12th February – 60th Anniversary.

I felt it important to mark today’s 60th anniversary of the breakout of the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau from Brest for the Baltic via the English Channel

I’m certain most readers will know that in our usual shambling state of ill preparedness all we could muster to stop these two heavily armed and heavily armoured battleships from cruising serenely down the channel behind a large destroyer screen and protected by literally hundreds of French-based Messerschmitts were a load of night bombers with very little anti-shipping training, a few MTBs and six Swordfish biplanes.

The 18 guys in those Swordfish knew they stood b*gg*r all chance of surviving Inevitably they were all shot down to no effect. Their leader Lt Cmdr Eugene Esmonde received the VC for the enormous bravery of all the men. There has since been some discussion about the tactical wisdom of his own leadership, flying the formation straight and level at 50ft all the way in with no attempt to use cloud concealment, but this shouldn’t take away from the sheer valour of their flying.

Brave aviators all of them.

The only reward came to the crews who had previously been on ‘gardening’ ops, minelaying near the Frisan Islands in Manchesters and Hampdens. They manage to damage the capital ships three times – though the Germans concealed it – which led to them being unavailable for service for quite a lengthy spell thereafter.

Moggy C

Anybody got a stringbag pic?