Naval History Forums

Just happened to see Hermes mentioned in this history: so below is an extract from my memoirs about those times. - Interesting bit re Martlett fighters adding to her Swordfish complement; obviously they realized how defenceless she was against Jap carriers. (Don’t know where they were coming from, p...

Dave, thanks for bringing this back on thread. That’s a balanced list of not well known blunders committed by both sides. I have just written these comments below to cover some previous replies. In this, I don’t want to diminish the work of Allied scientists and I certainly don’t want to diminish or...

Recently I happened to read a book which set my old antenna bristling. So, with the 70th anniversary of WW2 coming up shortly - I thought younger and also more erudite members of this great Website might be interested if a new Topic on the above was started, using a major blunder by the British Admi...

I think most would agree that prevailing conditions played a large part; scudding low cloud, rain showers, low vis, plus moving ships, helped preserve those slow Stringbags. Carrier Argus was abeam us at one time, I watched a lot of ratings trying to hold down a Walrus (I think) on that slippery hea...

Some background on Dido class war experience. My Dad, as Electrical Officer (RN), was assigned to Euryalus in late 1940. She was building at Chatham, in a dockyard heavily bombed at times. On Survivors Leave in April 1941, I went home to family who were renting near Chatham. Although he was very sec...

News item in today's Sydney Morning Herald. “AUSTRALIAN and Turkish naval authorities yesterday began an undersea investigation to determine whether an Australian submarine that played a critical role in the Gallipoli landings can be raised and restored. The push to raise the AE2 will determine the ...

Contributing to this thread in memory of a Naval Pilot who was in the Bismarck attack. In 1942 I was attached to 'X Sqdn', where he was then; he had a good line about the attack; 'The Flak was bloody awful while the Weather was even bloody worse.' In 1942, 'X Sqdn' of 7 Swordfish was sent off to att...

Luck was certainly involved with the dive bombers from Enterprise and Hornet; coming from different directions, arriving almost together over Nagumo’s unguarded carriers. Pilots such as John Wadron, C.O. of Torpedo 8 paid for that luck with their lives. (A touching letter to his wife the evening bef...

My chosen example has to be Midway (June 1942). A battle discounted for many years. They had no right to win, yet win they did; a battle that would be the ‘Hinge of Fate’ in the Pacific War. Affecting, not only the outcome of that war, but also the outcome of the whole Global War. At Midway the Amer...

To end this thread on convoy WS8B and the cruiser Exeter :- The small group of Navy men spent 6 weeks in the Army Camp; very nice except that we received no pay - therefore were dependant upon the generosity of the citizens of Durban when we went out. Harry and myself, the youngest pair, went around...

Resuming - after a break 'Up North' to warm up. (Incidentally the previous episode had our 'Crossing the Line' out of sequence; this should have been after leaving Freetown). http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r264/Como83/NavalLookout.jpg Our convoy was now off the West African coast; one afternoon ...

Paul - You are 100% correct re Ship's identity. - Should have described it as such; possibly WW2 era Cruiser Good for you mate, as we Aussies say. Have been writing my WW2 Service for benefit of Grandkids. Photos were especially scarce (espec colour ones) so this one was extracted from 'Battle of Ri...

Interesting discussion fellahs; I think we were very lucky they did not get together as you hypothesise. Resuming, what happened to our Convoy after Bismarck was sunk... Strangely, after Bismarck was sunk, there was little jubilation; it was as though we suddenly had become very tired. Cannot rememb...

Interesting scenarios posed by Paul also RF. Think of the carrier Glorious, quickly sunk by Scharnhorst, at maximum range too. Victorious would suffer the same fate Resuming my story, what happened after the sinking of Hood - An air of tension gripped our ship knowing that the Bismarck was coming. N...

Hi paulcadogan. Thanks for comments. You are correct; 'Kurier' or FW Kondor, was the large bomber (with a fantastic range). Not intended to attack well defended convoys such as ours; so this one paid the price. Previous encounter was a small passenger liner 'Staffordshire' (sailing alone), that was ...