Day One. 17 July. 801, the ‘senior’ of the two Seafire squadrons on board, had first pick, and took off at 0630 with 16 Seafires — on a ramrod. The fleets were steaming into wind at a distance of about 160 miles from the Japanese coast. The first strikes were to be against a part of the coast of Honshu just south of Sendai, north of Tokyo. I had taken off at the same time with 12 Seafires of 880 for CAP. We immediately realised that the weather on this day was to be the main enemy. The cloud was down to 500 feet and we circled for half an hour before finding a hole through which to climb, to carry out our CAP. We flew for three and a half hours without seeing the sea once, positioning ourselves some 20 miles to the west of the BPF by means of our radio beacons.
When we landed we learned with surprise that C-H and Stuart Jewers had been sent off for their ‘ramrod’. It was obvious that they were not going to be able to see a thing. They returned three hours later, just before flying was cancelled, to say that they had been over Japan. This was a bit of a line shoot. They, too, had not seen the coast or the sea throughout their entire trip. Meanwhile, we were not surprised that the Japanese had not attempted to find Task Force 37 for their weather would have been as unflyable as ours. The experienced Americans made no strike effort whatsoever. The only success of the day was by 1834 Squadron in Victorious. The CO, Lt/Cdr George Baldwin, DSC, RNVR, had found that the weather over Japan was clear on the far westerly coast. He had flown with great skill and determination clean over Japan and the weather and had attacked Niigarta airfield on the other side. Three of his Corsairs had been hit by flak, however, and these ditched alongside the Fleet. All three pilots were picked up by Terpsicore, our attendant ASR destroyer. After our 0830 CAP landed, Charles Evans told us that the Admiral had at last called it a day.
Day Two. 18 July. The weather seemed to be the same as the day before. A glance at a fair copy of the flying programme for this day will reveal that 21 Flight was due to carry out three flights, some nine hours flying. As Stuart had had first pick the day before, I was allowed to choose on the second day and chose the first ‘ramrod’. My target, with Goodfellow’s and Yate’s Flights, was Kanoike airfield, in the same area as the day before and about 150 miles distant. Our take-off time was 0530. We all managed to get off and form up in the drizzle and we set course for our first attack on Japan.
We could not keep low, for the cloud merged with fog down to sea level in places. We dodged about on the way in and eventually found a hole to climb through. We were then able to fly between two layers of cloud, hoping that we would catch sight of the coast so that we could fix our position and find our target. Five miles from the coast there was a small clear patch and we came down through the cloud over the sea. We crept up on our target’s estimated position at nought feet. This was exactly as we had practised so often in the Orkneys and in much the same sort of weather.
During the dive on the target I was so busy looking at the ground for a Jap aircraft to shoot at that I did not see any flak. We made the usual single strafing run from three different directions and immediately retired to our rendezvous out to sea. Peter Arkell, my number three for this and many other strikes at this time, describes the scene:
“You could often see the tracers coming up as you dived and you got shaken around by their 40mm too as you approached sometimes. But with our newly invented scheme it was all over in 30 seconds. We fired everything at them and never came back. We made a fair bit of mincemeat of them and there was no need for another one. As we came in from so many different directions, the Jap gunners didn’t know which way to look and they were running all over the place. Some of the aircraft that we shot up were marvellous dummies and I can’t remember seeing many of them burn. I think the real ones must have had no fuel in them, for they never seemed to catch fire properly.”
During the dive, I pulled out much lower than I should have done. While only a few feet above the airfield, I caught sight of one of these dummies. It had greenery growing out of it and it looked a very crude shape indeed. However, from 8000 feet, our pushover height, it would have been difficult to distinguish from the real thing. Only stereo photography would have done so from that height and this was not in use yet in the RN.
After we re-formed out to sea, we flew south along the coast for a while. The leader of any formation has a much better opportunity than the others to have a look round. The others have to watch out for enemy aircraft or changes in course, height or speed and to maintain formation. While I was looking round for another target, I saw a line of fishing boats moored to a long quay in the harbour of Chosi. They were neatly bow-on to the quay and they made perfect targets, for if we missed one we were bound to hit another, they were so close together. The Japanese must have been warned by telephone from Kanoike, for they had plenty of guns ready and started to fire at us well before we started our dives. At this we made a turn out to sea and came back fast from three directions. This divided their fire at each aircraft by a factor of 12 and their flak was not so worrying. We emptied our magazines in a single dive at these 30 ships. Dougy turned on his F24 camera as well.
After the strafing run at Chosi, we turned for home. I changed to our ‘Tomcat’s’ homing frequency, hoping that we would see her in the thick weather. The returning instructions were complicated. The Kamikazes, never sure of the exact position of their targets, had adopted another clever ruse. They sometimes followed astern of returning strikes, hoping that their radar blips would then merge with ours and so escape detection. The Tomcats’ CAP of about 16 Corsairs, circling astern, above and below us, would ‘delouse’ any possible Kamikaze from us. This was the procedure and it took a great deal of extra time, particularly in bad weather in an ‘alert’. If a mistake was made, the Tomcat might fire at us. The American Corsairs might not have seen Seafires and they, too, might be trigger happy. However, we passed unscathed through their net and joined Implacable’s waiting position with about 50 others, dropping our hooks ready for landing.
Admiral Vian was quite right keeping most of our Seafires in reserve until the Japanese showed their hands over their Kamikazes, and until Indefatigable arrived. Ours had therefore been the only Seafire ‘ramrod’ on Day Two, and the first offensive strike by Seafires on Japan. That night, as the BPF and the Americans withdrew to replenish, we were able to relax. The Captain of Marines ran the ship’s internal ‘radio’ entertainment. I was asked to describe the first trip over Japan. I should have realised that 801 would be listening, for they claimed to be the first over Japan. Implacable’s Fireflies were first of any British aircraft over Japan, and the Seafires of 801 probably the second, but as neither saw the land, or a target, their claim is meaningless. George Baldwin’s Corsairs were obviously the first BPF aircraft to strike Japan.
By the afternoon of 23 July, we had finished our replenishment and had also been joined by Indefatigable, hot-foot from Sydney. We now had 250 aircraft in the BPF, 90 of them Seafires.
Day Three. 24 July. As usual, we were briefed the night before. We learned that the Japanese had started to reinforce their airfields with new aircraft. There were now supposed to be nearly 60 at some airfields. Susuka, Akenogahara and Tokushima and the seaplane base at Komatsushima were reported as having 350 aircraft between them.
We were also told to expect to see Superforts (B29s) in our area. The American carriers themselves would be attacking Japanese Naval shipping almost exclusively for the next two or three days. The US Navy wanted to complete their revenge for Pearl Harbor, and they wanted no help from us.
Norman had put my lot down for the first ‘ramrod’. This had a take-off time of 0345 in darkness. I was given a ‘shake’ at 0230 after about two hours sleep. My and Bob Simpson’s Flight’s target was Tokushima, a distance of 150 miles, well into the northern entrance of the Inland Sea. We formed up in the darkness and set course.
