TBM to find new home in Liverpool in remembrance of anti-U-boat campaign

On 20 February dismantling of the Imperial War Museums’ Grumman TBM-3S Avenger, BuNo 69327, began at Duxford prior to a move north-west and a future home in Liverpool where the aircraft will help commemorate the role of the Fleet Air Arm during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Currently under renovation at Woodside, Birkenhead is former Kriegsmarine Type IXC/40 U-boat U-534, which was raised from the sea-bed in 1993 north-east of Anholt, a Danish island in the Kattegat between Jutland and Sweden where it had been sunk during an attack by two RAF Consolidated Liberators on 5 May 1945. It arrived in Birkenhead during 1996, and was part of the Warship Preservation Trust’s ship collection at Birkenhead docks until the museum closed down during February 2006. During October 2021, ownership of the vessel passed to the social enterprise charity Big Heritage, which operates the Western Approaches Museum at Derby House, previously HMS Eaglet. This was the World War Two combined operations HQ and bunker in Liverpool, from where the battle against the U-boats was masterminded.

The Avenger was the FAA’s second most successful U-boat-killer after the Fairey Swordfish, with four victories — whether full or in part — being achieved, three of those in Europe. Fairey’s biplane torpedo bomber scored 15 full and 10 shared victories.

Three of the Avenger’s four victories were notched up by 846 Squadron. The first was on 1 April 1944, escorting Arctic convoy RA58 while embarked on HMS Tracker, the Avengers helping the B-class destroyer HMS Beagle to sink U-355. Two days later 846’s aircraft shared credit with Swordfish from 819 Squadron in the destruction of U-288, and on 4 May 1945 the unit’s Avengers were part of a 44-aircraft FAA force that sank U-711 and its depot ship Black Watch while attacking the U-boat base at Kilbotn, Norway during Operation ‘Judgement’, the last air raid of the European war.

The IWM Avenger served with the Royal Canadian Navy from September 1950 until July 1960, being acquired by Skyway Air Services at Langley, British Columbia in September 1960. Registered CF-KCG for use in the fire-bombing role, from 1969-77 it was flown by the famous Conair Aviation outfit in the same role from Abbotsford, but made a forced landing on a road near Moncton, New Brunswick following engine failure on 29 May 1976, a wing hitting a telephone pole.

Acquired by the IWM during 1977, the airframe arrived at Portsmouth harbour aboard a Royal Navy supply ship in August 1977 and was taken by road to Duxford where the tanker equipment was removed, a turret acquired, and the Avenger restored to military configuration. The finishing touches included a colour scheme to represent the Avenger flown by future US President George H. W. Bush when he was shot down during an attack on Japanese installations on Chichijima, 500 miles off the coast of southern Japan on 2 September 1944. During 1997 it was suspended from the ceiling in the new American Air Museum at Duxford, but as part of a reorganisation of exhibits in 2015 it was removed and had been on display in Duxford’s Hangar 3 ever since.