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Operation Skua

Operation Skua

Ref: 4728

In stock

Price: £9.00

sadly, flyingbooks is now closed.

{detailed description}Then we spotted the Konigsberg, a long slim grey shape lying alongside the jetty. I signalled my squadron to go into line astern of me, pulled up into a half stall turn and went into my attacking dive.
The ship was very clear and plain in my sights and the only opposition was one AA gun on the fo'c'sle manned by a very brave crew that continued to fire throughout the whole attack. Down now to 4,000 feet and still in that beautifully controlled dive that the Skua with its huge flaps could give. AA gun still firing and the tracer bullets were drifting up towards us like lazy golden raindrops going the wrong way.
Now 2,500 feet, no fear or apprehension, just complete and absolute concentration: mustn't drop too high and must watch going too low and blowing myself up with my own bomb blast. Very disturbed water round the ship, and water and oil seemed to be gushing out amidships. Still the fo'c'sle gun continued to fire: at 1800 feet I dropped my bomb and was away down the fjord towards the sea at nought feet.
During this attack Konigsberg burst into flames and within sixty minutes had broken in two and sunk. Sixteen Skuas flying at extreme range from the Orkneys and for the loss of only one aircraft, had demonstrated the coming power of aircraft in naval warfare by sinking the first major warship by attack from the air. That this lesson was not lost to the Naval Staffs of the world the ever increasing use of naval aircraft and aircraft carriers showed as the sombre progress of the war unfurled....
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Major R. T. Partridge DSO RM
published by Fleet Air Arm Museum 1983 1st edn. 159pp profusely illustrated with b&w photos, maps, drawings, index, appendices 15x21 pictorial laminated boards
{condition}fine
{delivery info}
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U.K.tracked
first class (1-2 days)£4.75
second class (2-3 days)£4.25


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