Our target was easy to find on the coast. It was also in a clear patch. I aimed at a twin engined aircraft. None of us stayed long enough to find out how we had got on. On the way back we dived at Komatsushima. Here the flak was very easy to see. They had obviously had warning from our attack further up the coast and were ready for us. There were several twin float-planes drawn up on the sloping concrete slipways and we hit many of them. It was rewarding to see our cannon shells exploding in bright flashes in the dawn light as they hit the slipways round the targets. Once again the attack was all over in ten seconds or so and none of us were hit by flak. Now, in the lightening early morning, we set course for home and began to feel less lonely and afraid once we were over the sea.
On the way home, my Flight — 21 — was below the cloud at about 4000 feet. Bob — 24 Flight — had climbed up in visual contact as usual, to get a bearing on the Tomcat’s beacon. We had no sooner set course when David Graham, Bob’s Number 4, came up on the r/t and said that his engine had stopped. He said it was not picking up on the main tanks. Pete Arkell followed him all the way. Graham was gliding with his hood open. Pete kept telling him to bale out. Graham left it until he was no higher than 200 feet over the sea hoping his engine would re-start. He did not get clear of the aircraft. I summoned the ASR ‘Dumbo’. It landed by the splash mark within about ten minutes and reported over the distress frequency that Graham’s Mae West was not inflated and he was still attached to his parachute. He was lifted from the sea, but was found to have been injured and had drowned. David Graham was a fine Kiwi with a wife and family and we missed him badly.
At 1100 it was 801’s turn for a ‘ramrod’. Their target was the seaplane base at Suta, on Shikoku. Stuart Jewers, leading, flew blind over the 6000 foot mountains in the island’s interior, coming down over the Inland Sea in clear weather on the far side in a very successful strike. His ramrod shot-up several ‘Mavis’ aircraft. While pulling out of his dive, S/Lt Glen Bedore’s wings came off and he went in. He was a Canadian and one of the new boys who always flew with enthusiasm and skill.
At 1700 it was 880’s turn once more. Our target was Takamatsu airfield, supposedly crammed with 50 aircraft. Our briefing photographs showed that it also had 120 guns surrounding it and we were told to expect fighters too. The weather was much better than we had expected and we were able to make our usual attack system. We hardly saw any flak. I aimed at a ‘Myrt’. Norman Goodfellow also chased a train into a tunnel. He said that he could not resist it as it steamed its way peacefully along the coastal railway by the airfield. We flew back, using the seaward route round the Inland Sea. If any of our engines stopped on the way back, we would rather bale out over water than over Japanese territory, for we had heard what the locals might do to us if they caught us. Some Fireflies from 1772 Squadron on Indefatigable, later made a second strike on this worthwhile target. (This attack is depicted in a painting in the Fleet Air Arm Museum. From the picture, it appears 1772 encountered a great deal more flak than we did.)
According to my log book I landed from the Takamatsu strike at 1950, when it was almost dark. I had just returned to my cabin on E deck when the Action Stations bugle sounded. I went up to the Ops room and found the usual chaos, with two Seafires running up on the flight deck in the last of the twilight. The Flagship had ordered them off, it seemed. The two 880 pilots were John Boak, the Canadian pianist swallow-diver, and his Number 2, the new boy — John Joly. They carried no tanks so they could climb quickly if required. Their target was a series of incoming enemy ‘plots’ which Formidable’s skilful ADR had disentangled from the ‘friendlies’ returning with us from our evening strikes. The BPF’s chief ‘stop-me-and-buy-one’ was Commander Lewin1. He also alerted the Americans and they scrambled eight of their AI-equipped Hellcat nightfighters. These were in addition to our two Seafires and a flight of four ‘specialist’ Hellcats from Formidable.
Our two Seafires, being low-level aircraft, were useless for high level interceptions, but the Flagship, apparently unaware of this, vectored John Boak out on a course of 050 degrees and told him to climb to a height of about 15,000 feet. At this height he and Joly could hardly make 250 knots flat out. They saw nothing, and after explaining over the radio that the contacts were probably radar decoys dropped by the overhead Japs, he asked permission to return to land on. It was getting darker by the minute — even at 15,000 feet — and Joly had about 15 minutes fuel left.
Meanwhile, the Americans had succeeded in intercepting all the Japanese aircraft with their AI-equipped Hellcats and had shot six down. In addition, the flight of Hellcats from Formidable had found there was still enough light to see at 20,000 feet — the Japanese approach height — and S/Lt Atkinson of 1884 Squadron had destroyed another — a ‘Betty’.
A late evening attack on his Fleet was not an entirely new set of circumstances for Admiral Vian, but in order to operate a single aircraft from one of the carriers in BPF that evening, the Admiral had to turn his entire 25 ships through 180 degrees and head westwards into the westerly wind, back towards Japan, and burn considerable quantities of valuable fuel oil while doing it. (Not so the Americans, who operated their light Fleet carrier Bonhomme Richard exclusively for their night fighters, well away from the main fleet; and, whereas the British were loath to use any sort of landing lights to assist land on, the American carriers, out of range of the Japanese strikes, could do as they wished.) Therefore, when John Boak made his plea to be allowed to land on, he got short shrift from the Flagship, who told him to ‘ditch astern’.
Charles Evans knew, as everyone else in Implacable, that ditching astern in the ten foot swell left by the passage of 25 ships at high speed, would be suicide, even for a Sunderland flying boat in daytime, let alone for a Seafire at night. Baling out would be just as hazardous.
I heard from Charles that the Flagship was still unwilling to turn into wind to land them on — before the Hellcats — but I was able to get them to change to the Implacable’s private land-on frequency and join the ship’s landing circuit. In this way, they would be talking to friends, at least, during their last moments, and not to the Flagship, who had no idea of their difficulties and seemed to care less. At last, the Hellcats were ordered to return. The fleet turned into wind and John Joly made his first night decklanding. Had he missed or crashed, there would have been no fuel left for Boak to go round again. That would have been the end of him. Having unselfishly allowed Joly to land first, he just made it, bursting both tyres.
I cannot imagine anything more frightening for the ‘new boy’, John Joly, than a night decklanding in a Seafire, short of fuel. With no reference marks whatever on the ground, dropping the hook, opening the hood, even changing radio frequencies, a few hundred feet from the blackness of the sea below him, is asking a great deal when flying a day fighter unequipped for night flying. The batsman’s illuminated wands were all the deck lighting these pilots were allowed. John Joly said that he could hardly see a thing, either in the cockpit or outside. The sparks from the exhaust kept blinding him, the red hot exhaust stubs too. The only reason, he said, why he managed to keep straight, was that the ship had her mast head light on and he aimed at that, keeping it in line with the reflection in her white wake, “until he saw Trevor David frantically waving his bats about”.
