North Sea off the coast of Norway 1940
The Aircraft Carriers HMS Glorious and HMS Furious along with the battle cruiser HMS Hood, the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk , the light cruiser curlew and eight destroyers sortied from Scapa Flow in the early hours of the 8th April and under heavy fog. The Admiralty had learned wrongly the Battle cruisers Sharnhorst and Gneisenau where atempting a breakout into the north Atlantic.
9th april
In rough seas and just outside of German land based air cover. A fairey Swordfish from the Carrier HMS Furious spots Sharnhorst and Gneisenau with no escorts 50 miles on its outwards search track. “ 2 BC range 50 course 180 speed 20”. A strike of 28 swordfish and 20 skua dive bombers is hurriedly launched.
1600: With help from Curlew the strike aircraft are directed to the two battle-cruisers. With the strike 12 miles out the skua,s climb to 10,000 feet above the low cloud cover. The swordfish drop to wave top height.
16:25: Due to the low cloud cover the skua,s split up into two groups of ten and nose down in a 60° dive towards the two battle-cruisers. The swordfish circle the battle-cruisers at 12,000 yards. The swordfish split into groups of 14. Four of them split off just as the skua,s dive out of the clouds. The German AAA crews watch in stunned awe as two DB drop there single 500lb bomb at each battle-cruiser. One of the bombs hit Sharnhorsts x turret which sets off a fire in the ammunition store. Most of the gun crew is severely injured. A gunnery officer floods the turret to stop the fire from spreading.
1628: As the first Dive-bombers drop there bombs the first six swordfish launch there torpedoes at both battle-cruisers. One of the torpedoes hits Gnesenaius stern and stops her dead in the water. The first torpedo that hits Sharnhorst hits her stern under neath her engineering compartment opening a hole which reduces her speed to ten knots.