THE SHADOWERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24619, 29 May 1941, Page 7

THE SHADOWERS

AIRCRAFT OF THE FLEET PART IN BISMARCK SINKING (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) RUGBY, May 27. The part played by the R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm in the sinking of the Bismarck was of the greatest importance. Day and night from the moment the Bismarck was sighted leaving the Norwegian fiords, until she was sunk by ships of the Royal Navy, aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm shadowed the Bismarck. American-built Catalina and Sunderland flying boats were employed. The Catalinas quartered the sea so that there was not the scantiest possibility of the Bismarck avoiding detection for any length of time. Cloud cover was used with very great effect, so that shadowing and reporting could be done without trje aircraft themselves being detected. As the captain of one of the flying boats said: "We swept the seas in gigantic patterns, hopping from cloud to cloud." But the Catalinas had to break cloud now and then. Their crews paid high testimony to the antiaircraft armament and skill of the German gunners. A flying boat might leave the cloud for only a few seconds, but that was sufficient for the enemy guns to come into action and surround the aircraft with bursting shells

One Catalina aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm, which played a part in tracking the Bismarck, came out of cloud 400 yards from the Bismarck. So intense were the salvoes from the Bismarck's guns that the captain of the plane had to take most violent avoiding action. Even then, in the few seconds he had been out of the cloud, the hull of the flying boat was holed in several places. The Catalina's crew plugged the holes, and the flying boat kept on with its mission over the Bismarck for nearly 10 hours longer—a 20-hour flight in all.