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Praetorium Honoris

Sunday, March 15, 2020

Shot Down by WHAT?

Blackburn Skua
(Read me)
Inspired by RHT447's comment from yesterday, I went chasing the Bolton-Paul Defiant, a rather cool looking aircraft with a turret for the rear gunner. But, while chasing that story I found another, even more interesting story. That bird in the lead photo was, like many 1930's designs, pretty much obsolete by the time the Panzers rolled into Poland in September of 1939. But here's the twist, that rather awkward looking kite scored a number of aviation firsts in WWII.

Three Skuas off of the British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal attacked a German U-Boat (U-30) on the surface. All three aircraft dropped on the boat which managed to dive before being damaged. Two of the Skuas were damaged by the bomb blasts and they had to ditch. U-30 then surfaced and took the crews of those two aircraft prisoner. So, first naval air POWs of WWII.
You got shot down by your own bombs?
That was on the 14th of September 1939, scarcely two weeks after the start of the war. But the Skuas scored one for their own side later in the month when three Skuas of 803 Naval Air Squadron shot down a Dornier Do-18 flying boat.

Dornier Do-18
(Source)
This was the first confirmed kill by British aircraft in WWII. The first actual kill was that shoot down of a Messerschmitt Bf-109 on the 20th of September by our old friend the Fairey Battle. But that wasn't confirmed until later. ("What do you mean ours doesn't count?" asked the furious Battle crew.)

But the really big deal first scored by the Skuas of the Fleet Air Arm was in the waters around Norway in the spring of 1940.

German light cruiser Königsberg
On 10 April 1940, 16 Skuas of 800 and 803 NAS led by Lieutenant Commander William Lucy, flying from RNAS Hatston in the Orkney Islands, sank the German cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour during Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway.
Königsberg was the first major warship ever sunk in war by air attack and the first major warship ever to be sunk by dive bombing. Lucy later also became a fighter ace flying the Skua. These two mostly-Skua squadrons suffered heavy losses during an attempt to bomb the German battleship Scharnhorst at Trondheim on 13 June 1940; of 15 aircraft in the raid, eight were shot down and the crews killed or taken prisoner. Among the latter were both squadron commanders, Captain R. T. Partridge (RM) and Lieutenant Commander John Casson (RN). (Source)
Later, during the Battle of France, Skuas were fairly easy meat for the Messerschmitt Bf-109s and Me-110s of the Luftwaffe and were mostly withdrawn from service. The crew of one Skua had a film based on an incident over Norway where three Skuas knocked down a German He-111 bomber.
Three British Royal Navy Blackburn Skuas operating from HMS Ark Royal attacked the Heinkel He 111 and knocked out the Germans' port engine. The German aircraft crashed 1,000 meters above sea level in a remote mountain area, miles from any major road. The German tail gunner Hans Hauck was dead when the bomber crashed.
Captain R.T. Partridge, squadron leader of the 800 Naval Air Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, experienced a failing engine in his Skua and glided down to land on a frozen lake. He had seen a small hut nearby and he and his radio operator, Lieutenant Bostock, hiked through heavy snow to the deserted reindeer hunters' cabin. A few minutes later, they were alerted by a whistle and saw the three survivors of the German Heinkel armed with pistols and knives. Speaking broken German and English, the British managed to persuade the Germans that they were the crew of a Vickers Wellington bomber, rather than the fighter that had shot them down. The Germans believed that they had been shot down by a Supermarine Spitfire.
In Luftkampfgegner wurden Freunde ("Air combat opponents became friends"), Horst Schopis wrote in his memoirs:
As it was getting dark Captain Partridge suggested that the Germans stay in the hut. The two British officers left and found a small chalet, which turned out to be the Grotli Hotel, which was closed for the winter. The German crew arrived the next morning and shared breakfast. It was agreed that the Captain R. T. Partridge and the German Karl-Heinz Strunk would try to locate other people. They met a Norwegian ski patrol. Strunk shouted out "Ingleesh". The Norwegian patrol fired a warning shot at which Partridge fell to the ground and Strunk placed his hands on his head. Lieutenant Bostock emerged from the hotel, suspecting that the German had shot Partridge, but instead saw Strunk apparently reaching for his pistol. One of the Norwegians, seeing this, shot him. (Source)
While the film made from the incident, Into the White, wasn't all that successful and was panned by a number of critics, I liked it. It's available for rent on Amazon Prime and is worth a couple of bucks to watch. An interesting tale of enemies forced by circumstances to cooperate.

