Some breathtakingly beautiful shots there TEEJ

anybody know if Peter C Smith reads the forum? He loves that old debate about dive bombing etc – something the RN never seem to have decided, the Skua was a mixed requirement (fighter/diver bomber) – The FAA turned down Helldivers and the Dauntless, but used Avengers as bombers (shallow dive) more than Torpedo bombers.

The FAA didn’t turn down Helldivers – there was even one frontline squadron of them. They didn’t see action though. Between powerful forces in the US trying to block the transfer of aircraft such as the Helldiver and Vengeance to the UK and the RN’s increasingly ambivalent attitude to dive bombing, they were somewhat marginalised.

Avengers were used more as glide bombers (not dive bombers, as you rightly say) because the weapons bay could not fit British torpedoes, only the awful US Bliss-Leavitt which either broke up on hitting the water, ran in circles or failed to explode. One did provide a useful liferaft for Japanese sailors at Midway though.

Some of you may be familiar with the ill-fated raid against the Scharnhost on June 12th/13th 1940 in which eight of fifteen Blackburn Skuas were shot down over Trondheim. An interesting facet of that raid is that it was originally planned as a much larger raid with Swordfish as well. Somewhere along the line, the Swordfish were dropped. This was possibly as a result of the War Cabinet taking a dim view of the likely success of the raid and Churchill suggesting that the aircraft (he is not specific about which) would be too vulnerable. It has also been suggested that the fjord was either too restricted or too shallow for torpedos (though I have to say from looking at photos of the anchorage that it looks pretty open – though there were nets in place).

Some commentators afterwards lamented that the Swordfish were not sent as they surmise that the result would have been as significant as Taranto. I think the result might actually have been the opposite. The Stringbags would, I have no doubt, suffered the same fate that the Channel Dash Swordfish did. Trondheim was well defended by Bf109s and Bf110s and a planned diversionary raid did not come off. It was broad daylight, as at that time of year in Norway at that latitude there was no real night, just a short dusk around midnight (the raid took place at 0200 ish I think).

I wonder if the reaction to the inevitable result would have been the same as suffered by the Fairey Battle in France and the Swordfish itself after the Channel Dash – i.e. a (possibly justified) kneejerk reaction to pull the thing out of frontline service even if there’s no obvious replacement (Albacores had only entered service a matter of weeks before and had not, to my knowledge, operated in anger from an aircraft carrier at this point). Would Taranto never have happened? Or would Skuas have been kept in service a bit longer as the FAA’s sole strike tool? Would the FAA have thrown its focus onto dive bombing like the USN did after its torpedo bombers were massacred at Midway?

I’d agree with James. Interesting that they were not too different in size, I had it in my head that the Vildebeeste/Vincent were considerably larger. The Vildes had better visibility forward and by some accounts at least were even more tractable and pleasant to fly than Swordfish.

There were a very few of this family in something like front line service – 1430 Flight in Eritrea had some Vincents in 1940 (as you know Dave!), as did 430 Flight in Sudan (alongside Gauntlets). What strikes me is that, like most obsolete aircraft still in RAF service, is that they were sent to theatres where they weren’t expected to face much in the way of modern opposition. This was very much the attitude of the RN, which felt that carrier based aircraft would never be as good as land based equivalents and would never have to face same.

Add to this that the RAF’s overland arms (for want of a better term – i.e. those excluding the Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command) got preference during re-armament, the lightning pace of development between 1933 and 1939, delays in the Albacore and Barracuda’s development and the RN’s love for multi-purpose types that were easy to fly, easy to deck land and versatile above performance, and it’s easy to see how the RN got left with an antique when the RAF had Beauforts etc. on strength for torpedo bombing.

It’s probably also worth noting that the Swordfish’s long production run post 1941 is almost entirely down to the anti-submarine role. It happened to be an ideal platform to operate from escort carriers and MAC ships, its slow speed became a virtue and in this case it was genuinely far enough away from land based fighters. For most of the war the Swordfish was no more a first line RN torpedo bomber than the Hurricane was a first line interceptor.

Fantastic, evocative pics. So jealous though – I went on the Sunday. Grrr.

Good show, despite lack of deltas, Gladiators I must say. I really feel for Duxford as they have had issues of one sort or another with the weather at this show for several years.

I’ll be there, and looking forward, particularly if tin triangles are involved.

Fascinating dig, keep us posted on progress won’t you?