Royal Navy air capability in 1941
The Royal Navy required a strategy for dealing with Japan
that took realistic account of its available resources in 1941. However, it
also needed to apply the right capabilities and fighting tactics. Here,
understanding the new potential of air power at sea and applying the lessons of
the war to date was particularly important. The Fleet Air Arm entered the
European war with obsolescent aircraft, and also faced low priority for
development and production. Once the war got underway, a combination of
prioritisation by the Ministry of Aircraft Production on key Royal Air Force
types, procurement mismanagement and shifting operational requirements caused
development of the new generation fighter and strike aircraft ordered in 1939
and 1940 to move painfully slowly.
Of the three aircraft taken forward, none ultimately reached
service until 1943. Only one then proved operationally adequate, albeit not in
its intended role. They were the Fairey Barracuda torpedo bomber, the advanced next
generation torpedo strike reconnaissance (TSR) aircraft to replace the Albacore
and Swordfish; the Fairey Firefly specification N 8/39 two-seater escort fighter
to replace the Fulmar; and the Blackburn Firebrand high-performance single seat
fighter. The failure of the Barracuda was partly owing to the cancellation of
the advanced Exe engine by the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1940 to
concentrate on other engine priorities. This was a decision beyond the Royal
Navy’s control, but it led to substantial and unsatisfactory redesign. The
development of the Firefly was inhibited by changing perceptions of fighter
requirements and the best means of meeting these. It eventually proved a useful
aircraft, but as a fighter-bomber and night-fighter rather than mainstream
dayfighter, where it could not compete with contemporary US Navy fighters. It
was not fully operational until 1944. The Firebrand was a high-performance
single-seat fighter able to take on land-based aircraft, but was fatally
compromised by hasty design and too many conflicting requirements.
The Norwegian campaign persuaded the Fleet Air Arm that its
most critical need was a dedicated naval fighter with sufficient performance to
counter the latest land-based strike aircraft and their escorting fighters.
Experiments here with radar-assisted fighter direction emphasised the
desirability of an agile aircraft able to gain height and distance quickly for interception.
The first Royal Navy radar-controlled interception at sea occurred on 23 April
1940, using the converted anti-aircraft cruiser Curlew as a radar picket. The
Norway experience also demonstrated the potential for integrating new
technology: radar, lightweight VHF communications (which were far ahead of the
US Navy) and radio homing. Essentially, the Fleet Air Arm was now reaching for
a ‘Battle of Britain’ fighter defence concept, based on new perceptions of the
threat and available technology. Two factors, therefore, came together here to
drive a fundamental shift in fighter philosophy: the threat from high-speed
aircraft and the technical means to counter this threat with carrier-based
fighters, using the emerging Royal Air Force fighter direction techniques.
The result was the specification of the new Firebrand
single-seat fighter in July 1940, and the decision to meet the gap before the
Firebrand’s arrival by ordering the Grumman F4F Wildcat from the United States,
which the Royal Navy named the Martlet. This followed an extensive debate over
how to reconcile the traditional requirement for a long-range escort fighter to
support carrier strike forces, which in the Fleet Air Arm view required a
dedicated navigator as well as pilot, and the new need to defend the fleet
against high performance attackers, where equivalent fighter performance was
needed, implying single seat and acceptance of shorter range. The Admiralty
continued to worry about the difficulties a single-seat fighter might face with
navigation until well into 1941. The initial conclusion was that two aircraft
were needed. By September 1941 it was already clear the Firebrand was well
behind schedule and could not be operational before mid-1943.
Meanwhile, deploying the interim Martlet from Royal Navy
carriers posed a problem. Without folding wings, none of the lifts in Ark Royal
or the first three Illustrious class were large enough to accommodate them. The
solution was to ask Grumman to produce a folding wing variant and eventually to
adopt the US Navy practice of deck parking. Because of these limitations, the
first Wildcats delivered were used in a land-based role for the defence of
Scapa Flow. Designing and producing a folding wing took much longer than hoped,
and the Admiralty briefly considered undertaking the work in the United
Kingdom. In early 1941 it expected the folding wing variant to begin arriving
in the middle of the year, but this proved wildly optimistic. Nevertheless, at
the end of 1941, the Royal Navy still assessed the Wildcat the best naval
fighter in the world. Trials had by now shown that it was more manoeuvrable
than a Hurricane I, was faster at all heights up to 15,000ft, and climbed
better too. The Royal Navy ordered 100 aircraft in July 1940, 150 more in
December 1940 and 200 in October 1941. It appears a further eighty-one were
taken over from French orders in mid-1940. Grumman had originally promised
delivery of twenty aircraft per month from late 1940, sufficient to equip the
Fleet Air Arm frontline fighter force by the following autumn. This would have
given Royal Navy carriers broadly the same fighter capability as the US Navy in
confronting the IJN in late 1941 and in 1942. The US Navy had initially
selected the Brewster Buffalo as its preferred naval fighter, but switched to
the Wildcat in mid-1941, partly on the basis of British experience. The Wildcat
then remained its primary naval fighter throughout 1942. The Buffalo, as we
have seen, became the mainstay of British fighter defence in Malaya.
