"French Catalina" flying again !!

I can add a little more to the history of this aircraft when it was operating as S/162 of 162 Squadron, but bear with me.

1407 Meteorological Flight was formed at Reykjavik in Iceland during 1942, its task being to fly daily met reconnaissance sorties to a turning point some 700 miles southwest of the airfield. Unfortunately the unit experienced considerable problems with serviceability and from time to time the sorties were performed by other units based on Iceland.

The early part of 1944 was one such period when help had to be sought from other units, and on 17 April the crew of S/162 (pilot F/O T C Cooke) was tasked with the met sortie; included in the crew was a Meteorological Air Observer of 1407 Met Flight, Sgt E A Johnson.

It was on the outbound leg that S/162 came across U-342 at 60.23N 29.20W and straddled the submarine with three depth-charges; nine minutes later U-342, still on the surface, exploded. Photographs of the action can be seen at http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll.

At the time the Germans had three U-boats operating in mid-Atlantic on weather reporting duties, and U-342, which was on its first war patrol, had been ordered to assume these duties in the northernmost position. The submarine had only started reporting the previous day and made just three observations before it was sunk.

So far as I’ve been able to discover this is the only instance of an aircraft operating in a met reconnaissance role sinking a U-boat – by coincidence the U-boat was being employed in the same role.

There are other instances of aircraft from meteorological reconnaissance squadrons claiming to have sunk submarines, but none of the claims have been confirmed.