DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIREYS?

Dauntless. Hurricane. Avenger. Thunderbolt. Lightning. Spitfire. Hellcat. Komet. Corsair. Mustang. Kingcobra. Meteor. Warhawk. Devastator. Flying Fortress. Superfortress. Dominator. All of these testosterone-laden names for World War II aircraft suggest lethality, power, invincibility, speed, and just general all-round ability to be all over their foes like scum on a pond. Oh, and also, lest we forget, the British Fairey Swordfish.

What sort of plane does one envision with a name like "Fairey Swordfish?" Probably, something pretty close to the truth. The Fairey Swordfish were fabric-covered biplanes which would have looked right at home in the skies of World War I, and they were certainly obsolete by World War II (although they did do very well against submarines). They suffered catastrophic losses in battle (some missions lost 100% of the aircraft) and remained operational in the Second World War only because the British needed every plane they could use. I am not sure of the exact term used to describe someone who flew in a Fairey Swordfish, but I am confident that it is not "coward."

Now, let's switch over to battleship nomenclature. The pride of the German fleet in World War II was the Bismarck, named after Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century "Iron Chancellor" who forged the various German states into one modern nation, As described by Johnny Horton in his 1960 hit ballad Sink the Bismarck--

"In May of 1941 the war had just begun

The Germans had the biggest ship that had the biggest guns

The Bismarck was the fastest ship that ever sailed the sea

On her decks were guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees."

Although technically speaking, the Bismarck at that time was not the biggest battleship afloat with the biggest guns (that honor goes to the Japanese battlewagons Yamato and Musashi), it certainly was the biggest German ship, and the song accurately conveys the perception that any enemy vessel that crossed the Bismarck's path would have its hands full. 

The Bismarck and her twin sister, the Tirpitz, were intended to be surface raiders which would steam out into the Atlantic and methodically sink Allied convoys by the boatload. Quite inconveniently, however, the British took great pains to discourage such ventures and deployed much of their naval and air resources towards keeping the two vessels bottled up in their respective harbors. 

Nonetheless, on May 19, 1941, the Bismarck (sporting dazzle camouflage), along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, three destroyers, and a number of minesweepers, broke free with the intention to wreak havoc in the North Atlantic. After some brief skirmishes with British vessels, the German fleet encountered the British battlecruiser H.M.S. Hood and the battleship H.M.S. Prince of Wales. Salvos were exchanged between the British and German vessels. Eight minutes into the battle, the Bismarck lobbed a shell into an ammo bunker in the Hood, with the resulting explosion causing the Hood to sink almost immediately with a loss of all but three of her crew of 1,419. 

The Germans then savaged the Prince of Wales. They probably would have been able to sink her, but she was effectively neutralized for the time being, and the German orders were to avoid as much as possible any engagement with warships which were not actually protecting a convoy. The Bismarck sailed away suffering damage from three hits--she had inflicted 93 hits on the British in return. 

The damage to the Bismarck, although inconvenient, was not lethal. She headed back to port for repairs. Although her top speed had been reduced to 27 or 28 knots, she was still fast enough that the British ships could not catch up to her. She then subsequently successfully withstood attacks by torpedo bombers, although her speed slowed to to about 16 knots as a result of this additional action. 

The British, who were throwing everything they had into the sea and the air, were desperate. They had miscalculated the course and destination of the Bismarck, and it become obvious that the chances were excellent that the Bismarck would reach her sanctuary. The British finally spotted her by air, but she was out of the range of all British vessels, except one--the H.M.S. Ark Royal. 

The Ark Royal sent out its torpedo bombers to work over the German behemoth. Unfortunately, the bombers attacked a British ship by mistake. Fortunately, none of the detonators on the bombs worked. The British switched to planes equipped with torpedoes and tried again. 

Have you forgotten about our friend the Fairey Swordfish? That is what the Ark Royal had to offer. These delicate and slow cloth-covered kites, each carrying a single torpedo, were the only arrows left in the British quiver. Their pilots were given the unenviable task of lobbing their ordnance at the largest German ship afloat--one bristling with anti-aircraft capabilities. Their only defense would be to fly so low and so slow that the German guns would have trouble tracking them. 

Most of the attacks by the Fairey Swordfish were a failure. One brave pilot managed to lob a torpedo into the side of the ship, causing only minor flooding. Another pilot, John Moffat, sent his torpedo into the port rudder coupling.

Uh oh. With the damage to the port rudder inflicted by Moffat's lowly Fairey Swordfish, the Bismarck could only steam in a giant circle, which is what she was doing when the British fleet finally caught up to her. After the British fired 2,800 shells (400 of which hit the Bismarck) and numerous torpedoes, the German sailors scuttled her to avoid capture of the ship by the British. Finally, the Bismarck finally went down with only 114 survivors from its crew of over 2,200.

"We found the German battleship t'was makin' such a fuss

We had to sink the Bismarck 'cause the world depends on us

We hit the deck a runnin' and we spun those guns around

We found the mighty Bismarck and then we cut her down."

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