the He 111). The Luftwaffe did not take over development of air-launched torpedoes until 1942, by which time it was too late to develop new ones for wartime service. German aircraft were used most extensively against merchant ships between 1939 and 1941. According to a post-war study published in the BuAer Confidential Bulletin, during this period Allied losses in ships sunk, captured and severely damaged were about twice that the United States brought into the war in December 1941. In effect the 1939–41 German war on merchant shipping cost the Allies a year of new construction. Apart from mining, which peaked in November 1939, German aircraft did not attack merchant ships during 1939, due both to lack of resources and to deference to neutrals. Systematic attacks on minesweepers began in December, and attacks on merchant ships began with the invasion of the Low Countries in May 1940. During the thirteen months ending 31 May 1941, before German air assets were redirected against the Soviet Union, German aircraft sank or severely damaged 3.8 million tons of merchant ships, compared to 3.2 million for U-boats; the aircraft accounted for 1.7 million tons sunk and 2.1 million tons disabled.
The Germans made extensive use of their longest-range aircraft, Fw 200 Condors (modified pre-war airliners), against merchant ships. Because they could not dive-bomb, like Ju 87s or glide-bomb like Ju 88s, Condors had to make masthead attacks in order to score hits. Before British and other merchant ships could be armed adequately, they were effective: the Germans claimed that in the initial campaign between 15 March and 31 October 1941, bomber attacks accounted for 161 merchant ships sunk (plus one probable) and 113 damaged. This was apart from bomber attacks around the British Isles. As the merchant ships were increasingly armed, these attacks had to be abandoned, initially against convoys and then even against individual ships. Eventually the Condor was modified to attack at high-level using a computing bomb sight. These aircraft were also used for aerial mining around the western ports of the United Kingdom, and eventually to launch stand-off missiles. Their most important role was reconnaissance in support of the U-boat campaign. Success was hampered by the inability of both the U-boats and the aircraft to find their positions accurately, so that a convoy position report might be useless (the wolf packs solved the problem by creating patrol lines of submarines, but that became impossible as Allied air cover improved). The reconnaissance role became crucial after mid-1943, when the Germans lost their ability to read convoy codes. Admiral Karl Dönitz began to seek air support for the U-boat campaign almost upon gaining office as naval chief early in 1943. In February 1943 he signed a memo: air reconnaissance was now crucial. Aircraft had to penetrate to mid-Atlantic, find convoys, shadow them, and lead U-boats to them, because the existing wolf pack tactics of contacting and shadowing convoys (coupled with code-breaking) were proving less and less successful. Reconnaissance was of limited value because aircraft lacked the endurance to search large areas well out in the Atlantic: they could only fly out to a chosen position and return. Without code-breaking, there were no designated convoy positions.
According to the German navy, only in 1941 did the Luftwaffe began to accept that an anti-shipping campaign was the best weapon to use against the United Kingdom, and in the first quarter of that year it shifted its effort to attacks against British coastal targets and shipping west of Ireland. There was also a vigorous and effective aerial mining campaign. Aircraft and U-boats were integrated to an extent to oppose Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. The Germans claimed 25 per cent torpedo hits against convoys PQ16, PQ17 and PQ18. They found that it took far fewer torpedo sorties than dive bomber sorties to sink a ship: 9.8 vs 23.6 against PQ16 and 7 vs 9.2 against PQ17 (best weather for dive bombing), but 7.3 vs 24.3 against PQ18 (worst weather for dive bombing). After the war, German naval officers complained that even when they could be convinced to attack convoys, pilots generally concentrated on the larger ships, which they imagined were the more interesting targets, avoiding the escorts and the smaller, more vulnerable ships; large ones could absorb many hits without sinking.
Like Germany, the United Kingdom had an independent air force, but it also had a Fleet Air Arm which reverted to Admiralty control in 1939. The RAF had long been interested in anti-ship attack, both to defend distant territories and in hopes of supplanting the navy. Both roles made it interested in land-based torpedo bombers. The advent of metal-covered airframes and high-powered engines promised high performance. The Beaufort was the intended successor to the biplane Vickers Vildebeest. One is shown dropping a torpedo. Note the air tail, which is cocked up to keep the torpedo’s tail up. When it began using Beauforts against defended enemy convoys in the Mediterranean, the RAF had to learn to provide defence-suppression aircraft alongside the torpedo bombers. In many cases its resources were so badly stretched that there were few bombers, and they suffered badly. (Philip Jarrett)
The Soviet Union had a substantial naval air arm without carriers. Like the Japanese, it operated land-based bombers and its fighters defended naval bases. The bombers, of the same types operated by the land air force, were organised into Mine-Torpedo Regiments. They were expected to neutralise an enemy fleet by mining his bases and their approaches. This force was not particularly effective during the war, but the Mine-Torpedo Regiments evolved after the war into missile-firing units which the US Navy considered the most serious threat to its carriers. The shore-based naval fighters were absorbed into the Soviet national air defence arm only about 1956.
Wellingtons proved to be effective night torpedo bombers. This aircraft of 38 Squadron is shown in Egypt in 1942. Note the absence of the usual air tail. (Philip Jarrett)
The Beaufighter played several important parts in the war at sea. Initially the Admiralty saw it as long-range fighter capable of covering major fleet units near enemy territory in European waters, much as it thought the Germans were using their long-range fighters to give their own capital ships freedom of action. On this basis the Admiralty convinced the Ministry of Production to keep the Beaufighter in production after the initial RAF night fighter requirement had been met. Coastal Command also wanted Beaufighters, both to protect coastal shipping and as a strike aircraft. In 1942 it began to form Strike Wings consisting of both torpedo Beaufighters (Torbeaus, shown) and anti-flak Beaufighters whose strafing runs were intended to suppress enemy air defences. This combination proved far more successful than the earlier masthead-level attacks. The success may have been due in part to the greater number of attacking aircraft involved, which helped saturate enemy air defences, and also to the relatively high speed of the Beaufighter, which also made defence more difficult. (Philip Jarrett)
Other countries had independent air arms whose interest in attacking ships was often connected with a claim that airpower made navies obsolete. The first was the Royal Air Force (RAF), founded in 1918. The associated aircraft development and production organisation was the Air Ministry, which continued in that role for both naval and land-based aircraft after the Royal Navy regained control of the Fleet Air Arm in April 1939. Thus the two services shared R&D resources such as the Royal Aeronautical Establishment (RAE). Even when the RAF controlled the Fleet Air Arm, the Admiralty paid for the aircraft and supplied many of the observers, but there was no career path comparable to that in the US Navy, from pilot to admiral. That limited the air-mindedness of the naval officer corps. Also, without its own air staff to advise it, the Admiralty could not be sure that those providing technical advice truly understood naval issues. A subtler effect of the shift to the RAF was the limited aircraft capacity of British carriers, which made it difficult to combine adequate fighter defence with powerful strike capacity.7 During the Second World War the RAF continued to be responsible for land-based maritime strike aircraft, although their Coastal Command came under Admiralty operational control.
The US Army Air Corps (and later the Army Air Force) considered coast defence an important role, and therefore equipped its land-based medium bombers to drop torpedoes (it had no interest, however, in dive bombing). In the South Pacific, the Army Air Corps attacked Japanese shipping, on at least one occasion (the
