The Most Lethal Airplane Hunting the Seas
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- On a stormy night in June 1941, a Bristol Beaufort, the RAF’s first monoplane torpedo bomber, roared through black clouds on the kind of daring mission it was designed for, attacking the German heavy cruiser Lützow, recently spotted off the coast of Norway.
As it fought against the howling winds and turbulent skies, this Beaufort had somehow separated from the rest of the RAF’s 42 Squadron and was now flying solo. Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt gripped the controls tightly. The 22-year-old pilot wasn’t normally superstitious, but on this Friday, the 13th, the odds felt particularly grim.
As the North Sea waves began to shimmer with the first light of dawn, Loveitt’s heart skipped a beat. There, cutting through the horizon, was the unmistakable silhouette of Lützow. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
But, unlike his Beaufort, the heavy cruiser wasn't alone. Surrounding her were four destroyers, their guns bristling in the dim light, and a swarm of Junkers Ju 88s and Messerschmitt Bf 110s patrolling the skies. Getting the bomber close enough to Lützow to drop its payload would require nerves of steel and a stroke of luck.
Loveitt’s mind raced as he observed the recognition signals exchanged between the German aircraft and the ships. Mimicking these signals was a long shot, but it was his only chance. He held his breath as he sent the coded blinks. To his amazement, the Germans accepted his Beaufort as one of their own.
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When I was a kid my old next-door neighbour Claude Pope his name was, had been a navigator on the Bristol Beaufort during World War II. I still have the clock out of one that he gave me when I was a kid. Rest in peace hero.
That’s very cool. What a great neighbor. Would be kinda cool to find his kids/grandkids and gift it to them… would probably love it
There is a Beaufort being restored in Caloundra Queensland Australia. Impressive progress has been made, but still a long way to go.
Caaloundra is where I saw my first blue ringed octopus, though I went there many times in my childhood
The one in London is actually a Canadian made plane. After the war, Britain scrapped ALL of their planes for the metal. Canadian planes were also sold off, but a bunch found their way to the western prairies where they were sold off to farmers. One of the things to make them more saleable was that they could be bought with a full load of fuel. When Britain came looking for one, they retrieved some of these surplus planes (trees had been growing around them. There is one being restored at the Canadian Warplane Museum at the Mount Hope airport (Hamilton, Ontario) but they are a long way from completing it. Saw a volunteer riveting a panel for it yesterday. That airport also has an operational Lancaster for which you can purchase flights. (About $4000 cdn per person) I was there to have a flight on their Canso (Consolidated PBY). I flew on their Lancaster last year.
Farmers in the UK would buy warplanes in the late 1940s and sell them for scrap. A broomhandle was an essential tool. Farmers would shove the broomhandle into the fuel tanks to guess how much petrol was on board. This was during the era when petrol was strictly rationed. The value of the high-octane aviation fuel exceeded the value of the scrap metal.
I had an "uncle" who flew a Beaufighter in WW2. The quotes are because I'm not even sure we were related, though I hope we were.
In those days you couldn't keep calling someone "Mister" forever, but as a child Christian names weren't polite either, so many people close to the family became uncles.
He flew just about everything in that war, but he always preferred the Beaufighter. Not an air superiority fighter, he admitted - but 2 seconds in the sights of that impressive weaponry and - as he put it - "Adolf was buggered."
He flew some kind of stripped down night fighter version. Had a special name, but I can't remember what it was. He survived the war. Not all of an older generation of my family did.
What amazed me, as a young boy crazy about aircraft, I couldn't understand why he walked away and never wanted to board an aeroplane again. Or why he befriended a German POW he'd shot down (who stayed here because - Germany divided - he had nothing to go home to.)
I'm 80 - and I understand now.
My uncle (mum's brother) was an 18yr old gunner in Blenheim's. As a kid I was banned from mentioning WWII around him. Taboo subject. Much later when I found out about their cas. rate I understood.
@@johnpoulter I was the lucky generation in my family. My 13yrs in Inf. was between wars. Afghanistan changed my son. Not badly, just kicked him up a notch. He has more of a thing for adrenalin now & don't piss him off.
Hmm,what!
