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."
