He flew by dead reckoning just above the waves over a fairly calm sea. Although his navigator Colyton warned, "Remember the Met. report gave icing conditions above 400 feet," Betjeman decided to take a chance and climb into the cloud when they reached the target area. After about fifteen seconds, Air-Gunner Turner came through on the intercom to say, "Lumps of ice are hitting my rear turret from the prop, Tom."
This meant he must immediately descend to a warmer temperature. Coming; down iced-up through thick cloud was very tricky for an inexperienced pilot like Betjeman. It would have been easy to panic, but he put her nose down very gently, and fortunately, as they came nearer sea level, the ice quickly melted. They "stooged around" searching for the battleships but could not see anything except mist. Realizing their task was hopeless they turned for home.
Flying Officer Norman, Nicholas was also on his first operational flight as the navigator of another Blenheim. On the third leg of a square search over the estimated position, he sighted six warships through a break in the clouds. Still trying to identify them positively as the German battleships, he directed the captain, Pilot Officer Hedley, towards them on a bombing run. As flak shells began to burst around them the air-gunner shouted, "My machine-guns aren't working!"
Nicholas was determined to try and hit the German ships. but he failed to get a reasonable aim with his bombsight so he called, "Dummy-run!" to the pilot. When they turned for a second run the clouds had closed in, and they could not see the ships anywhere. As they circled round searching, the air-gunner still could not get his guns to fire. They were defenceless against German fighters, so Hedley decided to return to base. As they flew back, Nicholas bitterly regretted not having taken a chance and released his bombs on the first run.
Most of the squadrons had a similar experience, or like Betjeman and his crew they returned having seen nothing. Out of the thirty-nine who claimed to have located the battleships, none dropped a bomb which did any damage. The others brought their bombs back or jettisoned them when attacked by German fighters. Fifteen bombers were lost. It was estimated that as many losses were due to flying too near the waves as from German attacks. The Germans lost seventeen aircraft.[6]
In addition to the bombers, every available plane in Fighter Command flew several sorties that day. Although 600 were available on paper, only 398 took off to attack the Germans. Seventeen of them were shot down. Altogether, with the 242 bombers and 35 Coastal Command Hudsons and Beauforts — of which five were lost—675 aircraft took off to attack the German battleships.
No one can blame their aircrews for the failure of this massive attack. The bomber crews who found the ships attacked with lonely heroism on that grey winter's afternoon. In the late afternoon one solitary Wellington shot out of the clouds in thick weather right over Prinz Eugen at 400 feet and flew through a hail of flak which practically ripped off her tail unit. As she dived over the destroyer Hermann Schoemann and dropped her bombs, she was badly hit and crashed into the sea. The German crews watched her burn with a long sheet of flame rising from the water.
This was just one of the bombers which did not return. No one knows who the pilot was but he upheld the honour of the RAF His attack was as courageously carried out as Esmonde's and his Swordfish. He too deserved the VC.
Ciliax recognized the gallantry of the RAF when he reported: "From about 12:45 until 6:30 p.m. massed and individual air attacks from planes of all types. Impressions: Dogged aggressive spirit, very plucky flying, great powers of resistance against light flak hits."
He explained the lack of success of the attacks like this: "The British were surprised, which led at the beginning to somewhat desultory and precipitate actions by their forces. During a period spanning one and a half hours after the first attack, no English aircraft succeeded in reaching the Squadron due to our excellent fighter cover. Not until our own fighter cover was badly handicapped by the increasing deterioration in the weather did the enemy aircraft succeed in penetrating to the ships."
Adolf Galland paid this tribute to the RAF "Their pilots fought bravely, tenaciously and untiringly, but they were sent into action with insufficient planning, without a clear concept of the attack, without a centre of gravity and without systematic tactics."
X
THE GALLANT LITTLE WORCESTER
The British destroyer Walpole, steaming slowly on the edge of the minefield while engineers tried to patch up her main bearing, was an easy but ambiguous target. She had a canvas roundel with the RAF sign on the fo'c'sle, but it was hard to see from the air as it was very misty with low cloud and only two or three miles visibility.
Suddenly two RAF Wellingtons swooped out of the grey clouds and dropped bombs near Walpole. On their tails, a formation of Messerschmitts came roaring down the port side and chased off the Wellingtons. Tensely, the Walpole crew stood by their guns. They refrained from firing at their unusual escort of German fighters, who returned to circle diligently over the British destroyer when they had chased away the Wellingtons.
It was then they must have recognized the red, white and blue roundel. They were so obviously embarrassed by the discovery that they only fired a few token machine-gun bursts before, as one rating expressed it, "They poked off into the glue."
Her engineers having managed to repair temporarily her engines, Walpole began to move slowly through the water. She was not attacked again. She made Harwich in three hours at slow speed to meet the Hunt Class destroyers waiting on the other side of the minefields to escort her in.
At 2:45 p.m., when Pizey's other five destroyers were steaming at full speed, line ahead, a plane appeared from a cloud. As it approached, the gun crews trained their guns until orders were passed to them: "Friendly aircraft ahead." It was a Hampden. When the bomber dived in low between Mackay and Worcester, their look-outs switched their attention to the sky for German aircraft, knowing she was friendly.
Suddenly an officer on the Mackay s bridge shouted, "The Hampden has let go bombs," At the same time Pizey muttered, "Hell, we've made a mistake!" As he said it, bombs exploded astern of Mackay drenching the after gun crews with spray. Her gunnery officer, afraid the A.A. crews would open fire, shouted over their telephone system, "Check, check, check. Do not open fire. Repeat. Do not open fire." He added, "This aircraft is friendly although he has a funny way of showing it." But as they saw the bombs dropping, some of the destroyers too far away to identify it opened fire.
The Hampden was not finished yet. She turned and came in low again, this time over Worcester, straddling her with bombs. Watching the attack aboard Campbell, Pizey muttered, "It looks like a Hampden — but it can't be!"
"Doc" Jackson was sitting in Worcester's sick-bay trying to take his mind off the coming action by reading an article in a medical journal on the care of sick children, when he heard the bomb explosions rattling the ship's side. He raced on deck just in time to see more bombs falling between his ship and the destroyer Mackay. One of them sent spray over the bridge and Coats signalled to Pizey he was about to open fire. The reply winked back hastily: "Don't do it. It really is a British plane." As the plane disappeared into the dark low-lying clouds, the destroyers' A.A. gun-layers plainly saw the RAF roundels on its wings.