'Total Germany': The Royal Navy's War Against the Axis Powers 1939-1945 by David Wragg

Author:David Wragg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / World War II
ISBN: 9781473844650
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2015-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

The instinctive reaction of most pilots would have been to yank back the control column as hard as possible, but it was important to hold the aircraft steady to avoid somersaulting or stalling. Lamb was sufficiently concerned to ask his telegraphist/air-gunner to lean over the side to see if the aircraft still had its undercarriage so that he would know whether or not he should prepare for a belly-landing.

At least three ships had been set on fire during the attack. The Italians claimed that no damage had been done and that three aircraft had been shot down and their crews taken prisoner. This at least indicated to the rest of 815’s air-crew that their commander had survived.

Following this first attack, it was decided to divide the squadron in two, with half held at Paramythia ready to attack while the other half was rearming at Eleusis. Four nights of further attacks followed, resulting in the masters of the merchant vessels refusing to remain in harbour after dark and instead anchoring off the coast, which made finding the ships more difficult for 815. The squadron was divided yet again, with the half making the attack being split between those going into the harbour at Valona and the remainder ranging north along the coast towards Durazzo.

Meanwhile, the Italians had improved their air defences. They worked out the approach taken by the Swordfish on their way to the harbour and moored a flak ship to cover the approach and placed additional flak ships in the harbour itself. One pilot discovered these additional ships for the first time on a night when there was no worthwhile merchant shipping in the harbour, so he used his torpedo on one of the flak ships and literally blew the small vessel out of the water!

Far cleverer was the placing of a large illuminated buoy ‘as big as the Albert Hall’ in the middle of the harbour, so brightly lit that no matter from which direction the Swordfish approached, they would be highlighted against it for the benefit of the AA gunners. Unfortunately for the Italians, when the ‘tail-end Charlie’ Swordfish pilot saw all five aircraft ahead of him highlighted by the buoy, he dropped his torpedo in its direction, blowing it up and extinguishing all the lights at once. The Italians claimed that the Fleet Air Arm had sunk a hospital ship but the pilots did not see any red crosses.

Flying at night, encounters with enemy fighters were a rare event. Charles Lamb was flying from Eleusis to Paramythia after debriefing a senior RAF officer on a raid against Durazzo. He was giving a young sub-lieutenant observer a lift, not because he needed a navigator but because he needed someone to watch the skies behind his aircraft for fighters and to make sure that they were not tracked heading into Paramythia. This was fortunate because at 5,000 feet over Corfu, the observer suddenly shouted: ‘Fighters astern – on both sides!’ Looking over his shoulder, Lamb saw two Fiat CR.

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