As the two aircraft swept low over Scharnhorst, their wings and fuselages riddled with shell splinters from flak gunners, Captain Hoffmann watched from the bridge as the two Beauforts split up to attack on opposite sides from astern. A torpedo was seen running, and Hoffmann ordered hard to starboard. When he did so, the Beaufort on the starboard side turned in towards the ships, flying low over her quarter-deck, sweeping her with machine-gun fire. The flak gunners on the port side, busily firing at the first plane, found bullets smacking on to the deck behind them. A hail of bullets struck the bridge of Scharnhorst, but no one was injured.
After this determined attack, both Pilot Officer Stewart and Sergeant Rout managed to bring their damaged planes back to Mansion. Etheridge nearly did not make it. Near Ramsgate, anti-aircraft batteries, who appeared to be firing at everything coming in from the Channel, mistook his Beaufort for a German and he was shot up again. He staggered back to make a belly-landing at Horsham St. Faith, Norfolk.
Meanwhile Carson then did a very gallant thing. Not waiting for the other Beaufort, which was refuelling, he took off alone to look for the Germans. It was raining hard and visibility was only three miles. German fighters, cruising around the North Sea looking for British aircraft, instantly swooped on his lone plane, but the mist helped him to dodge them.
When his radar picked up the German ships, he skimmed along the waves ahead of the outer screen of E-boats protecting the Gneisenau, while flak burst all around him and more fighters came at him, their cannons rattling.
Pulling the stick back, he lifted the Beaufort up a little to cross the masts of the German destroyers laying smoke along Gneisenaus side, and then came down to wave height to drop his torpedo from 2,000 yards. A thumping noise reverberated through the plane as cannon shells smashed into his tail. As he turned to head back into the clouds, he did not know that Gneisenau had quickly altered course, and this lone attack narrowly missed crippling her. His torpedo passed only twenty yards from Gneisenau s port side.
The bombers, through no fault of the aircrews, had an almost completely frustrating day. The experience of 40 Squadron Wellington bombers stationed at Alconbury, Huntingdonshire, was typical. The night before, they had taken off at 6:30 p.m. to bomb Mannheim, arriving back just before midnight.
Just before lunch, they were loafing around the mess or resting in their huts when they were called to the briefing hut for the "Fuller" emergency. Four Wellingtons under Sq. Ldr. McGillivray took off at 2:40 p.m. They flew most of the way over the North Sea in "ten-tenths" cloud reaching up to 1,500 feet.
When the four Wellingtons reached the estimated position of the battleships, a German fighter approached to within 200 yards. As the Wellingtons swerved away, the fighter vanished into the clouds. The bombers continued to circle over the estimated position but their perspex became totally iced up. The de-icer failed in the Wellington piloted by Sergeant Hathaway, preventing him from seeing out of the cockpit. As he would have been a sitting duck for any German fighter in this state, he turned back to grope his way home.
Flying Officer Barr, twenty minutes late taking off, was not airborne until three o'clock. When he arrived over the target area he also circled round, but could see nothing through the thick cloud. Then the front gunner reported his guns jammed, so he too turned back. As he approached the English coast near Lowestoft, anti-aircraft gunners fired at him. The firing still continued as he roared over the roof-tops of Lowestoft, frantically giving three-colour recognition signals. But his rear-gunner, Pilot Officer Leavett, was hit in the back of the head by shrapnel. Barr made an emergency landing at Lakenheath with the bleeding, unconscious gunner in the back, and Leavett was rushed to the RAF hospital at Ely.
Another Wellington squadron, 241, stationed at Stradishall, had even worse luck. Heavy snow had delayed flying operations for a week, but as the snowstorms had abated they were warned on Thursday to be ready to bomb German targets that night. While they were preparing for this night operation, orders were received, "Carry out Fuller."
At 2:45 p.m., twelve Wellingtons headed towards the Dutch coast with cloud down to 500 feet. Formation-keeping was almost impossible and only one pilot saw what he believed to be German ships. He went down to 1,000 feet and dropped six 500-lb. bombs but observed no results.
Another Wellington, flying at 300 feet under the thick cloud, saw the white wake of a ship. As it turned to pursue, a Messerschmitt came out of the clouds, its machine-guns spitting. The rear-gunner opened fire on the German and in the dog-fight both planes dived into cloud. The Messerschmitt vanished so the Wellington criss-crossed the area but could not find the ship's wake again. Most of the Wellingtons brought their bombs back. Their pilots reported, "Nothing seen after prolonged search; and returned to base with all bombs."
One failed to return. Aboard her were the senior officers of the squadron including its commander, Wing-Cdr. Macfadden with Sq. Ldr. Stephens and Flt.-Lt. Hughes. After they radioed that they were having engine trouble there was silence. The 241 logbook said, "The squadron had a very unsuccessful day and lost the Commanding Officer."
The Blenheim bomber squadrons had the same experience — a last-minute take-off in thick weather and a futile search for the battleships. In their case, the hazards were increased because some of the aircrew had not flown operationally before.
The experience of dark-haired, stocky Flt.-Sgt. Tom Berjeman, a pilot with 110 Squadron of Blenheims, stationed at Wattisham, Suffolk, was similar to the experiences and frustrations of several hundred bomber pilots.
Like most bomber crews, they had been on stand-by for a week, taking their meals in the crew room in flying kit. They knew "something big" was in the air but they were not told what it was. Just after 11:30 a.m., they were called into the briefing hut by their squadron leader, who informed them that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had broken out and told them: "Get cracking. This is what we have been standing by for."
Betjeman, who had a fruit shop in Caterham, Surrey, before he joined up, was on his first operation after coming out of flying school. He led a typical wartime bomber crew. His navigator was a former New Zealand clerk named Noel Colyton and his 21-year-old ginger-haired gunner, Jackie Turner, was an apprentice draughtsman from Manchester.
On the airfield, ready loaded with two 500-pound bombs and two 250-pounders, was his Blenheim. As he climbed in, the armaments officer warned Betjeman that the bombs were set for eleven seconds delay. He said, "Though conditions give 500 feet cloud don't dip below it to bomb — or you will blow your bloody selves up!"
For night operations against the Norwegian coast the bombers were painted black. Every one of them was very conscious that in daylight they would be an easy target when outlined against the grey clouds.
"Also the weather was terrible," recalls Betjeman. "It was the stickiest day I have ever seen. There were misty flying conditions and visibility was not more than three to four hundred feet."
They took off in four flights of three. As Betjeman in the last three taxied into the runway, the other two planes in his flight went out of action with engine trouble. Flight Control ordered him not to take off alone. They kept calling him, but as he had switched off his radio telephone he did not hear them, and he took off into the low cloud.