The Commanding Officer of HMS
Furious, Captain T.H. Troubridge, ended his official report on the conduct of his Swordfish crews during the Norwegian campaign of 1940 with this summary:
'It is difficult to speak without emotion of the pluck and endurance of the young officers and men, some of them Midshipmen, who flew their aircraft to such good effect . . . all were firing their first shots in action, whether torpedo, bomb or machine gun; many made their first night landing on 11 April and, undeterred by the loss of several of their shipmates, their honour and courage remained throughout as dazzling as the snow-covered mountains over which they so triumphantly flew.'
Swordfish operated as dive-bombers against German forces during the BEF's retreat to Dunkirk; 825 Naval Air Squadron's new CO, Lt-Cdr. Eugene 'Winkle' Esmonde led them in to the attack, then displayed courage of a different kind by protesting in writing to Their Lordships of the Admiralty that his men were being killed to no good purpose by being ordered to carry out missions for which they had not been trained. What a man.
The Swordfish didn't serve operationally with the British Pacific Fleet of 1944-45 - but it did so everywhere else Royal Navy aircraft carriers saw action, including the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and, coldest of all for the poor sods in their open cockpits, the convoys to Russia.
