Mike Crosley - They Gave me a Seafire

At all costs we must draw the flower of our youth into piloting of aeroplanes .

Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 28 July, 1936.

This book is dedicated to the flower of our youth who did not return, in World War II .

First published in hardback in 1986 by Airlife Publishing Ltd

Second edition published in hardback in 1994 by Parapress Ltd.

Second Airlife edition published in paperback in 2001

Published in hardback format in 2001 by Wrens Park publishing

and in hardback format in 2014 by

PEN & SWORD AVIATION

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley, South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Mike Crosley 1986, 1994, 2001, 2014

ISBN 978 1 47382 191 0

eISBN 9781473839991

The right of Mike Crosley to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Printed and bound in England

By CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Aviation, Atlas,

Family History, Fiction, Maritime, Military, Discovery, Politics, History,

Archaeology, Select, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime,

Military Classics, Wharncliffe Transport, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press,

Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Churchill as Warlord , Ronald Lewin, (B. T. Batsford).

Air Power at Sea , John Winton, (Peter Davies).

Aircraft and Sea Power , V/A Sir Arthur Hezlet, (Peter Davies).

The Battle of the Atlantic , Donald Macintyre, (Severn House).

Strikes from the Sea , Robert Jackson, (Arthur Barker).

Pictorial History of FAA , John Rawlings, (Ian Allan).

Carrier Operations of WW II , J. D. Brown, (Ian Allan).

The FAA History , Lt/Cdr J. Waterman RD, RNR, (Art Press Ltd.).

A Sailors Odyssey , Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, (Hutchinson).

Action this Day , Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Philip Vian GCB, KBE, DSO, (Frederick Muller Ltd.).

Wings on my Sleeve , Captain Eric Brown OBE, DSC, AFC, RN Rtd, (Airlife).

A Most Secret Place , Brian Johnson, (Janes).

Second World War , Winston Churchill, (Cassells).

Seafire , David Brown, (Ian Allan).

World Crisis , Winston Churchill, (New English).

Pedestal , Peter Smith, (William Kimber).

The Arctic Convoys , A. B. B. Schofield, (MacDonald James).

Menace Life and Death of Tirpitz , Ludovic Kennedy, (Sidgwick and Jackson).

Operation Torch , Vincent Jones, (Pan/Ballantyne).

Find, Fix and Strike , John Winton, (Batsford Books).

Battleship , Middlebrook and Mahoney, (Allen Lane).

Fly Navy , Brian Johnson, (David & Charles).

Carrier Fighters , David Brown, (MacDonald, Newton Abbot).

The Forgotten Fleet , John Winton, (Michael Joseph).

The Art of Leadership , Captain S. W. Roskill, (Collins).

Victory at Sea , Lt/Cdr P. K. Kemp, (Muller).

Doenitz , Peter Padfield, (Gollancz).

Air Defence of Great Britain , John R. Bushby, (Ian Allan).

The Strike Wing , Roy Conyers Nesbit, (William Kimber).

Churchill at War , Patrick Cosgrave, (Collins).

Fighter Pilot , Chaz Bowyer, (Dent).

Monty , Nigel Hamilton, (Coronet, Hodder and Stoughton).

The book is intended to be a personal narrative of a Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot in World War II, with enough technical and strategic background to place the various incidents in perspective and to explain them more fully.

The book would neither have been written nor published without the help and advice of many people. Amongst them I would like to thank: Mr. Stuart Jewers, DSC, FSMC; Mr. Peter Arkell, Mr. Dennis Kirby, MVO, MBE; Mr. John Joly; Lt/Cdr Jack Sisley; Lt/Cdr George Willcocks, DSC, VRD; Mr. Norman Goodfellow, DSC; Lt/Cdr Arthur Keepe; Sir Edward Singleton; Lt/Cdr Geoffrey Russell-Jones, DSC; Mr. Mike Banyard; Mr. Sam Mearns, DSC; Mr. Kenneth Percival; Mr. Ivan Henson; Mr. David Brown; and, in particular, Captain Nigel Hallett, DSC; Lt/Cdr Jack Waterman, RD of the Fleet Air Arm Officers Association and those at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton: the Director, Cdr Dennis White, OBE, the kind advice of Mr. Vernon Hillier, FRSA, and the Curator, Mr. Graham Mottram, MA, C Eng, whose Secretary, Mrs. Barbara Broadwater did much of the typing, and Mrs. Denese Adams who helped so much.

A Fleet Air Arm Song

They say in the Air Force a landings OK

If the pilot gets out and can still walk away.

But in the Fleet Air Arm the prospects are grim,

If the landings piss poor and the pilot cant swim

Chorus:

Cracking show. Im alive!

But Ive still got to render my A25.

They gave me a Seafire to beat up the Fleet,

I beat up the Rodney and Nelson a treat

Forgot the tall mast on the top of Formid

And a seat in the Goofers was worth fifty quid.

Chorus, etc.

My soup plate flew up and hit me in the face and all the lights went out. A second later the reason burst upon my senses in three or four shattering explosions.

Every one of us in the wardroom of Eagle was lifted off our seats and thrown onto the floor.

There was a small, grey shaft of light coming from one of the scuttles. By its light I could see shadows leaping over the tables and making for the door.

Perhaps it was only some idiot Stringbag (Swordfish) pilot dropping his depthcharges too near the ship. But the ship was already taking on a list and no depthcharge from a Stringbag could do that. We had obviously been hit by something big. Anyway, lunch was off for the moment and I joined the crush outside the wardroom in the darkness of the wardroom flat. By the light of the emergency lanterns which had switched on automatically when the power had failed, I searched amongst the lifejackets and Mae Wests hanging up, trying to remember where I had left mine. The slope of the deck was increasing by the second so I gave up looking and joined the surge aft towards the quarterdeck.

Smoke was coming up from the open hatchways as we passed them. The smoke smelt strongly of cordite and it was as black as hell. We must have had two or three torpedoes in the ships engine rooms. The old girl was obviously not going to last long.

As we shuffled along in silence we could hear dreadful sounds coming from below, crashes and shouts as the ship leaned over more and more. Out onto the quarterdeck and into the blessed daylight, I had time to think. I remembered where I had put my Mae West. It was in the pilots crewroom, a small caboose on the top deck of the Island between the funnels six or seven decks up and miles away. I looked up to the forward ladders leading from the quarterdeck. They were jammed solid with men coming down and were totally impassable. How on earth was I going to get there in time?