This is the Supermarine Walrus—a British seaplane designed in the 1930s.
By this time aviation was largely used at sea
and Great Britain continued an active search
for possibilities of further application of aircraft aboard warships.
Cruisers and battleships needed to look far over the horizon...
Reconnaissance is where it all begins.
Previously, the best you could achieve was climbing the rigging of an old ship,
going up the mast, looking from the crow’s nest and trying to look over the horizon.
By 1908-1909 the Navy were using kites and balloons to try and extend the height
of that crow’s nest and that mast further still.
With the arrival of the aircraft
it now gave them the possibility not only to gain height
and look over the horizon but actually move away from the ship and rove around,
and explore several miles away from the ship,
and then bring back all of that information,
all of that reconnaissance information, and use it for best tactical advantage.
Even before World War I, the British Navy experimented with ground-based aircraft
in order to accommodate them for use as ship-borne aviation.
Aircraft would take off
from a basic take-off platform installed atop the bow gun turret or forecastle.
They managed to take off
but until a certain time, no one was able to land an aircraft on a moving ship.
Squadron Commander Edward Dunning achieved this
in August 1917 with an experiment to see
if he could land back onto HMS Furious
whilst Furious was moving and underway at sea.
To do this, he had to fly down the port side
of the ship, past the superstructure,
past the funnels, past all of the masting, and, at the very last moment,
maneuver his aircraft very dangerously in front of the island and tower, and drop
it onto the very short deck on the front of the ship.
This was the very first time that an aircraft
had actually landed on a ship moving at sea.
And it’s made an enormous step forward in the possibility of creating what would
become the aircraft carrier.
However, a maneuver like this was an exception
only the best pilots were able to land
their aircraft on a cruiser or battleship.
For this reason, in the first 20 years of the 20th century,
the role of naval aviation was fulfilled by seaplanes equipped with floats
allowing them to land on water. They were launched from specially equipped vessels.
The seaplane lighter was another key part of carrier development.
The seaplane lighter was a large steel hollow-hulled barge that was originally
designed to tow flying boats many, many miles further than their flying range
and, of course, extend their flying distance.
They could be towed behind a destroyer or fast launch and deliver that flying boat
anywhere that the Navy needed to operate it.
The golden age of seaplanes happened between the two world wars.
In general, aircraft completed missions
related to reconnaissance or anti-submarine warfare,
but soon it became obvious that they are ideally suited
for search and rescue operations as well.
Those tasks defined the development of seaplanes. What is reconnaissance?
Its when the aircraft should have a great range.
There were no radios on board at that time.
The engine became more powerful,
floats were enlarged, and the overall quality as well...
its little known, but in the 1920s in Europe and North America
they organized very efficient and well-advertised competitions
between seaplanes. They competed for speed, take off, etc.
And the main sports aircraft there was a seaplane.
In two decades, seaplanes evolved from a fragile flying apparatus
to a reliable machine able to withstand significant accelerations.
The Walrus, the aircraft behind me, first came into service in 1935.
It was built initially to fulfil the requirements from the Australians
who wanted twelve aircraft to operate from various ships they had.
It was designed by a chap called R.J.Mitchell
who worked for Supermarine.
And R.J. Mitchell, as many of you will know,
was the gentleman who designed the Spitfire.
And one of the things that surprised R.J. Mitchell was the SBAC,
that is Society of British Aerospace Companies air show,
which then took place, I believe, in Hendon,
in the 1930s, the test pilot actually looped
this aircraft, which surprised the designer,
but it was able to withstand the pressures,
the stresses and strains, simply because it had been built so very strongly.
Supermarine Walrus Specifications
Length: 11 and a half meters
Wingspan: almost 14 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 3,651 kilograms
Engine: Bristol Pegasus VI, 680 horsepower
Maximum Speed: 217 km/h at a height of 1,450 m
Armament: 2-3 x 7.7-mm Vickers or Lewis machine gun
Payload: 272 kg of bombs
Crew: 3 people.