@@DavidGreenwood-nu6dd
?????
@@johnpoulter The Beaufighter was so feared by the Japs they nicknamed it"Whispering Death" . I'm curious as to why they gave it that name ?.
I lived at 58 BeaufortvCescent, RAF Leuchars from 73 ~76. Leuchars is, by the way, pronounced Lewkars. Great programme. Thanks.
Or locally with ch as in loch, not k as in lock.
Just loved those Leuchars air shows years ago. Are they still a thing?
Kind of academic to me now as my travelling is limited to a trip from recliner to loo.
I'm not sure if it was Leuchars or another show (memory!) but back in the day of perestroika I watched a Russian bomber and a couple of fighters fly in. Just mind-shakingly marvellous at that time.
Thing is is - the show was halted at one point to scramble a couple of Phantoms to warn off a Russian bomber getting too close our shores. With an identical machine sitting on our runway! Life can get weird sometimes.
I got to shake the hand of a Russian pilot - surrounded by another 100 people eager to do the same. He seemed genuinely emotional. He was married with a small boy. I handed him a boxed UK silver Crown in a case to take home to that child.
Thing is - right now - I'm not sure I'd shake the hand of his successor.
Why are brave people so misused?
Lord Beaverbrook persuaded Australia to build the Beaufort primarily because it suited British industry even though it was a terrible bombing platform. It went on to do a lot more bombing over New Guinea and surrounds than launching torpedos.
Australia learned from this experience. The team subsequently tasked with selecting a fighter and heavy bomber to manufacture undertook its due diligence by touring both the USA and UK. The outcome was the decision to build the P-51 Mustang fighter and Lancaster/Lincoln bomber.
Production of the Beaufort did however set Australia up to build the Beaufighter.
RAAF is pronounced R-Double A-F.
It's an AI voice, but can probably be trained.
RAAF Beauforts in the Pacific? Did a lot of damage to the Japanese merchant shipping! Wildebeest in RNZAF service were sacrificed pointlessly at Singapore. RAAF is said "R double-A F" or "Raff" We're bloody picky too! ;)
Hoo Pedantic we Are .
It is an AI voice.The verbal fuck ups are pretty spectacular
The "most lethal airplane hunting the seas" was . . . the PBY Catalina.
The Dauntless SBD sank 6 carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and several other ships. The A-20's in Soviet hands sank over 100,00 tons of Axis shipping and the B-25 gunships in the New Guinea campaign rained hell down on the Japanese coastal and merchant shipping.
Appreciate the Beaufort launched torpedoes and was very effective but it may not have been the "...most lethal...".
You need to look into and be surprised by the tonnage sunk by th3 Fairy Swordfish. Supposedly > 1 million.
@@daleirvine7548 Yes - surprising, indeed. Much more than the Beaufort, though, and simply makes my point.
I was just grabbing a few examples but it is surprising. Thank you.
@@richardreynolds6398 Different mission profiles though. The RAF Beauforts in Home waters had very slim pickings as far as targets went - mostly coastal convoys moving under cover of darkness where possible. Few and far between for mounting strikes. And then the other stuff was the inevitably heavily-defended occasional battleship or cruiser. This is why set-piece raids and mine-laying were much more successful tactics in the Channel and North Sea. The Med was a bit different; a better theatre for it, with constant crossings by Axis convoys.
4:40 - "Despite the Beaufort's flaws, the specter (!) of war was now looming large on the horizon.." Huh?? What's the connection? Who writes this stuff?
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Thank you for sharing this
At the Airfield just out of Bacchus Marsh in Victoria, Australia was located the Beaufort Gliding Club. I said to one of the members, you're along way from the town of Beaufort. He said, no you fool, we're not from the town. The club was started in WWII by people from the Government Aircraft Factory who worked on the Beaufort Bomber line
Good video, but I was perplexed with your pronunciation of the airfiefd in Fife , Scotland that the Beauforts took off from-then I realised you were talking about RAF Leuchars-it's pronounced "Lookers" not Looshars😀
Nice sharing Vidio.. very inspiring and informative.. great 🇮🇩😮❤
I was born in Filton. Family worked on various planes during the war and I witnessed Concords maiden flight.