Rather disappointingly, the Skua doesn't really get any air time in the film.



Oddly enough only two Skuas still exist, neither intact, both were lost during the Norwegian campaign but the wreckage of both aircraft were discovered underwater, including the one flown by Captain Partridge. I'm guessing the aircraft sank into the lake when the ice melted. At any rate, they found it!
No intact Skuas survive. In April 2007 the only known nearly complete Blackburn Skua was discovered in Orkdalsfjorden in Norway at 242 metres depth. Due to an engine failure, the Skua, flown by John Casson, leader of 803 Squadron, had to make an emergency water landing in the fjord. Both crew members survived and spent the next five years as prisoners of war. Despite efforts to raise the aircraft to the surface as gently as possible, the tail broke off. The engine had become detached in the ditching. The fuselage, cockpit and wings were salvaged. The Skua will be restored at Norway's aviation museum in Bodø.

In 1974, L2940 was recovered from Breidalsvatnet lake, near Grotli in Skjåk municipality in Norway. Captain R. T. Partridge (RM) shot down a Heinkel He 111 and then made an emergency landing on the ice-covered lake on 27 April 1940. Survivors from both aeroplanes independently made their way to a mountain lodge, where they encountered each another. This incident serves as the basis for the film Into the White. (Source)
Blackburn Skua L2940 wreck on display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum
(Source)

Blackburn Skua cutaway drawing
(Source)
An interesting aircraft and a bit of history I didn't know.



32 comments:

  1. Enjoyed reading this post Sarge! The Skua is indeed a strange beast. It's a compromise: a naval fighter/dive-bomber. As an online article I found says: The Blackburn Skua; Fighting Dive-Bomber or Dive-Bombing Fighter. (https://militarymatters.online/the-blackburn-skua-fighting-dive-bomber-or-dive-bombing-fighter/)

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    1. I saw that video, interesting.

      I've also heard it called the "British Stuka."

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    2. The answer to that question is....Yes. Much like the F-4 later.

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    3. The Phantom was a jack of all trades.

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  2. As a result of forfeiting all air assets to the RAF, the RN was lumbered with a series of truly ugly--and mostly poor performing aircraft at the start of WWII. The FAA eventually reequipped with mostly USN types plus a few awkward conversions of RAF fighters. A salient lesson as to why the Navy needs to design and develop its own aircraft--which the Air Force can then also use (F-86, F-4 and A-7 being some examples).

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    1. Hadn't thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right!

      Concur on the need for the Navy to design their own aircraft, those are usually (as you cite) fairly easily adaptable to Air Force use. The opposite isn't the case.

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  3. Konigsberg was another part of gruesome KM losses in Norwegian campaign. Blucher, 10 DD's at Narvik, Karlsruhe sank by a sub, Lutzow heavily damaged by sub, and Hipper by ramming Glowworm (I refer to any rams I do, witness or receive in WOWS as "Glowworm maneuver"!)- after that there was not much left to even attempt Sealion... Talk about Pyrrhic victory in pure form.

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    1. Thankfully. Thankfully that the Kriegsmarine was whittled down so severely that they went from a small but powerful blue-water navy to an even smaller raid-only navy.

      Though the German DD's looked nice on paper, they were really built all wrong. Bow heavy unless carrying a light load of fuel, they weren't strong enough to handle the guns mounted. Brilliant cock-up on the Nazis' part. Shows what happens when one has no institutional knowledge of what one is doing or what happens when one tries to build by major advancement rather than incrimentalization. Much like what has happened with the USN in the last 20 years. No planned progression of existing designs, nope, had to go all 'futuristic' and 'great leap forward' and we've wasted how much money and time?

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    2. The surface elements of the Kriegsmarine were badly beaten up in the waters around Norway.

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    3. Beans - Didn't know that about the German DDs. The Kriegsmarine didn't have any chance against the Royal Navy in a stand up fight, they were never more than a raiding Navy. Only the Ubootwaffe was effective in WWII. But they had no real chance of success once the Allies got their acts together. Like remembering that convoys worked and turning the lights off along the coast.

      We always plan to fight the last war, but forget all the lessons of that war...