However, by the end of 1941 Grumman had delivered less than
half the numbers contracted and paid for and, crucially, none had the folding
wings, essential to the Royal Navy, which Grumman had also promised. Churchill,
who monitored the Fleet Air Arm fighter problem throughout 1941, described this
as ‘a melancholy story’. In September that year, in typical fashion, he cut to
the heart of the issue. ‘All this year it has been apparent that the power to
launch the highest class fighters from aircraft carriers may re-open to the
Fleet great strategic doors which have been closed against them.’ He instructed
that – ‘the aircraft carrier should have priority in the quality and character
of suitable (aircraft) types’. The latter was, of course, easy to say, but much
harder to deliver. The US Navy, by then also acquiring Wildcats, blamed the
delays on acute shortages of materials across the US aircraft industry, owing
to concentration on the four-engine bomber programme.
The end of 1941, therefore, found the Fleet Air Arm badly let
down by American industry and desperately trying to plug its fighter gap
through stopgap adaptations of the Hurricane and Spitfire, neither of which
were really suitable for carrier operation. Once it became clear that Wildcat
deliveries would be delayed, 270 Hurricanes were released to the Fleet Air Arm
between February and May 1941. Inevitably, some of these Royal Air Force
releases were of poor quality. Alexander again summarised the status of Fleet
Air Arm procurement for the prime minister in early December. He explained why
the Hurricane and Spitfire, although necessary as stopgaps, were inherently
unsuitable for carrier operation. It remained essential to maximise Wildcat
supplies until new British naval fighters were available, but supplies could only
be assured by asking the United States to prioritise naval fighter over heavy
bomber production. Despite Alexander’s insistence that the Spitfire was
unsuitable, it appears that the possibility of converting Spitfires for carrier
use, including the provision of folding wings, was considered as early as
February 1940, but was ruled out at this time because of the impact on Fighter
Command requirements. The idea was then resurrected in September 1941,
technical issues were resolved by January 1942, and an initial order placed for
250 aircraft, by now designated the Seafire. The modification of the Spitfire
for naval use inevitably still took time, and the first twenty-eight aircraft
were not delivered until July 1942. At that point, deliveries were expected to
run at twenty-five per month and by late August the initial order for 250 was
expanded to 452 for the end of 1943. This reflected the view by then that the
Firebrand would have to be abandoned.
Given the delay to the Barracuda, the Fleet Air Arm also
considered the merits of purchasing strike aircraft from the United States. The
current US Navy torpedo bomber, the Douglas Devastator, offered no significant
performance advantage over the Swordfish or its Albacore successor, which began
coming into service in 1940. The US Navy did have an excellent dive-bomber in
the Douglas Dauntless SBD2, but the Royal Navy had long chosen to prioritise
torpedo attack over dive-bombing, and its carriers had insufficient capacity to
carry reasonable numbers of both types. There is a compelling argument here
that the US Navy ended up prioritising the dive-bomber because its aerial
torpedoes did not work satisfactorily. By contrast, the Royal Navy had
excellent torpedoes. The Fleet Air Arm was, however, impressed with the forthcoming
Grumman TBF Avenger, which would prove the outstanding naval strike aircraft of
the war. Two hundred were ordered in late 1941 under lend-lease, but did not
reach the Royal Navy until 1943.
This background meant that until well into 1942, the Fleet
Air Arm was largely dependent on obsolete biplane strike aircraft dating from
the mid-1930s and a more modern fighter of interim design, the Fulmar,
introduced in 1940. Indomitable, completed in autumn 1941 with larger lifts and
extra hangar space, was equipped with Hurricanes from the start, while
modifications to Illustrious and Formidable in the United States in late 1941
enabled them to deploy Wildcats when they rejoined the fleet at the end of the
year. While they were not competitive with the latest IJN and US Navy carrier
aircraft, the limitations of the standard British Fleet Air Arm types can be
overstated. The Fulmar, as primary fighter from 1940, could not match a Zero
for speed or manoeuvrability, but it was still quite fast enough to catch the
most modern loaded strike aircraft, and had other advantages both as an
interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft. It was more robust than a Zero, could
dive at 400mph (faster than almost all contemporaries and a speed which would
cause a Zero to break up), had a four-hour endurance, and was an excellent gun
platform with large ammunition capacity (which was a Zero weakness), all of
which, when allied to radar control, made it a useful defensive fighter.