There’s a very interesting biography about a Beaufort pilot called ‘Torpedo Leader’ (not very imaginative) I actually grew to quite dislike the guy and wasn’t surprised when I spoke with a relative of a gunner in his squadron who described him very unfavourably as a glory seeking careerist madman. He made a big thing about going in first but it was actually safer being first.
when i watch these videos it reminds me of the quote "Never in the field of human conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few' Winston Churchill. That pilot was 22 guys 22! Kid out of high school.
@Turnipstalk We can only be in awe of such men of character and hope to live up to their legacy now and in time of need. Your father is a hero dude you tell him that for me pls and thank him for his service.
In those days, high school finished at 16.
The shot of the Prinz Eugen at 10:56 is her in US Navy service post war, on her way to the atomic bomb test sites in the Pacific. You can tell by the US Army radar van welded on top of the conning tower to give her some navigational radar capacity.
A wonderful historical coverage video about the brustl boffer royal navy and a royal navy airforce
I Read it was also a very good Night Fighter, the pub near me was named after an ace who flow the Beaufighter it was called The Cunningham I beleive it had his portrait with the Fighter in the background.
Sadly the one thing honoring a local born hero was purchased by Lidll and after many failed planning applications mysteriously caught fire and had to be knocked down for a new Lidll store.
Cunningham scored 20 victories at night, the top German night fighter ace, Schnaufer, had 121.
But the Germans flew until they died & had a much more target rich environment.
I take it he was the famous "Cat eyes Cunningham" who was said to eat carrots to improve his night vision where in reality Britain had just started to fit airborne radar to our night fighters but wanted to keep in secret from the Germans.
'Cats Eyes Cunningham'
@aussie6910 read John Cunningham was promoted to non flying role may have been to protect him, there is a History of British aces being withdrawn from opps to protect them 1st ww two of air cors top aces were with drawn from front line action to train new pilots but both were then killed in accidents. As you say Germans flew till dead or war over.
This was certainly lethal this Beaufort! Lethal for the flying crews!
Lutzow was renamed by hitler but she was renamed Lutzow because the original, uncompleted, Lutzow was sold to the soviet union and the protocol required the same name be used. Lutzow was a real bomb, shell, and torpedo magnet, taking two torpedo hits through her career and being the only german ship I know of to be damaged by norwegians, british, french and soviets. She had a series of ever more hapless captains who managed to get her, variously, run aground and - twice - ambushed by complete surprise. Hitler was so unimpressed with her and her sister ships he actually ordered them all melted down for scrap metal. Ironically, that would have been a good idea because the germans wasted a lot of resources on ships that they could have used on tanks, but the german naval commanders talked hitler out of that.
Great machine ¡¡¡
"The most lethal", seems to be an unsupported accolade for a disaster of a plane. See the summary at 12:43. "Not particularly effective and often seen as a disappointment". Perhaps the Beaufighter should have the title which "more effective" (13:00)
The PBY Catalina and Avro Shackleton performed crucial antisubmarine ops protecting the convoys. They didn't sink a lot of tonnage, rather they saved tonnage that was essential to the survival of Britain. Various British bombers were used to escort Allied convoys during WW2, and German sub commanders quickly learned to fear them.
Ummm . . . . Shackleton didn't fly until 1949 . . . . . just sayin'.
@@Mossop13 oops, l need one of those plane ID charts.
This has probably been noted before, but Leuchars - the ch is like a k, it's not a soft ch. Try pronouncing it as "Lookars".
The Beaufort led to the immortal Beaufighter
Please is there any truth to what l have been told in that the Beaufort simply could not fly on one engine?
What happened to the crew of the Wreck?
MY DEARS…. IF the Beaufort, which is now a great Corgi model, BTW, WAS THE ANSWER, why EVER would they have replaced it with the Beaufighter?
The Beuafighter was certainly dangerous to it's own crew.
RAF Squadron numbers are ordinal, 22 and 42 in this video, not cardinal, 22nd and 42nd, as you used in the commentary.
Sounds like a pretty bad failure until the Beaufighter arrived.