Day Four. 25 July. This was another chaotic day. I tried to describe it in my diary:
“Today’s targets were in the same area as yesterday. My (21) Flight and seven others did a CAP at dawn. C-H led the first ‘ramrod’ by Seafires. He had a Flight of 801 and one of ours, Norman Goodfellow’s. He led the strike literally into the coast, seeing it at the last moment before breaking away. Norman just saw the cliff ahead in time, but Len Simpson, his Number 2 managed to hit it. He arrived back on board with a piece of Japanese tree sticking out of his starboard radiator intake. To make matters worse for Len, his engine failed to pick up on the approach. He pumped furiously with his throttle, and it managed to cough into life just as he was about to ditch. As he had his wheels down — like Ken Boardman — it is doubtful whether he would have got out had he hit the sea. Len was still smiling. His mum would have been proud of him.”
“Twenty-one Flight had originally been put down for a ‘ramrod’, but when I got to the briefing, Ops had changed it to a (close) escort for an Avenger strike. The leader was from another carrier and there was no opportunity to find out where and at what height he might be going. I had already made up my mind before take-off that unless the weather was superb, there would be no future whatever in forging on over Japan at 5000 feet, straight into cloud, not knowing where the target was or anything about it. So that when this very thing actually happened and the Avenger leader forged off straight into the nearest flak and into a wall of cloud, I pulled off to one side and had a look for my own target with 21 and 23 Flights. We set a small coaster on fire and hit two tug-sized ships in the Inland Sea.”
“On returning I heard that Doug Patullo was missing. He was returning with his Number 2, Tucker, when his engine had stopped. He was above cloud and his aircraft turned over on its back while he was baling out but he did not seem to get clear before it disappeared into the cloud, upside down.”
“The correct drill was followed but the Dumbo1 and the rest of the formation found nothing whatever under the cloud, having searched for an hour. Poor Doug. He was a good pilot. That’s two from 880 and one from 801. The only consolation is that we have heard that the Corsairs are losing a lot more in their bombing runs.”
“Dennis Kirby led a CAP today. He was briefed to carry out his patrol at 27,000 feet. As we only had LIIIs, it was rather a stupid requirement. He managed to get there all right, but only just. He had about 95 knots on the clock, maximum IAS. If any Japs had come along he would have been unable to do anything about it. They need a copy of Pilot’s Notes in Formidable’s Ops, I should think. I will ask Wings whether I can drop them a copy.”
Day Five. 28 July. “Dougy (Yate) is OK again. We go back to the same area. There’s a typhoon warning.”
“Stuart did a ‘ramrod’ to Sato, and, later, another to Minato. Sato is on the western shore of Shikoku in the Inland Sea. Minato is a small island in the Inland Sea, west of Wakayama.”
“Our three Flights — 21 and Dougy’s and Crusty’s — go to Minato, taking off at 1130. Alan Dent and Dougy do an F24 camera run and the rest of us do the usual ‘surprise’ strafing. Dougy chased the occupants of a junk round the far side of their deckhouse and they fell into the sea. The Inland Sea looks so peaceful — until we arrive. Then it erupts in all manner of corruption from all directions, and the scene is changed entirely.”
“Almost immediately after landing and with no lunch, the target was again Minato. Armed with the photographic results from our earlier ‘ramrod’, we each had our private targets to aim at. Norman went a little further west afterwards with his four towards Sato. He told me that he had not fired at his shipping target as he had seen women and children on board. But as he pulled away he had caught sight of a ‘grey device’ poking out of the cliffside, ‘obviously a heavily camouflaged Jap destroyer’.”
Alan Swanton’s Avengers of 828 Squadron bombed it next day. They missed.
Day Six. 30 July. “Stuart did the first ‘ramrod’ but returns having seen nothing in thick fog over the coast. By 0830 it seems to have cleared, so 21, 25 and 22, with Dennis as Number 3, set off. Our target is Susuka. This is a very heavily populated airfield in the Mitsubishi factory area south of Nagoya. It is supposed to have had 80 fighter aircraft on it and 200 guns. I could not work out any suitable approaches to it on the photograph at the briefing, for guns seemed to be everywhere.”
“We made our usual low approach, in clear weather. When we got past Akenogahara, low cloud had come over the land as far as the beach, right where our target was supposed to be. We obviously could not attack it by going under the cloud, and it would be too risky diving through the cloud without first checking its height above the ground. I asked Dougy to take his Flight low down over the sea, to have a look under the cloud to assess its height. He did so and piped up that it was about 2000 feet. I did a ‘tell-off’ so that everyone could hear the plan of action, to go through the cloud in our strafing run.”
“We had lost surprise by hanging about making up our minds. As we climbed to 10,000 feet for our usual attack, I, and it seems many of the others, were bumped clean out of our seats by the flak. We turned back and went away for ten minutes. We came in faster from a new direction, from Nagoya, and this time it seemed to surprise them. I saw no flak on my dive. The dive through the cloud was very dicey indeed — watching the altimeter unwind — and I was relieved to see the target as I came out of it in the middle of the airfield, heading towards the hangars. I shot at a black-painted twin-engined job (probably a ‘Betty’), I flew on between the hangars, which seemed to go by above me. I could see people staring up as I passed and I also began to notice a bit of flak.”
“Above the clouds and the airfield, once more I turned round to see what was happening to the others and I could hear some voices on the r/t warning someone about flak. I could see a mass of 40 mm bursting over the clouds over the airfield and Seafires turning and twisting to get away from it.”
“Out to sea and safety once more, I heard Dougy’s voice shout, ‘I’ve been hit’. Then after a pause, ‘I’m in trouble’. Pain was in his voice. Then again, ‘I’m in trouble’. I told him he must fly over the sea and bale out. We would look after him.”
“I thought I could see his aircraft, but it probably was not him. I told the others to watch for the splash if he ditched and went over to the Dumbo radio channel. I searched on my knee pad for the codeword for the rescue position. ‘One downed Circus Chicken, 15, ‘Mother’s Monthly’, 260, over.’ The reply came immediately. They were on their way. I changed back to the squadron strike frequency to hear how things were getting on. Had Dougy baled out yet? Pete Arkell came up and said that Dougy had turned over on his back and had gone straight in. ‘I was right behind him when it happened,’ he said.”
“We searched the sea along the coast, right by the airfield. I could see a white splash mark on the sea and I wondered whether it was Dougy’s.”
After landing-on, none of us could believe that we had lost Dougy. But as the day wore on and we had heard that the Dumbo had found nothing except dye marker in the water we began to believe that he really must have gone in with his aircraft. It was indeed a terrible tragedy to us all. There was no one who could replace him. However, we had done some damage to Susuka, and there would be several less Kamikaze pilots and their death machines.
Our next ‘ramrod’, for 21,24 and 26 Flights was scheduled to take off at 1430. None of us felt like lunch except ‘Iron-swede’ Mike Banyard, who seemed, as usual, remarkably unruffled by the morning’s experience. Just before take-off, the ‘ramrod’ was again changed into a close escort. There were to be about 46 planes in our strike and my 12 Seafires were to be close escort for about 20 Avengers. No one could tell me the name of the target. I was told to “get briefed in the air”.
The leader of the Avengers circled the entire BPF three times before eventually setting course — for I knew not where. I took three sheets of foolscap out of my knee pocket. In between flying the aeroplane, looking at a few instruments and watching where I was leading the others, I thumbed over the pages headed ‘Not to be Taken into the Air’.
