Read Online I Sank The Bismarck by John Moffat - Free Book Online

started to change very rapidly. The Germans
mounted a huge assault on Western Europe, and we found
ourselves looking down the barrel of a gun, sometimes quite
literally.
    It started at the beginning of April 1940 when Hitler
launched an invasion of Norway and Denmark, both of
which were neutral countries. German warships sailed with a
large number of soldiers on board to capture the capital of
Norway, Oslo, and several other towns along the coast. The
seizure of Oslo didn't go according to plan, the harbour
defences sank the leading German destroyer, and the
Norwegian government and royal family escaped northwards.
    The Royal Navy had put to sea when the German fleet was
spotted, and there was a battle with some of the invading
ships atNarvik, which lay at the head of a large fjord, Ofot
Fjord, in northern Norway. Two German destroyers were
sunk and three others damaged, as were two British destroyers.
The German warships had succeeded in landing their
troops, but were bottled up in the fjord, and unfortunately for
them Britain had selected Narvik as the point where they
would land British and French troops to fight the occupation.
A few days later the battleship Warspite, with a fleet of
destroyers, entered Ofot Fjord. The German destroyers were
taken by surprise, and all eight of them and a submarine
were sunk or scuttled in the ensuing battle. It was a great
victory for our lads. TheFleet Air Arm had also come out of
it well, because it was a Swordfish aircraft catapulted off Warspite that bombed the German U-boat. It was the first U-boat
to be sunk by an aircraft in the war, and Narvik was the
first naval battle.
    A few days later the Fleet Air Arm pulled off another historic
victory when a group of Skua dive-bombers that had
taken off from Hatston in the Orkneys attacked a German
cruiser. Königsberg had been part of the fleet that landed
troops in Bergen, and she had been damaged by shells fired
from the Norwegian shore batteries. She was moored against
the harbour wall, awaiting repairs. TheSkuas scored several
direct hits, setting the cruiser on fire and rupturing the hull
below the waterline. This was the first time that a warship
had been sunk by air attack.
    But from then on the boot was on the other foot. The
Germans reinforced their troops by air, sending several
squadrons of bombers and fighters to Norway. Within a few
days the Royal Navy was being attacked by these German aircraft.
German bombers, twin-enginedJunkers Ju88 andHeinkel
111, sank a modern Tribal-class destroyer,HMS Ghurkha, and
hit a battleship,HMS Rodney, although not much damage was
caused. The vulnerability of the fleet to the German aircraft
meant that they could not sail close to the shore to bombard
German positions or to attack their shore communications. The
aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and Furious had sailed with
the fleet to provide air cover, but the problem was that the aircraft
they carried were no match for the modern German planes
with which they were coming into conflict.
    *
    I had still not completely finished my training, so I had beenposted to another Fleet Air Arm base atEastleigh, near
Southampton, where I was being given instruction in naval
fighter aircraft. Here I was flying the same aeroplanes that the
navy was relying on to fight off theLuftwaffe over Norway,
and it was quite clear to me that they would not be up to the
job. We had Blackburn Skuas,Rocs andGlosterGladiators.
The Skua was a single-engined aircraft, an all-metal monoplane
with a covered two-seater cockpit. There were four
machine guns in the wings, and the observer at the rear had a
rearward-mounted machine gun to fight off attacking aircraft.
As well as this, it could carry a 500lb bomb. It was a good
dive-bomber, but as a fighter it was outclassed by the German
Messerschmitt 109, which had a much better performance.
Even the twin-engined Messerschmitt, the 110, which was
also classified as a fighter bomber, could outrun it, although
it probably wasn't as