Named after the Duke of Beaufort 🧐👍
Lethally misleading thumbnail !!!.
It was an aircraft or aeroplane, not an airplane.
What? The Bristol Beaufort the most lethal airplane hunting the sea! No way. The most lethal was the B-25 Mitchel equipped with a 75mm canon. One hit and bye-bye U-boat.
I thought the Lutzow (nee Deutschland) was a "Panzerschiff" (pocket battleship) rather than a heavy cruiser.
Just to add to a previous comment - we DO NOT USE ORDINALS in Commonwealth squadron numbering. Please stop.
G'day ....the RAAF and all Australian forces did a lot of upgrades on many platforms during WW2. Because we where more isolated than many other countrys, we had to be more self reliant and innovative. Which helped all the allies in the Pacific theatre, both here in main land Australia and on the Front.
Well what do ya expect when the Brits sent all their so called "Criminals"🚔 to a big island hidden for millennia🧐 where only the strong survive💀, Let them stew down there for 150yrs, and it sort of builds a small but tenacious innovative society😤. Cheers for the great Docs ya making over at "Dark Media Inc". From a true Blue Aussie, part of 4 generations of family Servicemen, over the last hundred years. Goodonya (Good-on-ya) from A M8 Downunder🙃
as a child i learnt the difference between we're , where, & were.
RAF LOOSHAR is RAF LOOKARS Leuchars
Awesome..the airfield in fife is pronounced..lookers
Define "most lethal"?
The German cruiser is pronounced "Luetsov".
Soooooo…..
The title of this video is misplaced? Should be for another video?
Another plane?
I really hate these clickbait titles.
While the video isn’t bad, it’s not about what is claimed to be.
Just stop that.
The aircraft shown is not a Beau !!!
Leuchars is pronounced Loo carz
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This is so over-written. Can't believe how bad the voice is, too.
Leuchars = LOUKERS
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Sadly, this is consistently one of the least pictorially accurate and most title 'click baity' channels. Id dont know if thats deliberate, but its a shame, as the author is clearly spending money on his archive material.
British had better torpedoes than US
Interesting content, but BOGUS CLICKBAIT title. Thumbs down.
I gave it a thumbs down because of the click-bait title.
It would be nice if this video producer would coordinate his video with the text. Too often, he just throws totally mismatched shots of the wrong plane and just seems like he would rather extend the video with”FILLER” because he has not got enough of the subject matter. Wrong planes, wrong ships, wrong theaters of war, and on and on. When, in this video, he displays a flight of BEAUFORTS and each plane has but ONE engine, it’s like “Come ON! Stop BSing me with nonsense! What are you, a leftist?” LOL
Might come as a shock to you Tories but millions of "leftist" served in both world wars.
These are Bristol Blenheims. More American diahorreah.
YOU WOULD BENIFET FROM VOICE LESSONS.
Dark Skies still sucks.
Bargain basement avaition airplane channel. Well funded simultaneously.
I'm the first viewer
No, Besides, BFD.
i never watched it
@@Area51UFOGynaecology No doubt, most pick me comments don't watch the video.
Shouldn't you just keep that to yourself? 😊
For Comments seen the Beufighter ranks Higher than the Beaufort , an it should be Given more Credit .
By the way, in RAF parlance, the squadron numbers are prounounced "Twenty-Two Squadron" and "Forty-Two Squadron" if it's a two-digit name. If there's only one digit, it would be, for example, "Number Four Squadron". Should it be a three-number unit, the numbers are pronounced individually again, i.e. "Six One Seven Squadron" or "Two Four Two Squadron"; ditto for maintainance flights, conversion training units, etc, which often had four-digit numbers. If you ever see an RAF squadron's number, this is the rule that's applied.
We're just funny like that.
This is correct; British Commonwealth squadrons all use cardinal numbers when referencing their flying units. It is the Americans (USN, USMC, USAF) who use ordinal numbers for their flying units. Cheers!
Royal Engineers have squadron s with similar numbering eg 73 sqn would be seven three, however 12 nova scotia squadron is just twelve squadron
I don't think who ever puts these video's together cares too much. I've never seen a response to any comment. Plus I think the commentary is AI based.