I was trying to find out what the call-sign of my leader might be. His name, I afterwards discovered, was Lt/Cdr J. C. Shrubsole, RN. He was the senior aviator in the party and therefore was the leader. The fact that he was an Observer and couldn’t even see where he was going in the back of an Avenger, did not alter things. The three sheets of foolscap had been written by another Observer of impeccable background, one of the bravest men in the Fleet Air Arm. But he naturally knew nothing whatever of what went on in a fighter cockpit approaching the Japanese coastline at 5000 feet, any more than did Lt/Cdr Griffith.
Reading the ‘crib’, I worked out that assuming we were taking part in the fifth strike of the day and we were the squadron in the right hand, forward close escort, there would be a chance that our call-sign would be Five Network, Forward, Right, 21 Leader. My number two would be called the same amount with ‘2’ at the end of it in place of the word ‘Leader’.
I managed to wait patiently until there was a gap in the gossip on our strike frequency. As there was no ‘Mr Speaker’ keeping order, I finally butted in and asked the leader where the hell we were going? Apart from a tactical interest, I also wanted to know so that I could arrange for the Dumbo. Without my knowing where I was, I could not give the Dumbo a reference point, neither could anyone else in my lot. When the leader replied, I could not understand a word he said, I think that he was trying to give me the information in latitude and longitude, with the code word for the reference point ‘shackled’ in an MI5-type code system. By the time I had decoded his message — that we were going to the western coast of Honshu in the direction of Maizuru Naval Base — we were there. So much for ‘airborne briefing’.
Through the haze I could just see the outline of a small fiord-like inlet. It was half hidden by flecks of cloud, or perhaps by smoke from the burning nearby town — which the B29s had just ‘worked over’, I have learned since.
Before I had time to think, we had arrived over the top of a destroyer. It was under way, leaving a white curved wake behind it as it sped for the entrance of the fiord. I told my lot to fan out for a quick dive and down we all went, very steeply.
The angle was extremely steep, at least 65-75 degrees. My speed at the bottom must have been about 400 knots. I found myself having to push hard on the stick during the pullout to prevent too much ‘g’. (See Appendix 11 (c), Stability problems.) My shells had scarcely had time to hit the water round the destroyer target before it was time to start the pull-out. I hoped that the others had managed to get a better bead on the target than I had. At 7000 feet once more and having ‘come to’ from the usual blackout, I caught sight of a few flying boats at their moorings in an inlet on the northern shore of the fiord. We had come a long way and I had not much ammunition left. I called the rest down to have another go. We had the satisfaction of seeing one of them keel over and another two catch fire.
Feeling cut off from our friends and lonely on the far side of Japan, we formed up clear of the flak and set course to the east once more. The heavy calibre flak followed us as we climbed furiously. It was accurate for line and deflection. However, because we were fighters and could climb far faster than the average bomber, we were able to keep one jump ahead of its height computing system, for the shells burst a few hundred feet below us all the time. Nevertheless, we could see their angry red centres as they did so, and we could hear them too. It was a bumpy ride back.
The ship had moved well to the north of our take-off position so we headed nearer to the immense and sacred mountain of Fuji Yama, visible above the 10,000 foot haze layer, as our beacons told us to head in that direction. We had been 200 miles to the target, and back a further 220, so that the Tomcat’s delousing procedure seemed particularly ponderous that evening. The ‘Not to be taken into the air’ foolscap sheets said:
“Aircraft will return via Tomcat on prescribed sector in enemy direction, thence transferring to own carrier YE beacon sector on disengaged side. After visual ‘delousing’ by CAP and by visual and radar identification (IFF) on Tomcat’s radar, CAP will then look for the trailing enemy. Returning formation leader, now at 5000 feet or below overcast, will then call Tomcat, using coded callsign of the correct day/time group as necessary. This will be on Channel D, for reporting IN and OUT.”
There was no sign of the Tomcat in the haze. We expected its CAP to come whirling out of the mist at us any moment. We could hardly have cared had they done so. The radio was totally cluttered up and we were feeling knackered.
When we eventually landed-on with a few gallons to spare, I went up to see Wings, as usual. I was greeted with Charles Evans’welcoming smile and, “How d’you get on Mike?” But the Captain was looking a little worried and I could feel that there was considerable tension on the bridge.
Later I found out from C-H that Charles had doubtless saved many of our lives again. He had ‘done a Troubridge’ and had refused to answer the Flagship’s order to turn 180 degrees away from the Japanese coast during the latter part of our land-on. He knew that, having just emerged from the fog, he would have to head back into it once more. By the time Implacable could have got clear once more and into wind, her Seafires — all our eight — would have run out of fuel and would have had to have ditched. As there was a ten foot swell running, we should have killed ourselves if we had tried to ditch — as was the usual suggestion from the Flagship — and attempting to bale out would have been equally fatal. Perhaps the Flagship’s attitude might have been understandable had the Seafire been an ordinary, ditchable, bale-outable Naval aircraft, for the Fleet was heading into Tokyo Bay, almost in sight of land. But we resented the inference that we were expendable in Implacable. Indefatigable had stopped operating Seafires owing to the swell and the pitching deck, so perhaps Implacable deserved to be taught a lesson. The Flagship obviously thought so.
Charles Evans, later Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Evans, KCB, DSO, DSC, RN, wrote later of this episode. He said “he (Vian) never forgave me” for turning a blind eye to his signal. Admiral Vian, on his part, was additionally peeved because the Americans later described his action as that of an “inexperienced carrier Admiral”, knowing that he already had three years experience.
That evening we were to retire for refuelling once more. This time we had several days rest. Our sister squadron’s Line Book reads like this:
“3 August. Kamikaze TOSX Exercise with 880.”
“6 August. Oiling with Fleet Train. Stores taken on board by jackstay. Lt Luing, S/Lt Primrose and S/Lt Green ferry aircraft from Chaser.”
“7 August. Another day of rest. Maintenance on aircraft, we are to strike again on 8th, but weather does not look too promising. Briefing on targets.”
“8 August. Everyone had early shakes. The first strike was cancelled by AC1. Reverted to ‘condition 12’. In the afternoon, condition 11 was piped but nothing happened. It was a long, hot, boring and frustrating hang about. We hope for better weather tomorrow. The Americans ‘splashed’ one ‘Dinah’ and one ‘Nick’. They had to chase the latter a long way. S/Lt (A) D. G. Anderson, RNZNVR, joined from the Seafire Pool.”
During this ‘rest’ period, during which Hiroshima received the first atom bomb, it might be a suitable point in the narrative to record progress, for the BPF had already carried out more ‘ramrod’ strike sorties in six days than in the whole of the 24 days of Operation ‘Iceberg’. The highest number of sorties-per-day, so far, in the BPF, had been 416 on 24 July, of which 261 had been over Japan. On 30 July the Fleet had done 216 offensives, 30 Wing’s share having been 46 plus 42 CAP sorties. This was 34% of all sorties with but 18% of the BPF’s aircraft.
