Carrier Operations in World War II

J. D. Brown

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781848320420
• eBook ISBN:
  9781783469307
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Between 1939 and 1945 the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm grew from a small force into a powerful strategic weapon. British carrier-based aircraft fought throughout the world and David Brown here describes their activities in the Home, Mediterranean, Eastern and British Pacific Fleets, together with Forces created for specific operations, listing aircraft and units embarked during the various phases.He goes on to describe carrier operations in the Pacific between 1941 and 1945, the greatest maritime war in history. Both the United States and Imperial Japanese Navies watched the Royal Navy's early carrier operations in the European Theatre and benefited from the lessons. American aircrews and sailors learnt quickly in action until, by March 1945, the United States Fifth Fleet with its associated Marine Corps formations was probably the most efficient and effective instrument of war deployed in the pre-nuclear age.This new work contains material from two volumes, first published in 1968 and 1974, merged with notes for a third which David Brown prepared but never published before his death. They appear for the first time together, providing the most detailed single-volume account currently available of the operation of British, American and Japanese aircraft carriers in World War II.

Volume One:

THE ROYAL NAVY,

SEPTEMBER 1939 – SEPTEMBER 1945

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the first edition of this work, David Brown thanked the following individuals for their valuable help.

D.J. Frearson, Esq.

R.J. Jones, Esq.

C.F. Shores, Esq.

W.T. Speary, Esq.

A.J. Ward, Esq.

Commander T.L.M. Brander, DSC, Royal Navy

Commander I.J. Davies, DSC, RN

Surgeon Commander W.A.N. Mackie, DSC, MB, ChB, RN

Commander R.H. Reynolds, DSC, RN

Commander H.S.M. Wilkins, MBE, RN (Retd)

Lieutenant Commander J.W. Armstrong, RN

Lieutenant Commander W.J. Curtis, RN (Retd)

Lieutenant Commander F.W. Dodd, RN

Lieutenant Commander I.J. Gilman, RN

Lieutenant Commander C. Hearnshaw, DSM, RN

Lieutenant Commander F. Rodgers, RN

Lieutenant Commander P.J. Spelling, RN

Lieutenant Commander T.E.J. St Vaughan, MBE, RN

Lieutenant Commander Van der Minne, Royal Netherlands Navy

Lieutenant Commander L.A. Cox, RN (Retd)

Lieutenant R. Priestly-Cooper, RN

Lieutenant D.R. Whittaker, RN

Lieutenant G.J.N. Wood, RN

E.C. Hine, Esq.

CHAPTER 1

THE ATLANTIC AND ARCTIC

Ocean warfare: September 1939 to March 1940

Following the outbreak of War on 3 September 1939, the aircraft carriers which were available to the Home Fleet were deployed for A/S patrols, Ark Royal in the North-West Approaches, Courageous and Hermes in the South-West Approaches. As the convoy system had not been introduced so early in the war, the carriers simply flew off searches in the areas of probable U-boat activity. The first indication that such tactics were dangerous for the carriers came on 14 September, when U-39 very nearly hit Ark Royal. Destroyers of the carrier’s screen sank the U-boat, but that afternoon the inadequacy of the aircraft weapons was demonstrated. Two Blackburn Skuas of 803 Sqn were lost to the explosion of their own bombs while attacking U-30, the U-boat surviving the attack and rescuing the pilots of both aircraft.

North and South Atlantic Trade Protection

Ark Royal
	800 Squadron	9 Skua
	803 Squadron	9 Skua (to end of September 1939)
	810 Squadron	12 Swordfish
	820 Squadron	9 Swordfish & 1 Walrus
Furious
	801 Squadron	9 Skua
	816 Squadron	9 Swordfish
	818 Squadron	9 Swordfish
Courageous – sunk 17 September 1939 by U-29
	811 Squadron	12 Swordfish
	822 Squadron	12 Swordfish
Hermes
	814 Squadron	12 Swordfish (transferred from Ark Royal 4 September 1939)
Albatross – (based at Hastings, Freetown, from October 1939)
	710 Squadron	6 Walrus
Eagle & Glorious – See under Indian Ocean

Just three days later Courageous was sunk, with heavy loss of life, by U-29, despite the fact that the ship’s Fairey Swordfish were airborne throughout the time that the U-boat was working into an attacking position. The two screening destroyers failed to sink the U-boat, which returned safely to Germany. The loss came as a clear indication that the carriers were unsuited for ASW at the then current state of the art, and the sweeps were abandoned.

With the knowledge that at least one pocket battleship was at large in ocean waters, the five remaining carriers were despatched to form the nuclei of various raider hunting groups. Furious was employed for most of the winter on escort duties in the North Atlantic, accompanied by the battlecruiser Repulse, protecting the important troop convoys sailing between Halifax (Nova Scotia) and the Clyde. The West Indies were covered by Hermes and the modern French battleship Strasbourg, both of which moved to Dakar in early 1940. In the Indian Ocean Glorious patrolled the Aden entrance to the Red Sea, while Eagle covered the trade routes that converge on the East Indies. The only Force to see positive success, Force K, was built around Ark Royal and Renown. Ark Royal took part in just one more operation with the Home Fleet after her narrow escape from the U-boat, and in the course of a brief sortie into the North Sea her Skuas shot down the first German aircraft to be destroyed by British forces, a Dornier Do 18 shadower, on 25 September 1939.

A Skua and Sea Gladiator of 801 Squadron at RNAS Evanton in the early autumn of 1939 when the unit was re-equipping with Skuas. (J. M. Bruce via R. C. Jones)

A group of fighter pilots being briefed with a chart on the wing of a Sea Gladiator at RNAS Hatston in 1940. (Hobbs Collection)

Over a period of four months the nine Fairey Swordfish squadrons in the five ships searched about six million square miles of ocean. Much of this huge effort yielded negative results, which were of value in that they showed at least where the enemy was not. As mentioned above, the only Force to find the enemy was that which included Ark Royal, with her larger aircraft complement. In October 1939 her Swordfish sighted, but failed to identify, the notorious Altmark, one of the Graf Spee’s supply ships. In the following month, however, they found and stopped the SS Uhenfels, to be boarded and taken in prize by the destroyers of Force K. Operating between Cape Verde and Pernambuco, Ark Royal and her consorts were in a favourable position to intercept any German vessel, warship or blockade-runner attempting to return to Europe; in December Force K’s presence was threat enough to have a major influence upon the decision to scuttle Graf Spee off Montevideo on the 17th of that month.

After the destruction of the only surface raider known to be at large, the composition and disposition of the hunting groups were rearranged. Hermes and Strasbourg were moved to the Dakar-Freetown area to supplement the local patrols flown by Albatross’s Supermarine Walrus aircraft and to provide the only deep cover at this focal point of trade. Glorious continued to patrol the approaches to the Red Sea until the middle of Ja...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editor’s Foreword
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Volume One: The Royal Navy, September 1939 – September 1945
• Volume Two: The Pacific Navies, December 1941 – February 1943
• Volume Three: The Pacific Navies, February 1943 – September 1945
• Volume One Appendices
• Volume Two Appendix: The Carrier Battles – Profit and Loss