Wyvern vs MiG-17 Suez 1956

Sadly we won’t get to ask “smokey Cowling” of his version, as i understand he passed away just a few years ago.!

I am extremely grateful to of recently received the following email;

“Dear Wyvernfan,
I came across an old thread on the key publishing website forum as there was some discussion re my father, Cdr ‘Smokey’ Cowling, ejecting from a Wyvern during suez ’56.

Dad didn’t talk much about his various escapades (I heard most stories from his colleagues) but he did tell me what happened on that occasion.
An Egyptian contingent were well protected from above, being in a very solid concrete bunker-type coastguard building and they were holding up the marines, who were trying to get away from Gamil airfield to advance along the coast. Bombs were exploding on top of the building but not penetrating the concrete. Having previously been a Swordfish pilot, Dad decided to go in at street level and lob a 500 pounder through the window, torpedo fashion. As you can imagine, he came under a welter of small arms fire but he just concentrated on aiming the bomb. It worked and the marines were able to break out.

When he was pulling away he became aware of metallic noises from his engine – he said it sounded like ‘impellors breaking up and coming out of the exhaust’. The engine temp was rising well into the red, so he started to climb and to get away from land. He was only able to get to 1200 feet before a stall was imminent. He then throttled back, set up the photo-shoot and baled out.

With my best regards,

Jim Cowling”.

Many thanks to Jim for taking the time to get in touch, and for giving us his father’s version of events.

Rob

Possibly. Sadly one navy rating lost his life.

Ooh messy! Not even a lot to salvage from it by the look of things. Was the Sea Venom credited with a kill?!

These are the only two Wyvern’s lost during actual operational sorties. WN336 was ditched over HMS Eagles bows after being hit by the inadvertant firing of a Sea Venoms 20mm canon down below decks, and becoming burnt out and damaged beyond repair.!

Would of taken more than T-Cut to buff up this..

WN336 was lost on 18/11/56 the Canberra was shotdown on 6/11/56

First RN turbo prop to be destroyed by RN jet!?

These are the only two Wyvern’s lost during actual operational sorties. WN336 was ditched over HMS Eagles bows after being hit by the inadvertant firing of a Sea Venoms 20mm canon down below decks, and becoming burnt out and damaged beyond repair.![/QUOTE]
Did this event take place before the RAF Canberra PR7 was shot down over Syria by a Syrian Meteor? Will the record books have to be amended? Who can provide the answer to this mystery!:eek:

Also might depend on what manoevers the pilot was engaged in when hit…ie steep turn etc.
Was a full account of the ejection ever published ?
If McCarthy only flew 3 miles out before ejecting,his wingman may not have had enough time to ‘look over’ the a/c to check the extent of damage.
Of course it only requires one lucky(or unlucky) hit even with small arms fire into fuel/oil or engine control systems.

cheers baz

Just like you baz i’m clutching at straws as to what exactly happened. Cowling ejected after its quoted “the engine exploded”, although again there appears to be very little external evidence of this.. although its possible that damage was contained in the engine/airframe. But in the pre-ejection photo the props don’t appear to be feathered, and together with the visual lack of a steeper glide angle one can only assume that the engine was still produceing a modicum of power.. again not very likely if it had just “exploded”.

As for McCarthy i don’t have any pics of his aircraft pre or post-ejection so i don’t know what damage his aircraft took.
But i do seem to remember reading a post Suez report stating that although happy with the Wyverns weapons delivery and pilot/aircraft performance, it was considered to be vulnerable to small arms fire particularly at low level. Its apparent lack of speed compared to contemporary jets obviously not helping much.

ps.. yes i have already seen the links but thanks anyway. I hope others will take a look though..

Rob.

Rob
Dont know if you have seen this post rescue pic before…

http://www.ejection-history.org.uk/Aircraft_by_Type/WestlandWyvern.htm

I know you probably have seen this painting Rob,but others may not have done,it does ‘click to enlarge’

http://www.marklittlejohn.com/galleries/paintingDetails.asp?id=8

I agree, although there is what appears to be a hole/dent/black mark on the top surface of the engine cowling near the front edge. Why there would be damage to the top surface is anyone’s guess.. except possibly for an entry/exit point of ground fire perhaps?

Another possible explanation is that it was’nt infact shot down. Could it be that after the attack and subsequent pull out something just “let go”, and because of the relevant flak and small arms fire over the target it was assumed to have been hit?!

Sadly we won’t get to ask “smokey Cowling” of his version, as i understand he passed away just a few years ago.!

Also might depend on what manoevers the pilot was engaged in when hit…ie steep turn etc.
Was a full account of the ejection ever published ?
If McCarthy only flew 3 miles out before ejecting,his wingman may not have had enough time to ‘look over’ the a/c to check the extent of damage.
Of course it only requires one lucky(or unlucky) hit even with small arms fire into fuel/oil or engine control systems.

cheers baz

I agree, although there is what appears to be a hole/dent/black mark on the top surface of the engine cowling near the front edge. Why there would be damage to the top surface is anyone’s guess.. except possibly for an entry/exit point of ground fire perhaps?

Another possible explanation is that it was’nt infact shot down. Could it be that after the attack and subsequent pull out something just “let go”, and because of the relevant flak and small arms fire over the target it was assumed to have been hit?!

Sadly we won’t get to ask “smokey Cowling” of his version, as i understand he passed away just a few years ago.!

That was indeed the pic, a brilliant shot. I have to agree with Badger; you can scour away at the pic, but there’s no sign of visible damage. The plot thickens.

While the pic isn’t the best, I can’t see any upper-surface damage on WN328, so the damage (from whatever source) appears to be to the underside.