Our reward in Implacable for this hard work was to receive no special congratulation from the Flagship but a ‘round robin’ exhortation to do better:
“To: 1st AC (All Carriers) From: AC1 (Admiral Vian)
The richness of the opportunity offered our squadrons in the past few days and in those few which lie ahead must be unparalleled in our sea/air history. Nor does it seem that such golden chances are ever likely to be offered us again in the same degree.
2. Thus in the estimations of the future much may depend on the results which are achieved against enemy aircraft and shipping in the present operation.
3. Having in mind that the shipping targets have often been combative vessels at anchor, that airborne opposition has been nonexistent and flak not unduly severe, the hits so far obtained from TBRs (the Avengers) have been less than might have been expected.
4. All attacks however simple must be properly planned and carefully and deliberately executed.
5. Formation leaders must brief subordinates either on the ground or in the air of their general intentions and special instructions.
6. When flak is light press low to bomb, to hit, and sink.”
Although this signal apparently referred mostly to the Avengers, the most “subordinate” aircrew could see that it was written by someone who was used to controlling battleships rather than aircraft and that it was full of the most frightful blunders. To imagine that after four years of war that airborne briefing was an alternative to proper ground briefing was absurd. To suggest that “if flak is light” — and if such could be assessed beforehand — that hits could be better obtained by “pressing low”, with the highly unsuitable level bombing techniques used by the Avengers, was equally absurd. Bombing release heights are strictly controlled to match the type of target — hard or soft — the weather, terrain, fuze settings and cloud height. The Avenger was totally unsuitable as a ‘ramrod-type’ strike aircraft. It approached at medium height giving warning of its approach. It had none of the sophisticated sighting apparatus of a high level bomber nor the speed and manoeuvrability of a dive bomber. The Corsairs and Hellcats were, on the other hand, ideal. They could carry 2x500 lb bombs plus a full load of .5 inch ammunition from six guns; but even they could not improve their chance by paying the slightest heed to AC1’s signal. It destroyed what little faith remained in our hearts for our leader.
Had we been given the opportunity to criticise our Admiral we would have taken him to task for sending us out in impossible flying weather. We had the suspicion that he had done this on several occasions to get one over on the Yanks.
Following this signal, we were delighted to get a congratulatory message from Admiral Brind, CS4, who had been our Admiral at Truk. He said:
“I have been watching Implacable and her airmen with special interest and admiration. Congratulations.”
This was very bold of Admiral Brind, for he repeated his signal to the Flagship. He probably knew of the problems and the prejudices concerning the Implacable and the Seafire.
We replied “Very many thanks for your nice signal”.
Although the rest period after 30 July extended to seven days, there was almost as much nervous energy expended for several of these days as if we had been operating. The ‘TOSX’ (Throw Off Shoot Exercise) on 3 August was an American idea. We dived steeply like Kamikazes to give a realistic approach speed and angle of dive to the gunners. They fired live shells offset by ten degrees. We hoped that they would always ‘throw off’ by the correct amount.
When we landed from this exercise, the ship was rolling in a cross-swell. It was coming in from a typhoon to the south-west, at right angles to the wind. This made it necessary to lash each aircraft down on deck immediately after landing for fear it might roll over the side with us still aboard.
During this period I was told that 880 Squadron would be merged with 801. Stuart Jewers would be going ashore at Nowra to take over the Seafire Pool and train up new pilots. C-H would shortly be going back to the UK to take over St. Merryn Fighter Leaders Course on Seafire XVs and 47s, and I would take over the combined squadrons. A new post was created — that of Air Group Commander. Lt/Col Peter Nelson-Gracie, Royal Marines, would be filling this post. The idea was that instead of a ‘Douglas Bader’ — leading ‘fighters only’ into air battles — it was now felt more appropriate that we should have a Strike Leader to take over the briefing and the leading of the entire carrier’s aircraft. Our complaints about lack of effective briefing and poor strike leading must have borne fruit.
Peter Nelson-Gracie was a super chap with a very relaxed manner and with sufficient humility and skill to fall into place in Implacable without fuss or bother. At the same time as these changes in the command arrangements, I learned that I had been given an immediate award of a Bar to the DSC.
The chaos and indecision of the last few days and the dearth of information about our movements had come about — apart from the diversions caused by atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 8 August — because of the BPF’s dire shortage of oil and the need to get clear of any possible nuclear fallout. Apparently, much of the oil supply destined for carriers had been needed for yet another bombardment of the Japanese mainland. But as KGV now had technical trouble, the urgent arrangements made to refuel her had been cancelled at the last moment. This resulted in many ex-bombardment ships not having enough fuel to close with the tankers. AC1 was determined not to cancel flying operations, even if “we had to tow a few destroyers back to Sydney,” but the consequent refuelling chaos had separated the BPF from the Americans by 120 miles. As the RN had no r/t relay aircraft, a string of ships was required to relay the air operational briefing for the strikes scheduled for 9 August. The information arrived late and garbled. By the time I had ‘turned in’ on the evening of 8 August, we still had no idea of the details of our targets on the morrow. As we were due to ‘man our ships’ at 0345 for the first ‘ramrod’, we got little sleep.
Day Seven, 9 August. We arrived for briefing at 0300, feeling sick and having had no breakfast. I discovered that our land-on time was only two hours after take-off. The target — Matsushima — was 170 miles away. Those in the Flagship must have looked at the Pilot’s Notes which I had dropped on their flight deck from my aircraft and discovered that the Seafire’s max cruise speed, without overload tanks of course, was 275 knots, which indeed it was. What they would not have known — because not one of them had ever flown a fighter, let alone a Seafire — was that it used treble the amount of fuel at the full throttle power necessary to achieve this speed with a long range tank, and that we would run out of fuel after 1½ hours. Having made my complaint to Ops (C-H had said that we should go straight to the ‘Dud Circle’ and not go at all) I went up to the flight deck and climbed into my aircraft. Then I was handed a note. The messenger had appeared suddenly and disappeared as quickly — a grey fleeting figure in the dawn light. By the lights in the cockpit I read: “OK to take 2½ hours”. Even at that we should have to motor.
The ship was already heeling, turning into wind. My rigger waggled an aileron to get my attention to start up. When the ship had righted a little, I pressed the starter and booster coil buttons. I had no time to test tank transfer or magnetos and barely time to warm up before I was tearing down the deck into a dark, grey and featureless sky. Once airborne, and away from the total chaos of a carrier’s flight deck, the mind had time to settle down and fright vanished. The boys did a marvellous join-up and we set course without wasting a drop of fuel.
We arrived within sight of the grey coastline in about 80 minutes of fast going, at plus four boost and 2400 rpm. The coastline changed from distant grey to nearer green, then to individual terraced fields and buildings, looking down at us. We had not spoken a word on the r/t. The boys were so used to the drill by now that talk over the r/t was unnecessary. We made our usual climb and descent onto our target, Matsushima airfield, sending up clouds of earth and fire as our 20 mm explosive shells hit the shapeless, camouflaged humps of aircraft parked out on the airfield. In the lightening sky, Len Simpson took pictures overhead. He used a single oblique F24 camera loaded with ‘400’ panchromatic film. It had an eight inch focal length lens, iris at F 4.5 — fully open — and the ‘interval-ometer’ at two frames per second, shutter speed at one five-hundredth of a second. We set course home.