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    4. The best and newest German destroyers were armed with 150mm guns, and were very narrow. So the heavy guns would cause the spine of the ship to whip. Firing all guns at the same target at the same time would push the ships over really badly, but ripple-firing would cause the ship to shake like a dog drying off. Very disconcerting. Same light construction made them vunerable to damage from heavy seas, like, well, those around Norway and the rest of the North Atlantic. Greyhounds they were, pared down to the minimal, pushed to the maximum. With no reserves at all. And it showed.

      As to turning off the lights, FDR specifically ruled against that, as taking proper precautions during war, he felt, would affect civilian morale. And so ships and men died because FDR wanted the lights on. (Can you tell I'm not a fan of FDR? If not, I can go on and on and on as to him being one of the worst presidents ever. Am I wrong? Did not Congress specifically pass a law to stop the next FDR? Without FDR's power grab and the following reaction by Congress, we could be under the 7th term of the Clintons, or the 3rd term of the Obamas. But this was about the Kriegsmarine's failures, not ours.... Or is it?)

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    5. Same light construction made them vunerable to damage from heavy seas, like, well, those around Norway and the rest of the North Atlantic. Greyhounds they were, pared down to the minimal, pushed to the maximum. With no reserves at all. And it showed.

      Take away the 150mm guns and you'd still have something better than the LCS. (spit!)

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    6. One design erred by putting too heavy weaponry for the class (150mm), another put not enough (LCS)....

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  4. You fight with what you have, not what you want.

    At least it wasn't a Sopwith Camel flying against Zeroes.

    As to the Skua, well, at least it had 4 forward firing machine guns, which only had 1 forward firing gun, though the Battle was envisioned as a bomber and supposedly designed to fight... the French.

    The Skua looked like it would be a great recon-bomber. Lots of punch, decent range. Eyes of the Fleet and all that.

    What's interesting is the Skua was replaced by the Fairey Fulmar, which looks... like a Fairey Battle, though now with 8 forward firing machine guns (still only in wimpy .303 (though some were equipped with the more manly .50 BMG!) And looking into the Fulmar's history... it was based on the Fairey designed P.4/34 light bomber replacement for the... Fairey Battle. So, a land-based advanced version of the Battle becomes the replacement for the Skua, which becomes a Fleet Air Arm recon fighter/light bomber.

    Weird.

    But then again, no more weirder than the evolution of the F-4 Phantom.

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    1. AFAIK both USN and IJN press-ganged dive bombers (Dauntless and Bal, respectively) into fighter duty at Coral Sea or Midway

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    2. The evolution of British aircraft designs always seemed weird to me. The only thing they got right from the start was the Spitfire. IMHO.

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    3. Paweł - Any aircraft becomes a fighter when it has no other choice. They usually die against a real fighter.

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    4. Speaking of the Dauntless brings up another story of "He got shot down by what?" although this story involves a LOT of by "who".

      Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa.

      https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3qhcjy

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    5. The Hurricane was good out of the box.

      So was the Mosquito.

      They had some stunningly good designs. At the same time they were pushing total garbage.

      Seems to be something every nation suffered with.

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    6. Well, not that we've ever done that. (We tend to eff up ships lately, oh, and aircraft...)

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  5. Kind of explains the FAA's delight at receving Wildcats.

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  6. It's so great how our study of history prevents us from replicating our previous mistakes! /sark

    The ups and downs of that war provide lots of food for thought. The price of abandoning lessons paid in the blood of youngsters simply to acquire "the new hotness" will result, as always, in new blood spilt by a new crop of youngsters.

    Great post Sarge.

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    1. Thanks Shaun. I sure wish we could stop shedding blood to "learn" something we already know!

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  7. Here is another unlikely story for you, An RAAF Wirraway advanced trainer shot down a Japanese Oscar in Papua New Guinea in 1942!

    https://www.warbirdsonline.com.au/2019/10/29/cac-wirraway-a20-103-a-fortunate-survivor/

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    1. Shot down by an obsolete bomber is one thing, but to get shot down by a trainer!?!? Talk about bad luck.

      Wirraway is a nice looking bird.

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  8. I'm surprised I haven't heard of "Into the White" before today. I'm sure that during the 14 day Fed-mandated quarantine that I'm expecting, I'll give it a watch, but the lack of any memorable buzz over it doesn't give me strong hope for it. I'm not a huge critic though, often enjoying films that critics don't, so I hope to be pleasantly surprised. The fact that it's based on a true story is promising. By the way, the Blackburn Skua is another in a long line of weird, and therefore British, aircraft. So I'm a critic of aero design, just not movies.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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