# Blackburn Skua crash 1940



## BraveCapt. (Dec 6, 2018)

Hei, 

A uncle told me that he witnessed a Blackburn Skua successfully land on water close to land after being hit during combat. He saw the two pilots climb out and destroying the plane by shooting at the fuel tank with a flare gun.

I have no doubt that he saw the crash but is part with the flare gun believable ? Was there a protocol for what to do if you landed a plane you had to leave? 

The landing took place in Tovik not far from Narvik. The plane was probably Blackburn Skua 8M from 803 sqdn. Sub.Lt. *Philip Noel Charlton*, and the his Tail Gunner, Naval Airman *F.Culliford* were rescued and soon after returned to their unit.

Blackburn Skua Tovika

Vrakrester av 1 fly, Blackburn Skua 8M fra 803 sqdn., ved strandkanten. 2 personer ved vraket.

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## fubar57 (Dec 6, 2018)

Probably true. They also had self destruct buttons in some aircraft

​

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## Dinger (Dec 7, 2018)

TerWol said:


> Hei,
> 
> A uncle told me that he witnessed a Blackburn Skua successfully land on water close to land after being hit during combat. He saw the two pilots climb out and destroying the plane by shooting at the fuel tank with a flare gun.
> 
> ...



The Skua carried a bit of very secret kit that the crew would not have wanted to fall into enemy hands. The R1110 receiver that could home onto Type 72 rotating beacon carried by British aircraft carriers. In theory if the Germans got their hands on such a device, or even just worked out what frequency it worked at, they could have plotted the position of British carriers and launched attacks against them. In practice this would have been a very hard task to perform since the homing beacon was only switched on very briefly at pre-determined times and to home in on it you also needed to know the rotation speed of the beacon and its "starting position", both of which could be varied. But nevertheless crews were ordered to destroy their aircraft if there was any chance of it falling into enemy hands. Incidentally one of the reasons the Skua and the later Fulmar and Firefly had a second crewman at all was to work the R1110 receiver which needed you to use a stopwatch and do a fair bit of mathematics to plot the direction back to the carrier. Later in the war a more advanced system was introduced that could be used by the pilot. Here is a first-hand description of another Skua crash in Norway where again the crew set fire to the Skua with their "Very" flare gun. Oh Calamity! A SKua TAG's Tale of the Norwegian Campaign.

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## BraveCapt. (Dec 7, 2018)

Dinger said:


> The Skua carried a bit of very secret kit that the crew would not have wanted to fall into enemy hands. The R1110 receiver that could home onto Type 72 rotating beacon carried by British aircraft carriers. In theory if the Germans got their hands on such a device, or even just worked out what frequency it worked at, they could have plotted the position of British carriers and launched attacks against them. In practice this would have been a very hard task to perform since the homing beacon was only switched on very briefly at pre-determined times and to home in on it you also needed to know the rotation speed of the beacon and its "starting position", both of which could be varied. But nevertheless crews were ordered to destroy their aircraft if there was any chance of it falling into enemy hands. Incidentally one of the reasons the Skua and the later Fulmar and Firefly had a second crewman at all was to work the R1110 receiver which needed you to use a stopwatch and do a fair bit of mathematics to plot the direction back to the carrier. Later in the war a more advanced system was introduced that could be used by the pilot. Here is a first-hand description of another Skua crash in Norway where again the crew set fire to the Skua with their "Very" flare gun. Oh Calamity! A SKua TAG's Tale of the Norwegian Campaign.



Thank you so much for your reply. This was all new to me and very interesting. I will check out the link you posted. I hope that you found the links that I posted useful in any way.

I know the Norwegian national museum of aviation in Bobø are planing to restore a Skua. Let´s hope they succeed. As i understand there are very few, if any Skuas left. Blackburn Skua L2896 - Norsk Luftfartsmuseum


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## BraveCapt. (Dec 7, 2018)

fubar57 said:


> Probably true. They also had self destruct buttons in some aircraft
> 
> ​



Thank you so much for your reply. I will check out the link you posted. I hope that you found the links that I posted useful in any way.


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## Dinger (Dec 7, 2018)

TerWol said:


> Thank you so much for your reply. This was all new to me and very interesting. I will check out the link you posted. I hope that you found the links that I posted useful in any way.
> 
> I know the Norwegian national museum of aviation in Bobø are planing to restore a Skua. Let´s hope they succeed. As i understand there are very few, if any Skuas left. Blackburn Skua L2896 - Norsk Luftfartsmuseum



I certainly did like the links you posted - Thanks. There are the remains of a Skua at the Fleet air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, England laid out as if they were still underwater. The Bodo restoration project got a long way but I believe it has "stalled" while they concentrate on other projects. It would certainly be great to see a Skua restored fully. I was lucky enough to see Bodo's restored Skua front cockpit when they bought it down to Yeovilton over a decade ago for a reunion of surviving Skua crewmen. There is a photo I took at the time towards the bottom of this webpage Modelling the Blackburn Skua


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