Expecting delays at the Tomcat — enemy action had been reported over the r/t — and not sure of the ship’s position, we climbed for a beacon course home and changed to internal tanks. We used maximum weak mixture cruise, plus two boost and 2000 rpm. As we carried the same fuel capacity in our jet tanks as in our internal tanks, the fact that I had had to transfer to internal tanks half way through the trip meant that there would be no fuel left for waiting at the far end.
We made Implacable’s circuit after three hours and 20 minutes — nearly an hour late. The ship was 50 miles further south than briefed. Once again we had to thank Charles Evans and the Captain for keeping the flight deck open for us. At least they knew what the problems were.
When I got to the bridge, Charles Evans did not mention my late arrival from the ‘ramrod’. However, he smiled as he showed me a signal from Vian, which said:
“What is the delay?” — the third from the Flagship during these operations.
While we had been airborne on our first ‘ramrod’, Lt Ray Saxe had to lead C-H’s first trip, as C-H and his Number 2 had collided on the flight deck and neither got off. Their target was Matsushima, their time of arrival was an hour after we had left. Saxe’s and Tucker’s engines stopped after their attack and they both ditched in the shallow water at the side of the airfield. They were reported to the Dumbo by Squires and Tillet of the same strike, but the latter had to leave before the Dumbo arrived, owing to shortage of fuel. (They too, had had to try to get back in 2½ hours.) Although the Dumbo found both aviators in their dinghies and brought them back, Squires and Tillet were not so lucky. Not finding the ship in her briefed position they flew past her without realising it. They climbed to try to find her by homing beacon but failed to hear it. They then transferred to the American rescue frequency, to ask them for a homing. The Americans heard then but could not identify them from the clutter of other aircraft on their radar. Although Squires and Tillet could be heard by everyone at this stage, they could not hear any of the ships answering them. The Americans eventually sorted out their the BPF’s IFF code from the multitude of other aircraft on their plots and sent the CAP after them to intercept them and bring them home. However, the Seafires ran out of fuel before this plan could succeed. They were transmitting a running commentary. Tillet’s last transmission was to say that his engine had stopped, so, to keep together they both baled out. Then there was silence. They were never found. Knowing, as we do now, the immense dangers in trying to bale out inverted from a Seafire III (See Appendix 11 (d)), it is not surprising. In spite of searches lasting for two days during all the daylight hours, only an airman’s dinghy was found and that was empty.
Continuing the narrative for the remaining sorties on 9 August, C-H’s second attempt to get off the deck was successful. He had been briefed to go to Matsushima but chose Onagawa Wan because the targets were likely to be more fruitful. His attack must have arrived half an hour or so after one made by ‘Hammy’ Gray with his nine Corsairs from Formidable. C-H found a most inviting target. He had John Joly as his Number 2, three from Dancaster’s Flight and another three from 15 Flight. The targets in the Wan were well-defended by shore flak. The Japanese fired down on the aircraft from the fiordlike hills on either side of the inlet. John Joly describes some aspects of this trip, told to me 40 years later:
“I was wingman to C-H whom I remember as being a Commander. You will appreciate that it was rare to see a straight-striper amongst aircrew in the Fleet Air Arm. At my age (21) it was extremely tough and frightening to follow this man on the dives we did from different directions to split up the Japanese defence fire. You can imagine that no one looked forward to the high speed encounter with the rest of the squadron over the target.”
“C-H, followed by me and the others, proceeded at 8000 feet to the landward or western end of the Wan. He then signalled to me that he was going into the attack and informed the others by radio, and we both rolled over and dived vertically towards the creek which ran into the Wan. He was 400 — 500 yards ahead of me and I saw him pouring cannon and machine gun fire into the destroyer. In my inexperience I had trouble controlling my Seafire because of the tremendous speed, so I only got a quick shot at the ship and then, just as I was passing over it, it blew up. Subsequently on return to the Fleet, the bottom of my aircraft was full of bits of the destroyer.”
“At debriefing I told of the destroyer that blew up, and the others said that one other in the Wan had been beached and a third escaped, damaged. I remember C-H being interviewed when we got back to Sydney by the Press, and we thought that we were the first on the scene at the Wan, before the Avengers and Corsairs from Formidable.”
I had missed the drama of C-H’s debriefing. I was doing a CAP at the time with my lot as we had hoped for a Kamikaze bonanza at dusk as we had been promised. After we landed-on at dusk I went to the Ops room as usual and found Norman preparing next day’s programme. He told me that five of Formidable’s Corsairs were missing including ‘Hammy Grey, who was shot down just before or after C-H’s strike on his destroyer at Onagawa. It had been a busy day for 30 Wing for we had managed 95 Seafire sorties, 50 being over Japan. This was 27% of the sorties with but 17% of BPF’s aircraft.
Day Eight, 10 August. Up again at 0330, our first trip for 21,22 and 23 Flights was escorting our own Avengers and Fireflys to Onagawa Wan again, taking off at 0500. The strike was led by Peter Nelson-Gracie, our new Air Group Commander. No other ships’ aircraft were involved so that briefing was properly arranged and everyone knew what was required as a result. The weather was perfect and the trip was entirely uneventful. We close-escorted our Avengers there. They near-missed all their targets and we close-escorted them back. In between, we took a dive at one or two smaller targets in the Wan, with Dent, Arkell and Banyard taking a few photographs — including one of ‘Iron Swede’ upside down over Japan for a ‘line shoot’. The atmosphere was remarkably relaxed. I had also told the boys not to do anything heroic at this late stage of the war.
C-H did the second trip — a ‘ramrod’-recce — to Harago and Awaki. He confirmed over the radio that there were no targets there. Stuart Jewers then led five Seafires to strafe Koryama, an important target some 40 miles inland and crowded with 45 aircraft, all making very tempting targets on the briefing photographs.
He made a single pass and with his five Seafires destroyed five aircraft. Later that day, four other strikes — 55 aircraft in all — visited the same airfield, completing the destruction of all 45 enemy aircraft. However, as they made repeated passes, they suffered five casualties including one Avenger and one Firefly from Implacable.
My second ‘ramrod’ at 1415 was also without incident. Dennis Kirby led 25 Flight. All eight of us were told to strike at Onagawa Wan once more. All we saw at this time were a few small vessels close inshore, trying to pretend they were not there. We dived at a larger one which was firing at us and left it going round in circles and smoking. We returned to Implacable at about 1730, 3½ hours after take-off. This time the ship was well to the north of her proper position and we had to fly over three American Fleets of four carriers each, before we could get to her. We had further delay while we asked for permission to do this and we had to come down low to be visually identified each time, so losing our own ship’s beacon. At this moment, Mike Banyard and his Number 2 — Newton — suddenly reported only seven gallons left. As this was only enough for seven minutes aviation, I asked the Yanks for a quick pancake. They replied:
“Limey chickens, join Eagle 1 (Essex) traffic now. You will be number one to land. Over.”
