In the early hours of the 27th of May, 1941, the German warship Bismarck � scourge of the Atlantic ocean � was sailing towards a fateful encounter. Two days previously, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had issued the order to "Sink the Bismarck". High winds and low visibility added to the atrocious morning weather as Fleet Air Arm pilot, John Moffat, took to the air in his open cockpit bomber.
John was an young Scot when his country was plunged into a World War with Germany for the second time. He enlisted with the Royal Navy, where he trained and fought, whilst learning to fly aircraft on the side. With the Navy unprepared for modern, aerial fighting, John was soon given the green light to train as a Swordfish pilot with the Ark Royal.
John, along with twelve other brave pilots, took down the largest warship of it's time. A warship that had destroyed the famed HMS Hood within minutes, and was able to withstand anything the British military threw at them. These men, in their Swordfish, managed to avoid the fearful anti-aircraft fire and launched their torpedoes. One of them hit, holing the German warship.
This is John's story - of how as a young man he experienced first-hand the titanic struggle for naval supremacy, the cramped-cabins and meagre rations of WW2, the mind-numbing patrols over hundreds of miles of ocean and the adrenalin and fear of being in a fragile aircraft sought out by gunfire. As the only surviving member of his fellow twelve pilots, John Moffat tells of everything that led him to be able to say, "I sank the Bismarck'.
... Read more
