Worst aircraft of WW2? (1 Viewer)

History


The Fairey Swordfish, the legendary 'Stringbag', was a Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance biplane dive-bomber which went into service with the Fleet Air Arm pre-war in 1936. Initially, Swordfishes operated from the large fleet carriers. Later Swordfishes operated from escort carriers, and were very effective against U-boats. The nickname Stringbag indicated the versatility of the Swordfish, which could carry an unlikely combination of loads, but also referred to its jungle of bracing wires, which belonged to a past age. The Swordfish remained operational until the end of the war, gaining the distinction of being the last biplane to see active service.
The precursor of the Swordfish, the Fairey PV, was designed by Marcel Lobelle as a private venture to meet an order from the Greek Navy. The prototype PV made its first flight on 21 March 1933. The PV met Air Ministry requirement S.9/30 for an unarmed spotter - reconnaissance aircraft, but had an Armstrong Siddeley Panther radial engine instead of a liquid-cooled Rolls-Royce Kestrel. After modifications and replacement of the engine by a Bristol Pegasus IIM radial, it was renamed the TSR 1 (Torpedo - Spotter - Reconnaissance 1). It flew in this form in July 1933, but was lost in September 1933.
The TSR II met the requirements of Air Ministry specification S.15/33, which superseded S.9/30, which called for a two-seat torpedo-bomber and three-seat reconnaissance aircraft. The TSR II flew on 17 April 1934, and exactly on year later on 23 April 1935, the TSRII was submitted to the Air Ministry fotr which Fairey subsequently received a production order.
The production Swordfish Mk I entered service in February 1936, and had an entirely metallic structure. The first front-line squadron to be equipped with the Fairey Swordfish was 825 squadron in July 1936, with aircraft K5936 "978" on HMS Glorious. At the outbreak of war, the Fleet Air Arm had 13 squadrons equipped with Swordfishes, most of them based on the six fleet carriers, and three flights of Swordfishes with floats, that operated from catapult-equipped warships.
In 1939 the RAF also trialed the Fairey Swordfish Mk I. Swordfish I L9770 was at Gibraltar dett 3 AACU from March 1939 thence sent to B Flight 202 squadron also at Gibraltar 27 October 1940. Five Mk I aircraft, P4026-P4030, were also delivered to Seletar in August 1939, they became part of B Flight Spotter Unit at RAF Seletar from 1 October 1939 and thence 4 AACU Seletar until March 1941.
After 1942 the Swordfish was replaced in its torpedo-bombing role by the Fairey Albacore, Fairey Barracuda and Grumman Avenger, and was employed in anti-submarine missions and was provided with a radar (Mk.III) and with air-surface rockets. However, even though the Fairey Albacore went into service early in the war, it proved little better than the Swordfish, which it was intended to replace. By this time, production of the Swordfish was moved to Blackburn Aircraft Limited, Sherburn-in-Elmet. The Swordfish was now equipped with ASV radar and rocket projectiles for anti-submarine operations. The Swordfish Mk II had wings with metal-skinned undersides and launching rails for eight 60lb rockets. The provision for a float undercarriage was deleted, and the more powerful Pegasus 30 engine installed. The Mk.III had ASV Mk.XI radar in a radome between the landing gear legs. This radar had a range of about 40km against ships, and in good conditions also against U-boats; but it would detect a Schnorkel only in very calm seas and at distances below 8km. Some Mk IIs and many Mk IIIs became Mk IVs when a cockpit canopy was installed.
After this time, Swordfishes operated from 14 escort carriers and 18 MAC (Merchant Aircraft Carrier) ships. MAC ships were converted oil tankers or grain ships, with a flight deck but minimal maintenance facilities, and the aircraft were continuously exposed to the often Arctic weather conditions. For operations from small flight decks with heavy loads, rocket-assisted take-offs were necessary.

Fleet Air Arm Swordfish K8357 '4H'


In their anti-submarine role, the Swordfish were very successful. They usually flew patrols at night, patrolling between 145km and 40km ahead of the convoy. Targets were located with radar, and investigated by dropping flares.
The final Swordfish was delivered in August, 1944 and the last front-line Swordfish Fleet Air Arm unit was 836 squadron, which disbanded on 21 May 1945. However, the Swordfish continued in second-line training duties until Summer 1946. The very last two Swordfish, retired at RNARY with Swordfish HS255 which was scrapped as late as in 1952, and HS255 which was at Youngsfield Airport, Cape Town until 1953.