“Eagle 1, Limey Seafire Leader. We have only two. Over.”
“Limey chicken leader, we’ll take any number you have in mind. Come straight in. Out.”
So Mike (‘Iron Swede’) Banyard and ‘Isaac’ Newton landed aboard Essex. (His story of life aboard an American carrier is at Appendix 12.)
I turned out early next morning 11 August and consulted the oracle in the Ops room. Two hours later at 0530, it became clear that we should have to supply two Seafires all day as ‘strapped-in’ deck standby.
We longed for some definite sign of peace or war. Indecision was beginning to get on our nerves. We went to bed early every night ready for an 0330 turn-out the next morning — just in case we might be needed. Would the Japs settle? Would we have to face another period of operations? We heard that the Russians had declared war against Japan. We heard that Indefatigable and King George V were to be refuelled and continue operations in the area with the Americans while we went south with the remainder “to replenish” — for what? Apparently the Japanese were still attacking the Americans’ cruiser screen and four Kamikazes had been shot down, so war was still a possibility.
It was now five days after the first atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and three days after the second at Nagasaki. We heard afterwards, that the Japanese home defence organisation had kept the news of these catastrophes from their people so that they would not insist upon an early armistice. The result was that no help was sent from the surrounding cities and casualties from burns were ten times as great as they need have been. Meanwhile, as we turned south in Implacable, committed suiciders continued to try to find the American Task Force with Indefatigable in company. The Seafires of 24 Wing with Jimmy Crossman and Andrew Thompson as the two COs, and the Wing Leader Buster Hallet once more, were having a busy time. Many suiciders failed to find the fleet at all. Indefatigable’s radar watched them as they circled. It was a macabre ritual. One by one they dived into the sea as they ran out of petrol, the radar plot slowly disappearing as they did so.
In the middle of this indecision, the Admiral paid us his second visit in Implacable. His first had been at Manus and is worthy of mention, for it warned us of what to expect for his second.
At his Manus visit — months ago it seemd to us — we were at anchor and it was unbearably hot in the wardroom. One hundred and fifty of us RNVR airmen waited for his entrance. We were dressed in white shirts, shorts, buckskin shoes and long white stockings. The fans were full on, blowing irritable, water-laden air from one streaming brow to the next in their futile way. The Admiral, Captain and a few others entered at last, and we stood up. Our visitors were wearing ‘Number Tens’ — white duck trousers with knife-edge creases and tunics buttoned to the neck.
“Why aren’t they wearing their wings?” asked the Admiral. There was a long, awkward silence and we sat down. There could be no meeting of minds on this occasion, no warm handshake, no charming expression, no twinkle in the eye. The Admiral and ourselves, thrown together by the exigences of war, came from two different worlds. We came from the fun and the fright of aeroplanes and from school; he came from a world of destroyers and from Dartmouth. Neither had the smallest technical knowledge of the other’s task. As if to confirm this state of affairs, the Admiral had now made his demand: “Why aren’t they wearing their wings?” when everyone knew that wings were never worn by aviators dressed in working tropical rig. If he had spent the last three years in close contact with his aviators as a carrier Admiral should, how could he not have known of this? He had made a bad start with the aviators in Implacable.
The memory of the Admiral’s first visit tended to set the scene for his second. In addition, before his visit, there had been another most unfortunate signal from the Flagship which implied that we were cowards. The signal was as follows:
“To 1st AC — From AC1
Board of Admiralty have signalled that high percentage of strikes and good results achieved reflect great credit on all concerned.
2. I doubt Their Lordships can have known how high in some cases has been our percentage of abortive sorties which we must and will reduce.
3. Let us be judged both as to sortie output and damage inflicted on the enemy by the two strike days immediately before us.”
Well, we had just had these two strike days and all our casualties had been doubled. Poor Hammy Grey had indeed done his best to satisfy para 3 and had paid unnecessarily with his young life — together with 11 others. Implacable had been singled out for a visit, for our casualties had been light by comparison. Even if Yate, Graham, Patullo, Saxe, Bedore, Tucker, Tillet and Squires had all been shot down by flak and had not mostly been lost by failures and dangers in the aircraft itself (See Appendix 11 (e)) the losses were small by comparison with the Corsairs of Victorious or Formidable. He may have considered that there was a simple correlation between high casualties and bravery.
So that, as the Admiral stepped from the back seat of his Firefly ferry onto Implacable’s flight deck that sunny morning, some of us could perhaps have discerned the ghost of Admiral Byng, with quill and parchment ready to write down what was said.
The Seafires did not have long to wait before one of them was accused. The incident which follows is told by John Joly.
“We had the usual three Seafires on deck, two warmed up and one spare with folded wings. Our Chief AA — CPO Ferrier — didn’t like the sound of my engine, so I dismounted to get into the spare. While I was doing this the tannoy told me to report to the bridge. The Admiral advanced and said:
‘Are you afraid of flying young man?’
‘No sir’.
‘Well, get back into your aeroplane.’ ”
Had I heard of this, and that Joly had been accused of cowardice in this way, I should have been able to tell the Admiral that there was no one in the entire ship who could have got “closer to the enemy” than John Joly. Mechanics were still picking bits of Japanese destroyer out of the fuselage of his Seafire from his action two days before in Onaga Wan.
None of us bothered too much at the time, for that night we heard that peace was indeed imminent and we had a party in the wardroom. We forgot about the Admiral. Neither were we concerned about casualty rates in 30 Wing. We knew we had done more than our duty and that our low casualty rate followed from our attack method. We did not know by how much we had done our duty until after the war and the official figures on sortie rates per aircraft/aircrew were made known.
Taking the entire 86 Seafires in both large carriers, they constituted 35% of BPF’s embarked aircraft. Yet these 86 Seafires had done 51% (1280) of the total offensive sorties. For three of the nine days of flying operations, Indefatigable had been absent, or not operated her Seafires at all, so that 30 Wing’s percentage (now 801 Squadron) was even higher. In retrospect, for we hardly gave it a thought at the time, the only reason for the Admiral’s attitude to the Seafire in particular — if not the whole ship Implacable in general — was that she and Charles Evans had made the Seafire work, something which he had found impossible. Was this why Charles Evans said: “He never forgave me,” and why he and Implacable had had to field one rude signal after another?
We wondered how Indefatigable was getting on with the Americans. We saw a signal from the American C-in-C, Admiral Bill Halsey. He was a rugged leader. He drove from the front seat and knew what went on under the bonnet. He warned his men of Japanese treachery following their peace overtures. In spite of the ceasefire, the Allies were to “shoot them down in a friendly manner” if they made an appearance. As the Japanese had still not made up their minds, the Americans authorised Indefatigable to strike at Odaki Bay. As the last of the Seafires, Avengers and Fireflies turned for home after this brilliant strike, orders went out for the ceasefire. In this last action of the war, although the Seafires of 894 Squadron had shot down almost all the A6Ms sent to intercept them, one of the Seafires — S/Lt F. Hockley — was bounced while he was slowing down to drop his tank. He force-landed in Japan.
