U-Boat Flak vs. Aircraft

Oh, cry me a river Bosworth.

You can add all the details you like and throw all of the names into the hat you want but without a source to back them up they are of limited currency and as far as I'm concerned considering the not inconsiderable details you've failed to clear up in the "Mystery Ship" thread very limited. Even if you can quote chapter and verse, I don't think my scepticism of this tale is unjustified considering the apparent gross exaggeration in that thread.

I asked you for sources, you asked if accounts given by others weren't enough and in reality they weren't even close, get over it.

It's not unusual on this forum to be asked for sources, especially when posting literally fantastic stories, and also especially when in this case no reliable sources seem to be available besides yourself.

I choose not to believe unsubstantiated fables that would seem implausible in a Commando comic. I don't believe I'm alone in this view.

Check out "The Boy who cried Wolf", it might explain why I'm more than a little bit cautious when it comes to such incredible tales as yours. If you can't find that look up "Walter Mitty" instead and if that fails ask Catherine, I'm sure your good friend will be able to tell you a bed time story.

 

I think the story of the Sunderland fighting off numerous Ju-88s is fairly well documented (e.g. http://www.n461.com/) and there are some independently verifiable details. Anything else (e.g. USAAF) needs the usual academic treatment...

Note that googling for "Sunderland Ju-88" also gives a similar incident in the North Sea in April 1940, although this is on Wiki. I see Marlin (oop, B-G) has the next two slots, though...

 

Such an incident would be a rarity indeed, but while we need to be sufficiently skeptical about such reports, we shouldn't close our minds to them either. Wars produce tons of stories which no Hollywood screenwriter would dare put into a script, yet they are true nonetheless.

 

-----Hi Jacked--------

speaking of movie plots and ww2 what do you think that they should make a movie about that they havnt done already? Kursk '43 and Caen '44 for me

 

I have been asked to supply the details of the book in which I first read of the Sunderland shooting down six JU-88's and have replied by stating that I cannot recall the details, other than that the combat was observed by a number of US bombers flying overhead at the same time. I still stand by what I have reported and if any further corroboration is required, I can only add the following :-

Jeremy Clarkson's best seller "I Know You Got Soul" published by Penguin in 2005 is essentially a list of cars, planes and trains he is very fond of. I bought a copy yesterday when on my way into hospital for an overnight stay. Page 43 is the start of a chapter on "Flying Boats", and in this chapter he reports that a Sunderland actually fought against no less than EIGHT JU-88's and shot down six of them before returning to the UK where it was beached safely in Cornwall. Admittedly he does not report any more than that, but I think that this combat now cannot be dismissed as being untrue. Quite why anybody would feel that it is impossible that the combat in question might have been witnessed by other aircraft in the vicinity is a situation that I, for one, find curious.

 

[Edited by Moderator]

Assuming that it is the story that a Sunderland shot down six JU-88's that were attacking it that you find hard to believe, in the absence of a more respected source I offer page 51 of Jeremy Clarkson's
best seller " I Know You Got Soul" published in 2005 by Penguin. In this book Clarkson reports this particular combat in some detail, adding also that it was in fact EIGHT JU-88's that attacked the Sunderland.
Should you require any further corroboration, then I can only suggest that you find it yourself

 

So, your finding it hard to believe equates to the story never having taken place ? We may therefore be hugely grateful that your wishing to arbitrate on the accuracy of things, is of no more value to academia than your opinions, which, in turn, are of considerably less importance than such little knowledge as you may,or as is more likely the case , may not possess.

 

I find it hard to believe given your own significantly dented credibility and the fact you have posted a story on here before which you acknowledge you may have deliberately exaggeratted or invented some of the details of.

I never said that me finding it hard to believe means that it never happened, but that I wasn't willing to take this in pure face value especially considering the above.

I make no great pretence that my opinions are of value to academia, they are likely to be of more value than such largely ficticious or deliberately exaggerated tall tales as you have already posted on here.

