toll. On
15 March one of 818 Squadron's Swordfish, fitted with a
long-range tank for extra endurance, failed to return. This
was the aircraft of my cabin mate,
Sub-Lieutenant Ferguson,
whose loss I have already mentioned, and his fellow
crewmember,
Sub-Lieutenant Watt. Both had been fairly new
arrivals on the
Ark
and I had hardly got to know them.

On the 19th, one of our patrolling Swordfish spotted a
merchant ship flying Dutch colours, but the ship's name and
her port of origin on the stern were painted over. There was a
strong possibility that this was a supply ship for the
Scharnhorst,
as it was heading west at 270 degrees. On board
the
Ark
we formed the opinion that it was
Wakama,
which we
knew had left Brest for the Azores. We believed that in the
waters of those neutral islands German U-boats were in the
habit of resting up and rendezvousing with their depot ships.
It was an important contact and a Swordfish was detailed off
to maintain touch discreetly. Later that day, one of the final
patrols before nightfall spotted a tanker that appeared to be
running half empty, heading due east as though making for
Brest. By the time the Swordfish had returned to the
Ark
with
this information it was too dark to send out any further
patrols, but the next morning I was one of nine Swordfish that
took off at 0740 to comb the ocean for the two mysterious
ships. There were plenty of unanswered questions. What were
they doing in the vicinity? Were they a clue to the presence of
the German battlecruisers? Had the tanker just left them after
refuelling at sea? Were we going to take on these two powerful
raiders? The German warships were fast modern ships
and well armed.
Scharnhorst
had hit
Glorious
with a salvo
from her nine 11in guns at a range of almost 25 miles – a
phenomenal performance. If we did make contact,
Renown,
our flagship, would have her work cut out against both
the big cruisers and we would certainly attempt a torpedo
strike.

At the briefing that morning I was given a bearing that
should lead me to the tanker if she had kept to her course and
speed overnight, and after an hour of flying we saw something
on the horizon. We dived down to intercept it and flew low
along the side of the ship, then around the bow at about 200
feet. We saw no movement on board at all. Flying round
again, I could read
Bianca
painted on the bow. But there were
no signals or any sign of the crew; neither was she flying any
flag, which was a bit strange, as normally ships are keen to
identify themselves as neutrals. Then Dusty realized that this
was one of the tankers that had been captured by
Scharnhorst
several days ago – she was being operated by a prize crew. So
the surmise that she was heading for Brest was correct.