S/Lt Hockley could not be found later amongst the prisoners of war in Japan by our peace commission. The local army commander had apparently taken him out and shot him where he landed. Such was the sort of enemy that we should have had to fight if ‘Olympic II’ had gone through and the bomb had not saved us.
After we had heard from Churchill himself on 13-14 August that Japan had surrendered, we could at last relax. We went to a thanksgiving service on the quarterdeck with our excellent padre — the Reverend Knight — and thanked God for the atom bomb that had saved countless Allied lives. No doubt it would have saved half a million more civilian Japanese lives too — from the B29s — but we cared not about them at the time.
Charles Evans told me to recommend two of 880 Squadron for DSCs. They were bound to be Norman Goodfellow and Edwin ‘Crusty’ Pye, the two longest serving officers in the squadron. Norman had been flying continuously on operations — with but one break — since the war started. Otherwise, there was no act which stood out from the rest, for all were identical in their determination to give of their best. Our only regret was that so many of the new boys were unable, due to inexperience of our methods, to take their place in the front line at once on joining. Measures were of course already in hand to remedy this by Stuart Jewers, who now left for the Fighter Training Pool at Nowra.
The suddenness of the onset of peace made major changes in war plans impossible. We in Implacable, therefore continued on our planned journey south to Sydney as if we were still preparing for ‘Olympic II’. Only at the very top could the plan be altered, so that our C-in-C, Bruce Fraser, could now leave Sydney in his Flagship — Duke of York — to add his presence to the proposed peace-signing ceremony in Tokyo Bay.
The Duke was an extraordinary choice of Flagship. Whereas the Americans in the Pacific had heard of Formidable, Victorious, Indefatigable, and perhaps, King George V, they had never heard of the Duke of York. She had had the signal honour of catching the Scharnhorst on a dark night in the Arctic winter of January 1944. She had taken advantage of ‘Ultra’, her possession of radar and an inexplicable error by the Germans, to sink her with her guns and with 50 or so torpedoes from her accompanying cruisers. This irrelevant feat was not appreciated in the Pacific either by the Americans or by the Fleet Air Arm. It was not therefore in the least surprising for us to hear that ‘the Duke’ had been pelted with potatoes by the carriers as she had steamed into Guam on her way north to the peace-signing with Admiral Fraser on board.
In his address to his troops in the Duke’s sister battleship, King George V, the Admiral had been extremely courteous and at pains to excuse his choice of ship for the peace-signing ceremony. He had mistaken the potatoes for the Carrier Fleet’s wish to have the King George V. Little did he ever know that the BPF wanted neither battleship but only an aircraft carrier to represent the Royal Navy at Tokyo. So once again the Press unwittingly, and the Navy wittingly, beguiled the public into thinking that battleships were still the core of the Royal Navy.
Four days after the potato episode and a few days before we entered Sydney Harbour in Implacable, a small British contingent of Royal Marines went ashore on the Japanese island of Azuma on 24 August in a symbolic landing. They found an arsenal of weapons. Further foot-reconnaissance on the mainland in the course of the next six months revealed that Japan had prepared to defend herself from a landing on the Tokyo Plain — the area chosen for the main landing in Febuary 1946 — and had secreted in the surrounding countryside no less than 4,000 apparently serviceable fighter aircraft suitable for conventional defence and Kamikaze attack. Many of these were new types, the ‘Jack’ and ‘George’, similar to the Typhoon fighter-bomber with 2000 horsepower radial engines and level speeds of 400 mph. However, at one airfield, no less than 25 ‘George’ fighters — otherwise fully operational — had their port undercarriage legs buckled, implying that they suffered from directional instability on take-off or landing, and that there was a serious lack of spares.
On 13 September, off Sydney Heads, we finally flew off the remaining 37 Seafires of our 48. We landed in fine style at Schofields, a MONAB1 a few miles west of Sydney. Refusing, in Implacable, to adopt the fashionable ‘centralised maintenance’, we took with us our 160 marvellous ratings who had so faithfully transformed our hot, worn out, leaky and misfiring aircraft into serviceable flying machines for the next day’s flying. We had formed up in a Balbo as we left to pay our respects to our fine ship, to Charles Evans and to our Captain. We then split up and shot past the bridge at zero feet.
Formidable, Speaker and Glory, the latter a new Light Fleet carrier, had also entered Sydney Harbour with us. They soon emptied most of the American Lease-Lend aircraft, Corsairs, Hellcats and Avengers, into the Pacific, and filled up with as many Allied Prisoners of War that the overworked ‘peacetime’ Services staff in Sydney could find alive. They took them back to Australasia, Canada, India and the UK. Implacable herself took almost 2000 POWs back to Esquimault in western Canada. It was one of many mercy missions. Some 14,000 British POWs had already died in captivity and were still dying in the ships on their way home.
While Implacable had formed part of the US Fast Carrier Force TF 37, her aircraft had destroyed 46 enemy aircraft on Japanese airfields and damaged another 67. Some 10,000 tons of small shipping was sunk and another 130,000 tons probably sunk.
Losses in 30 Wing from all causes since leaving the UK and while working up in the Orkneys and over Norway, totalled 15 pilots killed. Seven pilots failed to return from raids against the Japanese mainland and Truk. Of these, only one or two could have been shot down by Japanese flak, the others having died when attempting to bale out following fuel supply failure or by other causes connected with enemy action but not directly caused by it. Two pilots had structural failure on the pullouts of dives, one collided with an aerial due to a poorly sited runway, one was killed taking off due to his glove having caught in the hood, one collided in mid-air in cloud, another from suffocation from a mid-air fuel leak, another from engine stalling on the approach. The poor state of development — due to lack of time and appropriate test flying — of the Seafire III was probably responsible for the major part of these losses, thus the aircraft itself was, perhaps, many times more dangerous to us than the enemy. There is little doubt that had 30 Wing followed the current practice of diving in succession on targets, its casualties would have been far higher. As it was, one or perhaps two casualties due to flak in some 600 hours flying on offensive sorties, compare with five times that rate amongst the other squadrons in the BPF who did not use 30 Wing’s technique. Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of these losses is that none were caused by pilot error.
Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Hughes-Hallett opened a display at the Fleet Air Arm Museum on 30 July 1984. This featured the work of the BPF during the war with the Japanese Kamikaze. While there I happened to read a short account of TF37 in an illustrated book entitled Fleet Air Arm at War, published in 1982. In it a paragraph caught my eye; it said: “At the end of May 1945, Implacable was despatched to Manus to gain experience in modern combat techniques before participation in a major operation”. Some of us ‘Implacables’ wondered whether this referred to her Air Group or to the ship herself, and whether it was the opinion of the rest of the BPF when we arrived on the scene. So far as her Air Group’s combat techniques were concerned, the answer to whether they were modern or not was answered in 1959, when 30 Wing’s attack system for ‘ramrods’ was adopted by the Navy and written into Naval Air Fighting Instructions. It was 14 years ahead of its time! So far as the ship’s fighting efficiency was concerned, Implacable’s sortie rate per aircraft was by far the highest of any of the four Fleet carriers in the Pacific.