I can assure you that I am entirely indifferent to your opinion of the extent or limit of my knowledge which is frankly irrelevant to proving/disproving this tale.

I will check it out myself, I have yet to be able to find a match to the original incident that you posted elsewhere. If it is N461 Clarkson refers to, she did not infact shoot down six of her attackers, she got three and seriously damaged two. Other incidents appear where Sunderlands have been attacked and come out on top despite being badly outnumbered, but in no single one of these more detailed accounts does the Sunderland shoot down six of the attacking planes.

Clarkson however is no aviation expert or historian and his account should be taken in that light whether the book concerned is a best seller or in the bargain bin is irrelevant and whilst actual incidents such as N461's remarkable scrap are well known and documented, it seems odd that with this even more remarkable tale there is no corroborating account with sufficient details to verify, this seems all the more surprising given how easy information of N461 is to find.

I wonder how on the one hand:

Considering you've earlier said:

My emphasis. Sounds like a very detailed account.

N461 is the nearest, and is an impressive tale of the robustness and survivability of the Sunderland in its own right, but is still a fair way short of the account you have posted.

I have no doubt that the Sunderland was a tough aircraft and capable of fighting off considerable odds and surviving, that much I never disputed.

The specifics of the tale you recounted however I did question and as yet they remain unverified. That I am suspicious of your retelling of this tale is entirely your own doing and you created such scepticism in your, shall we say, imaginative retelling elsewhere.

I never claimed the battle fought by N461 was untrue and in fact I could recall this in general if not in detail when I originally questioned your tale here, but at the risk of repetition, it does not match the event you posted which is what I was querying and the results were significantly different.

How is the film of HMS Patia doing by the way? Is Catherine Zeta Jones still "Undulating her udders" under your nose? (Your words, not mine) Still, I bet those cheques from Hollywood moguls must be coming in handy this close to Christmas.

Guess I've probably blown my invite the Premiere already though, oh well I'm sure I'll be kicking myself when Catherine walks down the red carpet with you arm in arm. :roll:

 

iirc there was a raf gunnery expert on loan to the lybia based b24 groups who made the ploesti raid .he was supposed to train the gunners but did in fact fly in a top turret durring the raid ( against regulations ) and was credited with clearing numerous flack towers enemy of personel during the famous low level attack in rumania .

as to bosworth , imo , he is an asset to this forum and a member who has started many good theads here and i vote we forgive him his preveious tall tales starting with the new year and we refer to them no more , provided he agrees to " go forth and sin no more "

 

How would one kill flak towers in a top aircraft turret?
Those towers are HUGE!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_Tower

 

And IMO he's not. This is why:

How much of them was fact and how much fiction (Like vast sections of the Patia tale) made up to make the story sound better?

Was Bosworth really arrested for shooting up a poster of Bin Laden? Or was he just told off by his mum for using an airsoft pistol indoors? What's a man who should be in his 50s doing hanging around with university students in any case? Is he really an ex-Military Policeman from Hong Kong? Or is he really a Vietnam veteran former Chieftain tank Commander? Or is he really something else?

And I would vote no. Sorry, but frankly at the moment I wouldn't trust Bosworth to tell the time without independant corroboration, I at least reserve the right to scepticism on any future stories from Bosworth and if I question them I may or may not bring up earlier posts to show why, within the limits of what is allowed by the forum admin and moderators..

If he at least made any acknowledgement of the outstanding issues in his previous tale-telling that would be something, but he has yet to respond to any single point on the Patia thread, including the assertion that he is another incarnation of Marlin. Awkward questions he ignores or avoids with a determination that would do a politician proud.

 

joop , iirc, the raf gunner was named barwell and the attack was at very low level ,barwell asked the pilot to drop the nose for a moment and he swept the gun crews away with his twin 50s useing very short and economical bursts .this from a book written in the early 60s or late 50s by two authors as stated by bosworth .sadly, i no longer have the book and i dont recall any mention of a sunderland event in the north sea...

