The disastrous fall and triumphant rise of the Fleet Air Arm from 1912-1945 : Sea Eagles led by Penguins

317 Pages·2014·5.46 MB·English

by  Adlam

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
PEN & SWORD AVIATION
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Henry Amyas Adlam 2014
ISBN 978-1-47382-113-2
eISBN 9781473841505
The right of Henry Amyas Adlam to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright of illustrations: the photographs are by courtesy of the Fleet Air Arm
Museum, John Maybank and Henry Amyas Adlam. The paintings are by the
author. All are copyright 2014 and the ownership of each is given in the caption,
©FAAM being Fleet Air Arm Museum, © John Maybank being John Maybank,
© HA being Henry Amyas Adlam. The drawing on page 158 and the map on
pages 164–5 are © Aza Adlam 2014.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
from the Publisher in writing.
Typeset by Concept, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD4 5JL.
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Printed and bound in England by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY.
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Dedication
T his book is dedicated to all those young men of the RNAS who lost their
lives while fighting over the battlefields of France during WW1; and to
those who were killed while flying during WW2 in the Fleet Air Arm. I would
describe the latter, not as the ‘Forgotten’ Force of that war, but the ‘Unknown’
Force, because the general public were rarely if ever made aware of its existence,
let alone of the triumph of its achievements as the main striking and defence
force of the Royal Navy throughout the war.
Contents
List of Plates
Acknowledgements
1. The Beginning
2. Naval Air Combat in the First World War
3. Manipulation and Muddle
4. Recovery, 1930–1940
5. The Operational Environment in the Second World War
6. Types of Naval Aircraft and Combat Operations
7. Penguinisms
8. A Characteristic Penguin
9. The Penguin Background
10. Development of Carrier Operations
11. Palembang: Meridian 1 and 2
12. Operations Iceberg 1 and 2
13. Assault on the Mainland of Japan
Postscript
List of Plates
Plates Lieutenants Gerrard, Gregory, Longmore and Samson (©FAAM)
Lieutenant Commander Samson, in a Short S27 (©FAAM)
Lieutenant Commander E.H. Dunning (©FAAM)
Dunning taking off from a moving ship (©FAAM)
Flight Squadron Leader Mackenzie, circa 1915 (©FAAM)
Lieutenant R.A. Little (©FAAM)
Lieutenant Commander Raymond Collishaw (©FAAM)
Admiral Beatty, 1918 (©FAAM)
Flight Sub Lieutenant Leslie Adlam on leave, 1917 (©HA)
Painting of Leslie Adlam on his last flight (©HA)
HMS Argus with a Swordfish in the air above (©FAAM)
HMS Pegasus, built in 1906 (©FAAM)
HMS Glorious, launched in 1916 (©FAAM)
Fairey Seafox prototype, circa 1937 (©FAAM)
HMS Eagle, Indomitable and Victorious, 1942 (©HA)
HMS Eagle, Argus and battleship Malaya, 1942 (©HA)
Skuas (©FAAM)
Shark (©FAAM)
Fulmar (©FAAM)
Swordfish (©FAAM)
Hurricane in catapult take-off (©HA)
Mediterranean convoy, circa 1941 (©HA)
HMS Ark Royal, sinking, 1941 (©FAAM)
Swordfish, Bardia Raid, carrying torpedoes (©FAAM)
Taranto with the Italian fleet (©FAAM)
Mediterranean, V Force, HMS Hunter (©FAAM)
HMS Battler, built 1941 (©FAAM)
Atlantic convoy, 1942 (©HA)
Swordfish attack on U-Boat, circa 1942 (©HA)
Two Wildcats over an Atlantic convoy (©HA)
Arctic convoy, 1943 (©HA)
Barracudas, catapult take-off (©HA)
Plates Lieutenant Commander Dickie Cork, Battle of Britain (©FAAM)
Jack Parli and Winnie Churchill, circa 1942 (©HA)
Commander Charles Lamb RN (©FAAM)
Lieutenant Jimmy Sleigh (©FAAM)
Sir Matthew Slattery, on right (©FAAM)
Harbour party on HMS Atheling, 1944 (©HA)
Admiral Vian (©FAAM)
Commander Ronnie Hay (©FAAM)
Commander George Baldwin RN (©FAAM)
Commander Stanley Orr, circa 1954 (©FAAM)
Wildcat flipped over barrier (©HA)
Seafire lands over the crash barrier (©HA)
Wildcat, a bad landing (©HA)
Seafire, arrival into the crash barrier (©HA)
Batsman at work (©HA)
About to start engines (©HA)
Hellcats about to take off, 1945 (©HA)
Flight of four Hellcats (©HA)
Gaggle at Pangkalan Brandan (©FAAM)
Pilots on stand-by off Sumatra, 1945 (©HA)
Palembang, soon after it had been attacked (©FAAM)
Palembang (©FAAM)
A Ramrod of four Corsairs (©HA)
Air sea rescue chart, Miyako Group of islands (©John Maybank)
Corsair crash (©HA)
Corsairs taking off for a Combat Air Patrol (©HA)
Miyako Jima (©ohn Maybank)
Hirara airfield and town (©John Maybank
Zero crash into HMS Formidable (©John Maybank)
HMS Illustrious with HMS Indomitable (©HA)
Plates Map of South Asia and the Pacific (©Aza Adlam)
Acknowledgements
I n making these acknowledgements I want to explain that, because of
macular degeneration in both eyes, I experienced some physical difficulty in
writing this book, but the extraordinary help I received from friends enabled me
largely to overcome the disability. Hence my thanks and gratitude towards those
named below are particularly heartfelt.
Victoria Arrowsmith-Brown, without whose huge help and guidance this
book, to put it quite simply and factually could never have been written.
Nigel Sommerville who advised me on the construction of the book and
joined forces with Victoria in the preliminary editing.
Aza my daughter who originally encouraged me to start writing my first
book all those years ago when I was aged only eighty-five and has continued to
encourage me strongly through the difficulties of writing this my fourth book.
David Hoey for his patience in reading aloud to me from the books and
archive papers of research, while marking the passages I told him I needed. He
then printed these passages large to enable me to read and refer to them as
appropriate in the book.
John Maybank for providing me with the notes of his personal experiences
as a Corsair fighter pilot attacking the mainland of Japan in July and August of
1945. I am grateful too for the maps and photographs that he has also permitted
me to use. It so happened that I had returned to the Pacific in a new Carrier Air
Group, thankfully too late to take part in those final attacks, and so, without his
notes, I would have been at a stand in writing of this period.
Tamlyn Thompson, my grand-nephew, who had earlier created a handsome
website for me, and has subsequently added a valuable description of this book.