The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth (16 page)

In the end the Kriegsmarine decided that as a point of honour they had to keep using the base, although its defences were built up considerably. Which was rather a waste later in the war, as the only real use for it was to build U-boats

The effects on the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air arm were rather more subtle. The money spent on the new carriers had, they felt, been fully vindicated - while surface ships were very useful, nothing but a carrier force could have done that damage. It was also apparent that ships under air attack without a carrier could be in trouble, and that high value units needed their own air protection. While this had been suspected already, the raid did make it more apparent. As a result, work was started on improving the control of the aircraft (the attacks by the Luftwaffe had shown that the existing system was too primitive and inaccurate). The attacks had also shown that the existing HA defences were inadequate, at least against determined attack. Both these conclusions would be reinforced by the actions later in the year, but it would take years before things were in a satisfactory state. The aim was to develop a doctrine based, where possible, around a force of surface ships with carrier support, but it was realised this would take time and practice. While some of the more fervent carrier supporters did suggest that they could do without battleships altogether, this was never considered a sensible attitude, particularly due to the constant threat of bad weather in the North Sea and Atlantic during the winter. The concept of a balanced fleet was, however, changing to meet the new challenges.

The biggest effect however was the political one. Churchill was most impressed and pleased with the victory. As he said in the House of Commons the day the force returned:

"It has been said that a war between a land power like Germany and a naval power such as ourselves is difficult, as it is a war between an E
lephant and a Whale. Well, on New Year Herr Hitler learned that THIS Whale has wings!"

As a result of Churchill
's approval, the Admiralty was able to fend off some of the requests from the Air Ministry for greater resources, especially where aircraft were concerned. Not a huge amount, but then the FAA was much smaller than the RAF. This was very helpful as the naval building program was being examined with the need to cut back in some areas - without the raid, the fleet carriers might have been slowed in construction or stopped. Indeed, it was found possible to get some extra manpower and investment in the FAA's new programs, although the RAF build-up still consumed the great majority of the aircraft industry.

Chapter 12

Jan 1940 - HMS Illustrious

As a result of the damage to HMS Illustrious, it was decided to give her a refit at the same time as her repairs. This had been considered for some time, in order to bring her up to the standard of the Formidable class.

The carrier was fitted with a new, more powerful, catapult. While her existing ones were adequate for the current aircraft, the new aircraft being designed were considerably heavier, and since one of her catapults had to be taken out for repair (the bomb that hit the deck had indeed caused some collateral damage to the port catapult), this may as well be done now. The equipment was already available, having been waiting originally to upgrade HMS Ark Royal.

Her arrestor gear was also replaced to take the heavier aircraft (in fact, this meant she would be the first carrier to operate them), as the combination of more weight and a higher landing speed exceeded the safe limits for the current gear. The Navy had been rather shocked at the weight and speed requirements when the initial designs had been proposed, but it had been pointed out to them that restricting the weight and landing speed also severely restricted the performance - if they wanted the best performance, they had to pay the price. Fortunately the estimates made when the carriers were initially conceived had been adequate for the current generation of aircraft. While the Implacable and the Indefatigable had the new equipment, the earlier four carriers would need a refit before they could operate the new planes.

Her light AA suite was inferior to the Formidable class (48 40mm as against 64), but there were difficulties in fitting an additional 2 octuple units. Instead, two quad 40mm were fitted to bring her up to 56 guns. In addition, 12 20mm were added (basically anywhere they would fit!).

In view of the increasing power requirements of the radar and other systems, a 275kw diesel generator was fitted. Two of these had actually been in the original plans, but in the end more steam powered generators had been used instead. It was considered that they were more efficient than the diesels available at the time, but replacing one of more with more powerful units would have taken too much work and time, while addition of the diesel until was much simpler. It would turn out that even this would be inadequate, and later on in the war she would receive her second diesel.

A
t the same time, she would receive an improved radar fit. The actions so far had shown that while radar was already useful, it still needed significant improvements before its true potential could be used. The 279 set was replaced with an improved version, and the Type 286 replaced by a new set, the Type 281. She would be the evaluation ship for this new radar set.

Her repairs would take almost
three months, and she would rejoin the fleet at the end of March. It was then hoped to bring in HMS Ark Royal for similar improvements, a hope which turned out to be overtaken by events.

As
the ship would be in dock for four months, the opportunity was taken to train her squadrons on the new planes just entering service. These were the Goshawk Mk2, the Cormorant Mk2 and the first of the Boulton-Paul SeaLance TBR, the Swordfish replacement.

The arrival of new planes and weapons, Winter 1939-40

Goshawk Mk2

This was basically the original plane with a number of improvements and modifications based on the in-service experience. There was a new version of the Hercules engine, using 100 octane petrol for higher performance, and already giving 1,450hp. This was driving a Rotol variable-pitch propeller; which had been suggested for trial by Bristol (they did, after all, own half of the company). Results had been most satisfying. Other changes involved things like removing the few fabric-covered control surfaces, and small changes to enhance the handling and ease of use of the plane, plus safety features like self-sealing fuel tanks. Bristol were still working on the Hercules, and current intentions were to produce one more version of the Goshawk with a more powerful version before transferring production to the next-generation fighter currently testing. At the moment, the Mk2 seemed capable of taking on and beating the currently expected opposition. The Mk2 was faster than the Mk1 (despite the inevitable addition of some weight), and the new propeller made it more economical. While it was intended to mount four 20mm cannon, the weapon was still in limited supply and as a result the first batch would complete with two 20mm and two 0.5".

