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Vol. 63, Issue 217
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Raining Terror On The Tirpitz
70 years ago Bud Abbott flew into aerial combat for the first time, aiming to bring destruction to a powerful German battleship F E R DY B E L L A N D
O
ne morning in April, 1944, Philip “Bud” Abbott climbed into the cockpit of a Fairey Barracuda bomber, took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Furious, joined a squadron of fighters circling overhead, and set off into aerial combat for the first time. The target of the attack by two Royal Navy squadrons was what British officers bitterly referred to as “the Iron Whore.” “We finally rounded the last turn at the far end of Kaafjord and actually saw the Tirpitz anchored in harbour,” Abbott told the Townsman last week. “There she was!” And then, all hell broke loose. The Tirpitz was the sister ship of the dreaded Bismarck, and was the largest battleship ever built by a European navy. Since the destruction of the Bismarck in 1941, the Tirpitz had been holed up in a Norwegian fjord, seldom venturing forth to attack Allied shipping, but still a great menace which kept allied warships tied up when they were needed elsewhere.
PHOTO FROM THE COLLECTION OF BUD ABBOTT
This photograph was taken on April 3, 1944, from the cockpit of Philip “Bud” Abbott’s Fairey Barracuda bomber by Abbott’s navigator. The explosion on the left side shows Abbott’s bomb hitting the C-turret of the German battleship Tirpitz and exploding. “It really didn’t do any damage,” Abbott said. “But the whole time it was anchored in Norway it presented an enormous threat, to the point where it basically tied up the British Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, watching for this damned thing to come out. “And if it did come out and got into the shipping lanes, it would create enormous havoc. Quite a monster.” Bud Abbott, wellknown around Cranbrook, joined the Royal Navy in 1941. “I was contemplating volunteering, and my first choice was the Navy,” he said. “I thought if I wasn’t accepted into the Navy that I’d try the Royal Air Force (RAF). I managed to end up in what you would call the Naval Air Force. So it was an ideal combination of the two — the Fleet Air Arm. I
was chosen as a pilot, so I went into training for some time and starting flying later in 1941.” Abbott was assigned to convoy work in the North Sea and the Atlantic, doing anti-submarine patrol work. “We’d go halfway across the Atlantic and then back again, since we’d be met halfway by American or Canadian naval crews.” Over the next two years, Abbott flew many types of aircraft. “I mostly flew the Swordfish — an oldschool biplane, fixed undercart, no hood, no canopy, open air, no radio. Quite a neat, light little plane. We called them “Stringbags” since it seemed they were tied up mostly with haywire. It tottled along, not very fast. “From there we went on to a more advanced biplane, the Fairey Albacore. It had a sliding
Pilot-Lieutenant Philip “Bud” Abbott at age 22. canopy, so we’re inside — out of the weather! “Our planes were called TBR: Torpedo-Bomber-Reconnaissance. But reconnais-
sance was our principal duty. Later on we developed sonar to locate enemy submarines, but to begin with, we just kept our eyes open.”
Abbott said he never got to drop depth charges on any U-Boats. “The U-Boats were generally very wary and stayed down and deep, out of sight. They were wise enough not to show themselves. We would fly patrols over the sea for three or four hours and then head back to the carrier and be replaced by another flight shift. Not very exciting, that.” Abbott also did a few test runs with the Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Firefly and the Gladiator. “Those were all flown in fun — not in operation. I found the Spitfire to be very touchy. With every little move on the joystick, the thing was jerking all over the place. Extremely sensitive! And landing was quite tricky. It was anxious to take off again all the time!
“Flying those sort of dogfighters was quite different from the aircraft we flew. Our machines were usually quite slow and heavy.” Abbott spent the next two years flying routine, uneventful patrols. But in 1944, all that would change dramatically. Up until this point, Abbott had never experienced aerial combat. “We never went across the Channel, never flew over France,” he said. “We were concerned with the North.” The main British base in Scotland was Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands. “The entire Home Fleet could gather in there in comparative safety,” Abbott said. “I flew off several aircraft carriers: the Illustrious, the Indomitable, the Victorious, the Furious, and others.”
See ATTACK, Page 3