 

Was it by any chance "Ploesti", by James Dugan and Carroll Stewart (Jonathan Cape 1962)

Paperback edition 1966 Page 58 (omissions and insertions in usual form)

Note this is clearly not the N461 action, which was on 2nd June, the day after the KLM flight was shot down

Page 99-100

 

first page or so of ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle (Brassey's Aviation Classic) wriiten by the series editors Walter J Boyne & Peter B Mersky...

http://books.google.com/books?id=KV8Ma-VA6fIC&hl=nl

That means something like based upon a true story but completly re-written by the editors writer wich had gotten the story told by someone who met a guy who was actually there the night after

 

lol ,baseed on a true story ?

 

A good friend's dad recently passed away. The man was a bombardier aboard a PB4Y-1 (USN version of the B-24 Liberator). He was a member of VP103, which was a part of FAW-7. I have been researching the unit's history and have found that a LOT of the planes were damaged and/or shot down by U-Boat flak.

Here is a pic of his aircraft:

http://www.vpnavy.com/pb4y/vp103pb4y_01_14jul2006.jpg

It is an actual pic of his plane. My friend has found a pic that his dad took of the same plane (B-14).

tom

 

flying anti sub patrols was very dangerous work ,many thousands of air crew were lost , not because of ubout flak even ( a majority of asw patrol crews never ever saw even one uboat or ijn sub .),

they perished because they were hundreds of miles from land and something went wrong ,an engine overheated ,a fuel leak , a sudden storm , adverse headwinds ...if they were lucky enough to survive a ditching at sea ,they climbed in their little yellow boats and died of oxposure ,thirst ,sharks , whatever .they went on patrol and they never returned .

their comrades would search hard for them once they were overdue but very very rarely did they find them ,missing in action ,presumed dead .

pappy boyington was a rare exception ,mia over hostile waters ,presumed dead .the awarded the medal of honour by the usmc which were sure they would never see his drunken ,insubordinate and problematic self again ,they were in for a nasty suprise , a jap sub took him and he survived the war , much to the chagrine of the usmc brass , now they had the most highly decorated usmc pilot of the war back , alive ,and soon an embarrasment again , he loved his booze ,and he was a mean drunk .usmc feild grade officers are not supposed to get in brawls with the shore patrol or punch little old ladies . i exagerate but you get the idea...

 

Add to the above the very real possibility of running into enemy fighters during your patrol, at least in certain areas. And the PBYs based on Midway had trouble from Japanese patrol planes flying out of Wake in 1942, with several Catalinas being damaged in such encounters.

 

near the golden gate bridge in san francisco is a granite wall inscribed with the names of hundreds of flyers and sailors who died while on patrol off the coast of california in ww2 .to my knowlege , not one of these men fell to the efforts of the japanese submarines they were actually hunting , they were all just swallowed up by the emensity of the unforgiveing ocean .failed to return from patrol and presumed dead .

 

Almost all Type VIIC's had their 88mm deck gun removed by late 1943-44, the opportunity to use it had largely passed, as an AA gun it was really not appropriate and was of no use.
The AA weapons had been beefed up - Quad 20mm and 2 x twin 20mm guns on an enlarged bandstand, the 20mm gun was found to be of limited use and the Quad 20 was replaced with a 37mm gun but this was prone to jamming but when working it had a longer range and greater hitting power.
As has been said the U Boat was a poor gun platform and the weight of fire being aimed at the gun crews had also increased, the use of the schnorkel meant more time submerged and less time on the surface, " staying up to fight" had proved costly and the tactic had failed, there was little safety in numbers- especially when more aircraft are homed to you or surface ships.
These four books by Norman Franks look at the U Boat v Aircraft encounters, all are well worth a look.
The Sunderland has been mentioned but committed to an attack the Sunderland was a slow, large target and the 3.7mm had a longer reach than her nose mounted .5's. The photo shows the late war twin 20mm and 3.7 flak guns the final AA arrangement for the Type VII's , the 20mm on the Type XXI's not really any use at all. Attachde Al Bishop's account of their sinking of U-489 and hos crew.