During its career the Fairey Swordfish saw service primarily with the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy and Air Force, briefly with the RAF, and in Australia and New Zealand. In Canada, Swordfish operated from the Naval Gunnery School in Yarmouth and the Royal Navy Station at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where their open cockpits were fitted with sliding hoods for more comfortable winter operations. In 1946, Fleet Requirement Unit 743 (RCN) was equipped with Swordfish.
By the end of production in 1944, a total production was 2396 aircraft had been built, including 989 Mk.Is, 1080 Mk.IIs, and 327 Mk.IIIs.

Battle Honours
The Fairey Swordfish had a long and successful operational history and won many Battle honours in WWII. The most important action was the attack to Italian fleet in Taranto's seaport on 11 November 1940, when 4 ships (of that 2 were battleships) were sunk and other were damaged by two waves of 21 Swordfish that took off from the carrier HMS Illustrious". Only 2 aircraft were shot down in the attack. From 1940 to 1945, the Fleet Air Arm sank 18 Axis submarines and shared 16 other sinkings with escort vessels or RAF units. The Swordfish was responsible for 15 of the 18 solo kills, and participated in 10 of the 16 shared sinkings. That is quite a record for an airplane that was considered obsolete at the time the war broke out.
However, some of the first Fleet Air Arm aircraft lost in WWII included over 25 Swordfish of 811 and 822 squadrons which sank with HMS Courageous when she was torpedoed on 17 September 1939. Throughout the rest of the year Swordfish were being used mostly for convoy escort and naval cover.



Swordfish MkI 818 sqdn HMS Furious 'U3M' L2810 in April 1940, Narvik
There was little combat until the German invasion of Norway in the spring of 1940 when the Fairey Swordfish saw its first real action in the April 1940 Norwegian Campaign and the Battle of Narvik. The attack on 11 April, 1940 by Swordfish from HMS Furious was the first airborne torpedo attack of the war, when they launched a torpedo attack on two destroyers at harbor in Trondheim, the attack was ineffective. Maybe the first operational loss was on 12 April 1940 when 'U3L' flown by Sub Lt SGI Appleby and L/A E Tapping of 818 squadron (HMS Furious) took part in the Narvik attack. This particular aircraft was set on fire on its port side, and crashed in Ofot Fjord. The crew were both injured but rescued by HMS Grenade. One day later, on 13 April, a Swordfish launched by catapult from HMS Warspite flew up Ofot Fjord towards Narvik, and spotted seven German destroyers for the Warspite's guns; all the destroyers were sunk or so badly damaged that they were scuttled. The same aircraft, L9767, flown by PO FC Rice, Lt Cdr WLM Brown and L/A MG Pacey later that day again flying from HMS Warspite discovered a German submarine, U-64, and sank it in a dive-bombing attack at Herjangs Fjord. It was the first U-boat sunk by allied or Fleet Air Arm aircraft in the war.
Over the next two weeks of the Norwegian Campaign, Swordfish conducted constant sorties in Norwegian waters, performing strikes, reconnaissance, and antisubmarine patrols under severe weather conditions. Disaster struck on 9 June 1940, when many Swordfish and all their crew were lost with HMS Glorious when she was sunk by the German Capital ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The loss could have been greater as most of the squadron had disembarked in the UK prior to the Carrier's loss.


Swordfish flying over HMS Ark Royal

In April-May 1940 the Swordfish operated in France, covering the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force and took part in the defence of the BEF during the Dunkirk evacuation on 31 May 1940, and was even involved in bombing advancing troops and tanks at Gravelines, and paratroops at Rotterdam aerodrome.

From May 1940 onwards into the succeeding months, Swordfish squadrons were loaned to RAF Coastal Command and conducted mine-laying operations and convoy patrols in the English Channel and North Sea against German, Dutch, Begian and French ports. The Nazi "Blitzkrieg" against the Low Countries and France forced the RAF and FAA to call on every resource they had to stave off complete disaster; four squadrons of Swordfish in all were attached to RAF Coastal Command operating out of RAF Thorney Island, RAF North Coates, RAF Detling, RAF Manston, and were put to every task for which they were capable: mine-laying, bombing of naval and ground targets, spotting, and reconnaissance often flying individually with pilot and observer alone throughout the night. With the threat of invasion from Europe these four squadrons were called upon to bomb the build up of invasion barges in enemy ports and to lay mines in the harbours. Their task went on into the Battle of Briatin period from July till October 1940.

