On February 6, 1945, the two British escort carriers Campania and Nairana left their anchorage at Scapa Flow (Orkneys) with twelve Swordfish and six Wildcat each from 813 and 835 Squadrons respectively. They were to join convoy JW 64 to
Murmansk and protect it from Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe attacks. This convoy, among the last of the war, was to suffer one of the fiercest assaults from the Germans. As early as
on the first day of the cruise, the pilots were playing hockey on the deck of the Nairana when
the two pairs of Wildcats on alert had to take off to intercept a Ju 88 from Norway.
The next day, the convoy was tracked by a snitch (German patrol boat). On the night of February 8-9, a radar-equipped Fulmar attempted to detect the submarines but overturned while landing
on Campania, rendering it inoperative. Brief as it was until then, the escort had been eventful, but the most violent was yet to come for the Wildcats...
Translation of a story from the book Wings of Me Morning, by Ian Cameron,
published by White Lion Ltd, London, 1972.
The weather was excellent at dawn on February 10 but very cold, the sea was rough, the clouds thick and the wind was blowing from the north in a storm. Two Swordfish had taken off at dawn for a routine patrol. The first problem arose for one of them, the NR864, which was purring at a hundred meters altitude when its pilot, Lieutenant-Commander Godley saw on the horizon, low and to the east, a strange thin trail like a pencil line. The streak grew rapidly and burst into black flakes that grew larger. Godley suddenly realized what it was:two dozen low-flying Junkers in single file were heading straight for the convoy. Unfortunately, his Swordfish got caught in their line of flight:a slow, unarmed biplane, confronted by a pack of fast, heavily armed monoplanes. Godley called out to Strong, his spotter, to radio the convoy and desperately tried to reach the shelter of the clouds. Before he had decided on the direction of his escape, the Junkers broke formation and avoided him. It was unbelievable, too good to be true, but the Germans mistook the Swordfish for a fighter on patrol and got confused. For thirty seconds, Godley and Strong had the comforting sight of numerous empennages receding on the horizon. Strong called for the carrier a second time and Godley, careful not to stray too far from the cloud cover, ended his patrol.
Strong's message was picked up by the Nairana as its radar picked up the intruders. The Wildcats, moored on deck, were placed on alert and the airborne pair directed towards the enemy formation. Mearns and Moss, the pilots, soon saw the approaching bombers scattered along the water. They picked an isolated one and dived into it several times, opening fire at point-blank range. The Junkers zigzagged, its machine guns crackling, but a ten-second burst fired by Moss blew one of its engines and the plane dived out to sea. Mearns followed it, gave it a short burst and saw it disintegrate as it hit the waves. . The Wildcats resumed their formation and were directed to the front of the convoy where another group of bombers appeared low on the water. This was the main assault.
Four other Nairana Wildcats were in the air at this time; they were piloted by Armitage, Sargent, Blanco and Gordon; but the latter had an engine failure on takeoff and had to land in disaster. The fighters conducted their interception about twenty kilometers from the convoy and frantic fighting erupted in the jagged ribbon of pale sky wedged between sea and clouds. The Junkers tried several times to break through but the Nairana Wildcats prevented them. The fighters' mission was as much to shoot down the torpedo planes as to deny them any coordinated attack. For half an hour they harassed the Junkers all around the perimeter of the convoy and prevented them from resuming their combat formation. The Wildcats forced them out of the way, dropping their bombs and taking cover in the clouds. Several intruders were damaged, some so badly that they were unable to reach Norway, as later demonstrated. Once only a few Junkers managed to launch a concerted attack which narrowly failed and gave a glimpse of what might have been inflicted on the convoy had the Wildcats not been there.
A group of six Junkers in close formation momentarily managed to outmaneuver the hunters. They swooped down on the ships screaming but were met by a hail of bullets fired from aircraft carriers and freighters. The commander of the Junkers was brave; he hovered over the lead ships of the convoy to draw their fire while his wingmen swung to make individual attacks. An aircraft was shot down in flames, another was hit and took refuge in the clouds and a third launched its torpedo at too great an angle which caused it to explode on contact with the sea. The last two Junkers made a precise attack. One torpedo missed a freighter by a few meters and the other went straight for the Nairana. The aircraft carrier veered sharply to the left, so violently that its rudder jammed and the building, out of control, made two complete turns in the center of the convoy. This savage maneuver scattered the ships of the convoy which flanked him. The torpedo missed its mark and exploded in the foam in its wake. The German leader, hit by a hail of bullets from anti-aircraft guns, fell in flames among the freighters he had so bravely attacked. And then, suddenly, the torpedo planes disappeared as if by magic.
The main assault was over. A handful of Junkers still tried for a time to launch individual attacks' and one of them perished under the blows of the Nairana Wildcats.
The last pair of Wildcats, maintained until then reserved. took off shortly before noon. The planes were piloted by Al Burgham and Atkinson. Burgham, a New Zealander, was the most experienced and senior pilot aboard the Nairana. A few minutes after takeoff, he spotted a lone torpedo boat trying to insinuate itself at low altitude through a breach in the convoy's defenses. Despite strafing from the escort ships, the Wildcat chased the Junkers away and a long, precise burst of gunfire sounded the death knell.
The ships' gunners had been firing relentlessly for more than an hour; pissed off by the attack, they fired at anything with wings:Junkers, Swordfish and Wildcat. A hunter who came to land to be rearmed was attacked by the gunners of his aircraft carrier! Eventually, as the last Junkers slipped away to the east, the fire died down and the planes returned to their aircraft carrier.
German radio announced during the night that nine of the ships of the convoy had been sunk but in reality none had been hit. The Germans also admitted the loss of four torpedo planes but the officer in charge of listening to the enemy radio was better informed. Of the twenty-six Junkers who had left Norway to launch one of the most massive attacks of the war against a convoy bound for the Soviet Union, eleven did not return and three were in such poor condition that they crashed landing. It was a triumph for the Nairana's handful of Wildcats, tarnished only by the fact that most of them had come under fire several times from the ships they fiercely defended.