There was a pilot, who was obviously seated in the pilot seats, the observer,
that is the Navy term for navigator, and the telegraphist air gunner,
who was usually the junior member of the crew.
And it was his task to climb out of the aircraft up to where I’m standing
and then up, pass the engine cowling, and up to the top of the wing there.
So, if you can imagine, he was sitting up on top of here
with the crane hook coming down towards him
in a very rough sea, waiting to hook it on,
with that propeller be going round behind him—a very dangerous job.
Each return from a mission posed some risk to a seaplane crew.
When an aircraft was on the approach, its parent ship would perform a maneuver
in the form of a letter S.
It was necessary to create a patch of relatively calm water for landing.
Having landed, a seaplane would approach the ship's side,
but kept the engine running,
because the ship was moving
and the pilot had to control the aircraft's position
until the lifting crane's hook was lowered to them.
And I’m pleased to say that my father who was actually a telegraphist air gunner
and flew Walruses from the HMS Malaya in the Pacific during the WWII,
was actually one of the people who had to clamber up here
and get the aircraft hooked on.
One of the names that this aircraft used to be called, the nickname,
was actually the Steam Pigeon.
And the reason to that is that a lot of spray
coming off the front of the aircraft
would hit the heated cylinders of the engine here
and give off clouds of steam…
The Walrus had a characteristic trait— this flying boat was equipped
with a retractable three-wheel undercarriage.
This feature enabled the aircraft to be landed
both on land and water.
It was very dangerous to land with the undercarriage down over the water,
because, as they found out when it was first attempted inadvertently,
the aircraft actually ended up turning upside down flipping over.
But fortunately, since the aircraft was strongly built it survived.
Ship-borne aviation continued to evolve and the range of tasks it could perform
became larger— not only to spot an enemy in time,
but also deliver a precise and powerful strike on them.
Fairey Aviation have been manufacturing aircraft for the Admiralty
and for the Royal Navy from the end of World War I.
Fairey developed its own aircraft as a self-financed project called
the T.S.R I in the early 1930-s.
This developed into T.S.R II, which the Admiralty saw and liked,
and adopted, and soon became known as the Swordfish.
Fairey Swordfish Specifications
Length: 11 meters
Wingspan: almost 14 meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 4,036 kilograms
Engine: Bristol Pegasus IIIM, 690 horsepower
Maximum Speed: 222 km/h
So the Swordfish could be slowed right down to almost a walking pace
to perform quite safe and careful landing.
Armament: 1 x 7.7-mm Vickers machine gun
1 x 7.7-mm Vickers or Lewis machine gun in the rear cockpit
Payload: 3 x 227 kg of bombs
Torpedo: 702 kg
The Swordfish could carry a variety of weapons to deliver.
Of course, the torpedo, which is what it was designed to carry,
an anti-shipping 18 inch torpedo.
But it could also carry mines, depth charges,
small bombs, and underwing rockets.
But the torpedo was its main stay.
There was also a single forward firing gun operated by the pilot.
The TAG operated only a single Lewis K machine gun, so the Swordfish
was very lightly armed for its own protection.
Crew: 3 people.
It’s very exposed to the elements. Very wet, very cold.
The pilot and crew would have to be dressed
and lagged in their sheepskin coats and trousers.
But, still, the crews loved it. It was still a very maneuverable airplane,
it was still very forgiving, it was the airplane that they trusted
would almost always get them home.
By the beginning of World War II, the Swordfish was considered obsolete,
but nevertheless it was used on almost all frontlines.
The aircraft began its service
with anti-submarine patrols near the Norwegian coast,
participated in convoy escorting in the Atlantic Ocean, and defended Malta.
It played an important role
during the hunt for the famous German battleship Bismarck,
and made a crucial contribution to the defeat of the Italian Navy
at Taranto harbor.
On November 12, 1940, twenty Swordfish planes took off from an aircraft carrier
170 miles south-east of the Italian naval base at Taranto.
The aircraft attacked in two waves: 12 and 8 machines.
The enemy was on the alert and the antiaircraft fire was quite dense.