This period was particularly difficult for the aircrews. On 26 May 1940 Swordfish '5H' of 825 squadron flown by Sub Lt JB Kiddle from Detling, after spotting for HMS Galatea off Calais in which two 4.7 field artillery believed destroyed, the Swordfish was attacked at 8000ft by two Bf109 NW of Songatte. During the violent evading action of diving and turning down at sea level, the observer Lt GN Beaumont was thrown out of the aircrfat and killed. The aircraft returned safely.

Throughout 1940, Swordfish also operated out of the south of France and took part in bombing raids against Italian targets in June, when Italy declared war against the French and British. A number of Swordfish from 767 squadron left France where they had been under training and eventually ended up on the island of Malta, where they would successfully harass Axis shipping during the battle for North Africa. The Malta based Swordfish flew anti-shipping strikes, usually at night, against Italian convoys to North Africa. They sank an average of 50,000 tons per month.



The night of 13-14 August 1940 saw 3 Royal Navy Swordfish torpedo bombers leave Malta for a raid on Augusta Harbour. The force accompanied by 6 bomb equipped aircraft met with intense flak and 2 of the 3 torpedo carrying aircraft were shot down. The third, (depicted above) although damaged struggled all the way back to its Hal Far base.
In July 1940, when France finally fell and signed the Franco-German armistice, the Admiralty was asked to take action to prevent French military assets from being used against them. Swordfishes attacked French ships and demolished the French fleet at dock in the harbour of Oran, in Algeria. Twelve Swordfish from the carrier HMS Ark Royal launched a torpedo attack on the battle cruiser Dunkerque, putting it out of action. The next month, on 22 August, three Swordfish operating from land attacked Italian warships sitting in the port of Bomba Bay, in Libya, destroying two submarines, a submarine tender, and a destroyer -sinking four ships with only three torpedoes.
The success of these attacks on ships in harbour led the Admiralty to consider a much more aggressive operation against the Italian Navy, a torpedo-bomber attack against the Italian Fleet at Taranto, one of their main bases on the Italian mainland.



The plan specified a night attack to reduce losses among the attacking aircraft. The mission was scheduled for 21 October, 1940 but was delayed to 11 November 1940 due to other naval commitments. A few days before the operation, the carrier HMS Eagle ran into trouble with her fuel systems; several of her Swordfish were transferred to the carrier HMS Illustrious, which then sailed from Alexandria, Egypt. On the morning of 11 November 1940, five Italian battleships were in Taranto harbour, with three cruisers at dock protected by anti-submarine nets. The sixth battleship was seen to enter the harbour later that day. This represented the entire Italian Battle Fleet - two of the new Littorio class battleships and four of the recently rebuilt Cavour and Dulio class - plus five cruisers and twenty destroyers, all based at Taranto.

By 8:00pm that evening, HMS Illustrious and her escorts were in position, about 170 miles (270 km) from the port. Of the first strike of 12 Swordfish, six carried torpedoes, four carried bombs, and two carried a combination of bombs and flares. The two flare-droppers put a line of flares over the harbour from 7,500 ft (2,300m) and then bombed an oil storage depot. The strike aircraft attacked in two groups; the Lt Cdr Williamson flight leader's plane was hit by flak and went down, but multiple hits were scored on several of the battleships. A second wave led by Lt.Cdr 'Ginger' Hale consisted of five aircraft armed with torpedoes, two armed with bombs, and two armed with flares and bombs repeated the performance of the first wave. All the aircraft, except two that had been shot down, were back on board HMS Illustrious before 3:00am that morning. Aerial reconnaissance indicated that one Cavour and one Dulio-class battleship were heavily damaged and beached; one Littorio battleship badly damaged; two cruisers and two destroyers badly damaged; and two auxiliary vessels sunk. It was a brilliant attack, inflicting massive damage on the Italian fleet with minimal losses to the British. The Italians withdrew their fleet to the north, effectively removing it from the game board. The successful raid on Taranto suggested to Japanese planners that they might be able to imitate the same tactics for their own attack on Pearl Harbor.



On 3 April 1941 Swordfish 'E5C' flown by Sub Lt SH Suthers, Mid SS Laurie and A/G CPH Baldwin, of 824 squadron at Port Sudan bombed and sank Italian destroyer Danieli Manin.


Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish '5A' which took part in the attack on the German Battleship Bismarck in 1941

In May 1941, Swordfish from HMS Ark Royal played a central role in sinking the German battleship Bismarck. On 24 May, 1941 the new carrier HMS Victorious launched nine Swordfish to intercept the Bismarck in the North Atlantic Ocean, but with bad weather conditions the aircraft only scored a single hit. On 26 May 1941, 15 Swordfish were launched by the carrier HMS Ark Royal, but attacked the British cruiser Sheffield by mistake, but later in the day 15 Swordfish were launched in a storm carrying torpedoes armed with contact detonators, they scored two hits on the German battleship: one did no damage, but the other struck the Bismarck's steering gear. None of the aircraft were lost in the attack, though a German officer said: "It was incredible to see such obsolete-looking planes having the nerve to attack a fire-spitting mountain like the Bismarck." The Bismarck was sunk gunfire from the Royal Navy Fleet the next day.






HMS Ark Royal flight deck being prepared for her 810 sqdn Swordfish to attack the German Battleship Bismarck in 1941

At the end of July 1941 HMS Furious and Victorious led a FAA strike of Fairey Albacore and Swordfish, with the Russian air force, against German forces at the harbours of Petsamo-Kirkenes. Many aircraft were shot down with inconclusive results.

The success of the TBR Swordfish was at an end in February 1942. After HMS Ark Royal herself had been sunk one of her squadrons, 825 squadron, flying from Manston in Kent, attacked the Battle cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen as they made their famous 'Channel Dash' from Brest towards German in bad weather on 12 February, 1942. All six Swordfish were lost and 13 of the 18 aircrew perished. For this action Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde was posthumously awarded the Fleet Air Arm's first Victoria Cross of the Second World War.

On 5 April 1942 the Japanese succeeded in destroying their first Swordfish. Six swordfish from 788 squadron based in China Bay from February 1942 were shot down by Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zeros from Hiryu while in line astern passing along balloon corridor North of Colombo. V4371 was shot down and crashed in sea and trhe crew killed, V4397 ditched near beach and the crew survived, V45398 force landed in the jungle but its torpedo exploded, V4412 force landed on the beach and overturned in the water wounding or killing its crew, V4413 overturned in a paddy field and wounding its crew and V4423 force landed on the beach but was then straffed by A6M seriously wounding or killing it crew.
The Swordfish was never again used as a torpedo bomber. However, it would continue to be employed in another role in the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-boat until the end of the war. In their anti-submarine role, the Swordfish were very successful. They usually flew patrols at night, patrolling between 145km and 40km ahead of the convoy. Targets were located with radar, and investigated by dropping flares. In total, Swordfishes claimed 22.5 U-boats.

Table of Successful Attacks on Submarines involving Swordfish aircraft 1939-1945, prepared by the Swoirdfish Heritage Trust.

Download Excel Spreadsheet of the table.

On 21 December 1941, Swordfish V4431 operating from North Front Gibraltar was the first aircraft to sink a submarine at night. The aircraft was flown by Sub Lt P McQ Wilkinson, Lt LC Plummer and L/A HJ Oppenheim of 812 squadron, and sank U-451 at night off Tangier, there was one survivor who was picked up 21/22.12.41.

On 5 May 1942 Swordfish '3Q' (Sub Lt RT White), "3G' (Sub Lt AG McWilliams) and V4712 (Sub Lt GP Bourke) attacked Vichy French submarine Bevezieres at Diego Suarez. The submarine was finished off by an 810 squadron aircraft flown by Sub Lt WH Newnham.

However it was not all success with the war against the U-Boat. Swordfish V4373 was one of the first and only aircraft to be shot down by a U-Boat. V4373 of 815 squadron was on night ops and thought to be shot down by a submarine. Sub Lt HV Day, Sub Lt GF Fenton-Livingstone and L/A FE Brown wre all killed 16/17 August 1942.

The following year, on 23 May, 1943, a Swordfish was the first aircraft to prove the effectiveness of rockets in anti-submarine warfare when one Swordfish sank the U-752 off the coast of Ireland.

After the Battle of the Atlantic in May 1943, the Swordfish proved particularly effective in escorting the Murmansk convoys through Arctic waters. On 5/6 March 1944 Swordfish 'X' of 816 squadron of HMS Chaser and flown by Sub Lt EB Bennett, Sub Lt EW Horsfield and PO Vines sank U-973. In September 1944, Swordfishes from HMS Vindex sank four U-boats in one voyage.

The Swordfish in RCAF hands was also successful, Swordfish NF344 of RCAF 119 squadron in January 1945 sank biber midget submarine 51.52'N , 3.46'E and NF377 also of 119 squadron with swordfish 'NH-H' attacked biber midget submarine which disappeared 51.48'N, 3.31'E on 11 March 1945, and the following day NF377 sank biber midget submarine 51.48'N, 3.45'E.

The last operational mission of the Fleet Air Arm Swordfish was flown on 28 June 1945.

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