I’ll try again..

There’s a cracking photo of Bill Cowling ejecting from his Wyvern in Brian Cull’s book if I remember correctly. Talk about cool nerve having his wingman fly in take a snap as he did it!

This one possibly.. canopy already jetisoned and engine produceing very little power by the looks of it. Pic taken from the excellent “Wyvern from the Cockpit” book by Michael J Doust, who himself had reason to eject from a Wyvern in 1957.

There’s a cracking photo of Bill Cowling ejecting from his Wyvern in Brian Cull’s book if I remember correctly. Talk about cool nerve having his wingman fly in take a snap as he did it!

‘AIR WARS and AIRCRAFT’ by VICTOR FLINTHAM page 52 covering the Suez affair says ‘ During the day the paras made excellent progress, though not without casualties. FAA units flew continuous ‘cab-rank’ patrols and were called on to specific targets by liaison team dropped with the first wave of troops. During one such attack on the Coastguard barracks between Gamil and Port Said proper, Wyvern WN328 was seriously damaged and was ditched in the sea, the pilot being rescued unharmed. The author then mentions two Wyverns were lost in total but no further details given. Is WN330 the other Wyvern?

WN328 was flown by 830 senior pilot Lt. Cdr. Cowling and was shot down on the 5/11/56. WN330 is the aircraft flown by Lt. McCarthy on the 3/11/56 when it was reputedly downed by either flak or a soviet flown MiG.17F. Both Wyvern pilots ejected successfully and were subsequently rescued and returned to ship.!
These are the only two Wyvern’s lost during actual operational sorties. WN336 was ditched over HMS Eagles bows after being hit by the inadvertant firing of a Sea Venoms 20mm canon down below decks, and becoming burnt out and damaged beyond repair.!

‘AIR WARS and AIRCRAFT’ by VICTOR FLINTHAM page 52 covering the Suez affair says ‘ During the day the paras made excellent progress, though not without casualties. FAA units flew continuous ‘cab-rank’ patrols and were called on to specific targets by liaison team dropped with the first wave of troops. During one such attack on the Coastguard barracks between Gamil and Port Said proper, Wyvern WN328 was seriously damaged and was ditched in the sea, the pilot being rescued unharmed. The author then mentions two Wyverns were lost in total but no further details given. Is WN330 the other Wyvern?

Thanks for your input Joe.
Another possible reason perhaps for the ‘damaged by flak’ claim could also be down to pilot McCarthy not realising he had infact been engaged by another aircraft, and not the outcome of a cover up.

I agree that possibility couldn’t be ruled out while ‘cover up’ should only be used IMO as a working theory when there’s real evidence of it, and it’s assumed or claimed too often. There are hardly any documented cases of any AF falsely recording its own losses in its own records. Press release type statements made during a war have sometimes been shown to have downplayed losses (clearly shown in the then-secret records) but it’s again rare AFAIK for them to mention a loss then make up a phoney cause for it.

In case of Korea (Sincov, or Sintsov, also flew combat and made claims in Korea, it so happens) it’s also often alleged that Soviet overclaims are, if not explained by US ‘cover ups’, then similarly explained by a/c whose pilots believed they were downed by flak, engine failures, etc but who were really downed by MiG’s. This *very* seldom pans out if you compare the actual records. The times or places or circumstances of attempted matches of Soviet air combat claims to US AA or operational losses are almost always different; and the claims almost always match a combat recorded in US records at similar time, place and circumstances, where the Soviets just over claimed.

I think the original published source of the MiG-17 v Wyvern case is an article in the Russian language magazine Aviamaster, No. 1 2002 “Red Falcons v the Musketeers” (see link). It says that this incident occurred at noon 3 Nov v lone Wyvern, Sintsov and another unnamed pilot, admitting there is no documentation. McCarthy’s a/c was lost on a mission with launch time 0720 (all details per “Wings Over Suez” pp.273-4). The book doesn’t say what timezone but it seems at most it would differ from 2 hours from Cairo time (if 0720 is time Zulu). The Wyvern wasn’t by itself when hit on its bomb run, and the other members of the flight circled McCarthy after he landed in the water, so apparently the a/c was never alone. I’m not ruling it out: it’s possible Sintsov mis-recalled the details and they actually match better if recalled correctly, but I remain skeptical for now.

Joe
http://www.dorogavnebo.ru/st/st.php?n=010

I was wondering the same thing myself about the pilots, wouldn’t that be great to hear from them or better yet, arrange some kind of chat or webcam session for them. Rob, I think your theory about McCarthy possibly not knowing the source of his damage is interesting. Never having experienced air combat I couldn’t say if there is a different sensation between flak and gunfire hitting your plane.

Definitely agree on the painting.

Thanks for your input Joe.
Another possible reason perhaps for the ‘damaged by flak’ claim could also be down to pilot McCarthy not realising he had infact been engaged by another aircraft, and not the outcome of a cover up. If he had’nt seen the MiG (possibly attacked from below).. had been advised of a limited chance of encountering enemy a/c, and after finding himself in an emergency situation was concentrating more on saving himself (quite rightly) rather than wasteing time figureing out what had happened, then maybe the shoot down claim from one side and not the other does hold more credence.
I for one also fail to see why a Russian pilot would make up a story claiming to of shot down what was a relatively slow aircraft.. in what would have been a very one sided confrontation at the best of times.

But again the ifs, buts, and why’s are just heresay without something more official to back things up.

Incidentally i wonder if the two pilots are both still around.. that could make for an interesting conversation… and a wonderful new painting.!

Rob.