The Swordfish and Albacore torpedo bombers had reasonable
range, a good communications fit, were married to an excellent torpedo, and
their biplane manoeuvrability was an advantage in marginal flying weather. The
Fleet Air Arm torpedo here was the 18in Mark XII introduced in 1940. Contrary
to the impression often given that the Royal Navy was backward in aerial
torpedo capability, the Mark XII could be dropped at up to 200ft (61m) and 150
knots, making it easily comparable to the IJN Type 91. It also had two speed
options, an excellent warhead and the option of an advanced detonating pistol,
the duplex magnetic proximity fuse. In addition, it had gyro-angling so the
attacking aircraft could offset, rather than flying direct at the target.
The Fleet Air Arm’s Swordfish and Albacore torpedo bombers
could not match their IJN counterparts for speed and range, but compensated
through their ability to operate at night or in bad weather, and they had high
reliability. It is doubtful either IJN or US Navy aircraft could have taken off
in the conditions prevailing in Ark Royal on 26 May for the crucial attack on
the Bismarck. In addition, from early 1941 significant numbers were fitted with
ASV air surface search radar, giving them a night and bad weather search and
attack capability which neither the IJN nor US Navy could match. The first
airborne radar sets, known as ASV 1, were deployed in Fleet Air Arm aircraft in
late 1939, but were fragile and unreliable. The much improved ASV 2, with an
effective range of about 15 miles to detect a medium-sized warship, began to be
deployed in early 1941. The 825 Squadron embarked in the new carrier Victorious
were entirely ASV 2-equipped, and this facilitated their night attack on
Bismarck on 24 May. Some aircraft in Ark Royal were also equipped, enabling
them to operate against Bismarck in the atrocious weather prevailing two days
later. Judged, therefore, as an overall weapon system, the Fleet Air Arm
torpedo bombers were effective and competitive.
By the autumn of 1941, despite the limitations of its
aircraft both in numbers and quality, the Royal Navy carrier fleet had achieved
notable operational successes across different theatres and under different
commanders, amply demonstrating that the Royal Navy was definitely not tied to
a conservative battleship mentality. One measure here is that the Royal Navy
had sunk or disabled five modern or modernised capital ships through aerial
torpedo attack by end May 1941. At Taranto in November 1940, just eleven Fleet
Air Arm Swordfish sank or disabled three modern or modernised Italian battleships,
while eighty-nine IJN B5N2s were required to sink or disable five older US Navy
battleships in the first-wave attack at Pearl Harbor. While the IJN is
invariably credited with sinking the first capital units at sea (Prince of
Wales and Repulse), the Fleet Air Arm had previously disabled a modern German
battleship at sea (Bismarck) and come close to disabling another, the modern
Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto, at Matapan. They had also severely disabled
the new French battleship Richelieu at Dakar on 8 July 1940.
The Royal Navy had also completed more modern carriers than
either the IJN or US Navy, even if, for all the reasons discussed, it badly
lagged both in the number and quality of frontline aircraft, together with
trained and experienced crews. By autumn 1941 the Royal Navy had completed five
large modern fleet carriers, against four by the IJN, and three by the US Navy.
The IJN and the US Navy had also each completed a single light carrier earlier
in the 1930s. Despite all its procurement problems and heavy wartime attrition,
frontline air strength had almost doubled in size after two years of war, and
it would continue grow steadily into 1942. Relevant figures here are as
follows:
Aircraft reserves by autumn 1941 were also substantial
compared to those of the IJNAF. At the end of September 1941, alongside the
frontline strength recorded above, there were 141 strike aircraft and
seventy-two fighters allocated to training, a further 540 and 335 respectively
in general reserve and fifty-seven and fifty-five in transit.
The Royal Navy nevertheless had to divide its carrier fleet
across four theatres, Atlantic, the two ends of the Mediterranean, and the
Indian Ocean, and the initiation of the Russian convoys from late 1941
effectively added a fifth theatre, the Arctic. This made it impossible further
to explore and train for the multi-carrier operations and mass strike tactics
which the Royal Navy had investigated in the 1930s, and which the IJN developed
so assiduously during 1941. In theory, this left it poorly placed to handle a
mass carrier engagement of the Coral Sea or Midway type, which the IJN and US
Navy would experience in mid-1942. However, by mid-1941 the Royal Navy had made
innovations which partly compensated for lack of numbers and quality of aircraft.
Both the US Navy and IJN had embraced an operational philosophy based on the
single massive strike, which made it difficult to manage the more flexible
flying cycle required to handle the competing tasks and demands of a
multi-threat environment. The Royal Navy, by contrast, emphasised operational
flexibility with rapid switches of aircraft tasking. The evolution of this
sophisticated multi-role flying cycle is well illustrated in some of the
reports on Force H operations by Vice Admiral Somerville as early as autumn
1940. These show the execution of techniques and tactics, including radar
pickets, which would still be in use in the 1960s, and were quite beyond US
Navy and IJN capability at that time.