After the experience of fighting German Me110 fighters after the Wilhelmshaven raid, the pilots asked if better protection could be put into the plane - a couple of the pilots had been shot down from behind, and one other had had a very lucky escape when the cannon shell destroyed his radio rather than his back. Gloster were uncertain, but some experiments with 'salvaged' armour plate from various RAF aircraft showed that the armoured back made for the Battle would fit (with a bit of modification), and that the weight wasn't an issue as it actually helped to compensate for the heavy Rotol propeller. A modified seat would be fitted to new planes later in the year, but a number of the squadrons fitted them themselves, as and when they could acquire the armour. How they acquired some of the plates is perhaps best not looked into too closely. The info
rmation was passed on to the Air Minsitry (who filed it), and more informally to some of the RAF squadrons (who immediately started agitating for the same fitting to their Hurricanes and Spitfires) - as a result of the Goshawk flight tests, the RAF already had orders in to Rotol for the variable pitch propellers. It was also felt very useful that the self-sealing fuel tanks had now been incorporated - a couple of the fighters in earlier actions had landed on their carriers with leaking tanks and not much fuel left, and it was fortunate that the air actions had been close to the carriers.

As part of the increasingly close (if still unofficial and secret) cooperation with the USA, one of the first Mk2 Goshawks had been taken to the US for secret flight comparison with the USN's new fighter, the Grumman Wildcat (F4F-3). On paper, they were very similar aircraft. The Goshawk was somewhat heavier than the Wildcat (the Mk 1 was very similar in weight, but the addition of things like self-sealing fuel tanks, the Rotol propeller, etc, had added a good 500lb to the weight, compensated for though by the more powerful engine). The speeds were similar, although with its extra weight and power the Goshawk dived more quickly, as was the overall performance. The straight line speed of the Goshawk was also greater. The FAA considered the Goshawk to be more manoeuvrable, and in general they were considered comparable aircraft. The big advantage the FAA considered the Goshawk possessed was its much heavier armament - 2x20mm + 2x0.5" as compared to 4x0.5" on the Wildcat, and the RN pointed out to the Americans that they actually considered this to be too light, and that as soon as supplies permitted they were fitting 4x20mm cannons.

Cormorant Mk2

As with the Goshawk, the main changes were the new engine and variable pitch propeller, plus small changes, giving better performance, and the self-sealing tanks and armour
ed glass put into the new Goshawk. Some testing had been done carrying a 1,600lb AP bomb, which it was hoped would penetrate most battleships, but this was felt to be a little too heavy for the plane. However it was hoped that further engine development would make this bomb a usable and powerful addition to the FAA's armoury.

Bolton-Paul SeaLance Mk 1

The replacement for the Swordfish was now available. Indeed, the aircraft had entered production in 1939, and some planes had been delivered in October. This was the first of the two aircraft being developed, and it used the Rolls-Royce Griffon engine. Production was still limited as the performance of the Griffon I was still not as good as was desired. However with the country now at war, the navy wanted to get some into operational use for evaluation. The engine was still not giving the power output required (it was currently operating at 1,700hp), but RR were confident that this could be improved significantly in the next 6-12 months. While the Merlin was by far the most important project at RR, the cancellation of the Exe by the Navy had allowed effort on the Griffon as well. The MAP (Ministry of Aircraft Production) had tried to shut down the production of the Griffon on the grounds it was only needed by the FAA, but the Navy pointed to the earlier agreements made when they regained control of the FAA, and that all the other engines they used were also in use by the RAF (even though the Navy had funded the early work on the Hercules), and one engine for them was hardly excessive. Given the success of the FAA so far in the war, and Churchill's consequent support, the Griffon production was not paused.

The oth
er TBR aircraft, the Fairy Spearfish, had finished trials, but was being held until the Centaurus engine was running more reliably (and with a lower propensity to melt bits of itself on occasion). Bristol were confident that these problems could be fixed, especially with the extra resources made available by the cancellation of the Taurus engine, but as a result the RN were reluctant to put the plane into full production. Instead, preliminary work was done on the production facilities to allow the plane into full production as soon as the engine was satisfactory, and in the meantime additional work and testing could be done to refine the airframe.

The SeaLance was a big, heavy plane (hence the need to a powerful engine, and the improved facilities for launch and recovery needed), coming in at 9,500lb empty - to put this into perspective, this was close to twice the empty weight of a Swordfish! However its performance was expected to be considerably better. Even with the Mk I Griffon it was getting a speed of 210kt with its torpedo, and a range of 800m. It was hoped that this would give it a much better chance of survival on attack, espec
ially when using the new Mk XIVA torpedo.

One of the results of the new, higher-performance aircraft coming or soon to come into service was a re-evaluation of the weapons available, and a number of programmes for more advanced torpedoes and bombs to be used by these planes.

The Mk XII was the standard aerial torpedo of the Royal Navy from 1937, and a new torpedo, the Mk XIV, had entered service in late 1938 (both versions were still in service). As a result of the expectations of the new torpedo bomber, it had been pointed out that requiring the plane to slow down to around 100kt to launch its torpedo was just giving the enemy AA a better target. This hadn't really been an issue with the Swordfish, as it couldn't go much faster than that while carrying a torpedo. Considerable research had gone into modifying the Mk XII to be dropped into a shallow harbour, and once that had been completed they carried on to see if similar modifications would allow a faster and higher dropping speed. As a result, the Mk XIVA had been developed; basically the same as the Mk XIV, it could be dropped from 200 feet at up to 200kt, thanks to break-away control surfaces. Development continued steadily as the SeaLance and Spearfish should be capable of dropping both the Mk XIV and the proposed Mk XV at between 200 - 250kt. A target of dropping at 300kt has been set to the developers, which was a bit ambitious as even the Spearfish could not carry a torpedo at that speed.