The Swordfish split into flights of three planes each
and, having evaded barrage balloons, descended...
And the Swordfish crews realized
that if they went right down almost touching the waves
the Swordfish was forgiving enough
that it allowed them to keep stable and level
at a very low height above the water, launch their torpedoes,
and then break away and maneuver out of harm’s way...
Thanks to moonlight and flares, Italian battleships were clearly visible
and received six torpedo hits.
As a result, three battleships sank at their mooring.
At the same time,
the British lost only one plane in each wave.
The lessons of that night operation were well learned by Japanese admirals
who used them during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
As well as the sterling work
in tracking down and sinking the Bismarck and, of course,
the Italian harbor raid at Taranto,
the Swordfish, during the middle part of World War II in the Mediterranean,
did an enormous amount of work to sink German and Italian shipping.
Swordfish squadrons across a period of one month dealt
with more than 30 enemy ships in one-month period.
And over a nine-month period,
averaged destroying 55 thousand tons of shipping per month,
for a nine-month period.
That’s an enormous amount of destruction
on the enemy just by using the Swordfish alone.
Regardless of all these successes, the age of biplanes came to its end.
By the beginning of 1942,
it became obvious— no matter how good the Swordfish was,
it could not complete all the necessary tasks at sea.
Very key piece of Swordfish action during World War II
was the launch of Swordfish
against what was known as the Channel Dash.
Germans had tried to make a bolt up the English Channel
to get back to their own German harbors.
This was spotted, and Eugene Esmonde
led an attack of Swordfish out into the English Channel
in absolutely atrocious gale-force conditions
to try and intercept the German fleet
as it ran along the channel side.
Tragically, all of the Swordfish were shot down.
The reality of World War II required more modern machines to oppose
the German Junkers and Messerschmitt.
At the beginning of World War II, the British had an apparent lag
in the development of deck aviation.
The reason for this was that the Admiralty
underestimated the role of aircraft carriers.
Accordingly, they did not allocate necessary funds,
scientists, or resources to develop deck aviation.
A little later, they created another aircraft—Barracuda.
It was a British-built aircraft
and it had good characteristics in regard to take-offs
and landings from a ship's deck.
The further development of aircraft
was based on the designs created for the air force,
the Royal Air Force.
They just took prototypes of their own planes, modernized, upgraded,
and rebuilt them to suit the needs of the Royal Navy.
In other words, land-based aircraft appeared
and on their design ship-borne aircraft appeared
to be used aboard classic carriers.
It was not until after the war
that the Air Arm of the Royal Navy received a new aircraft,
when batch production of the Westland Wyvern began.
It was able to play the role of both an attack and fighter plane.
SPECIFICATIONS of the carrier-borne fighter Westland Wyvern S.4
Length: almost 12 meters
Wingspan: 13 and a half meters
Maximum takeoff weight: 11,115 kilograms
Engine: turboprop, Armstrong Siddeley Python 3; 3,670 horsepower
+ 520 kilogram-force of reactive thrust
Maximum Speed: 615 km/h at a height of 3,000 m
It had power-folded wings
to make sure it fitted in the aircraft carrier—
folded not once, but twice,
because otherwise the tips would’ve hit
the top of the aircraft carrier hangar.
And it used the Youngman flaps, which gave it a very good
slow-speed landing capability, and also gave it some good combat turning radius.
Armament: 4 x 20-mm Hispano Mk.V cannons, two in each outer wing.
Payload: up to 1,360 kilograms, including bombs, mines, rockets,
depth charges, a 850-kg Mk.17 torpedo or suspended fuel tanks.
Crew: 1 person.
So it became the first naval airplane to have an ejection seat.
So the pilot in an emergency merely pulled a firing handle, and he was powered out
of the airplane on a Martin-Baker ejection seat.
The Wyvern was one of the fastest propeller-driven airplanes
the Navy ever operated— over 460 miles an hour.
However, apart from attack aircraft, by the beginning of World War II,
the British Navy needed modern fighter planes.
In the late 1930s, the British had to catch up with Germany
and go from the biplane era to the monoplane era.