Dark SKies gets a LOT wrong.
@@longrider42 The pronunciation of RAF Leuchars is a bit of a giveaway-should be 'Lookars' nor leeeuuucheeears or whatever 'he' said. 😎🤠
Somehow doesn't seem to merit the title "The Most Lethal Flying Hunter of the Seas"
Because it wasn't. But UA-camrs wanting to monetise clicks put hyperbole before accuracy...
That title could arguable be given to either the Bristol Beaufighter or the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito, both of which were used in there maritime attack role very successfully. That being said, the Bristol Beaufort was no slouch, though she did quickly become horrible obsolete.
@@tobyrobson2939 Especially the Dark team......they were good back in the begining with Dark 5, but now.....meh at best.
Lots of different planes could carry the title , sbd after midway , b-25 at Bismarck sea , hellcat , beaufighter , even the string bag for its role in sinking the Bismarck
The old Swordfish, now there was a lethal aircraft. Obsolete from the beginning of the way. But served all the way through to the end.
That's a Bristol "Beaufighter" in the thumbnail mate.
all references to Beauforts seem to be supported by images of Beaufighters ......
You are lucky it’s not a flying fortress
Swapping images is a 'Dark Skies' tradition. It's done at least once every episode to keep us on our toes.
Beaufort is correct!...
The thumbnail definitely a Beaufort not a Beaufighter….
Find saw Beaufort at the United States Air Force museum in Ohio that thing was a lot larger than I had expected
So the Aussies fitted American Pratt & Witney Double Wasp radials , in place of the unreliable and underpowered ?? Bristol Taurus ? - would be interesting to see the performance change of the Aussie Beauforts ! :)
Beaufighters dont get the respect it deserves . Its overshadowed by the mossie .
'Beaufighters' are another aircraft altogether. The Japanese confusing the two in the Bismark Sea (1943) was an important error!
Not in Australian history really. We flew Beaufighters in the Pacific to make stuff go away.
@@UncleJoeLITE The Armament on the Beaufighter is the same as the Mossie. I love that domineering look the beaufighter 's had .
Very good information in this one, and much less mismatch of the images and dialogue. Very well done!
As someone interested in WW2 aircraft for the majority of my life, I enjoy the effort taken to provide interesting and factual information. However, I don’t know if the narration is computer generated or actual ‘human’ narration, but it is annoying as hell. The rapid, near whisper doesn’t really work for me.
Great video, as usual. Very informative as is the norm. Thanks
So, not "The Most Lethal Flying Hunter of the Seas" A bit of a disappointment, really. The Beaufighter had a much greater success rate.
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was the pinnacle of the Australian made version of the Bristol’s, a defeat for the Japanese in the most one sided battle of WWII.
More wildly innaccurate Dark Skies nonsense.
Complimentary algorithm enhancement comment!😊
The Beaufort is very much in the shadow of the Beaufighter and you don't hear as much about its successes as you do it's closely related sibling.
Just wanted to say that I’ve been watching your videos since right near the beginning & your voiceover work has substantially improved. Great work, sir🫡
A mediocre bomber. The Beaufort's fuselage and wings helped the quick development of the Beaufighter, a much more effective aeroplane.
Make mine a Swordfish
I love the gardening term.
Except it's totally inaccurate. Gardening was a term Harris used for random terror bombing on land.
@@johndoe-so2efWhere did you hear that? I've often heard minelaying referred to as "gardening". Harris was generally supportive of it, especially since it was something that could be done during bad weather (which prohibited most conventional bombing).
Reliability issues and attacks on merchant shipping aside the main problem with the Beaufort as a torpedo bomber was much the same as all torpedo bombers. They were required to fly low, level and steady into defending warships' withering anti-aircraft fire. The commanders must have expected great results indeed to send good men on such very dangerous missions; where they right to? Some fine and very important results were achieved certainly but does that justify such a very dangerous method.
They were expendable. Results would have been nice but weren't expected.
Please do something about the narrator's voice....overly dramatic..delivery made in short stabbing splurges. Sounds like a constant drone.
Great video. Wonder if the rear gunner was effective ?
Production began in Ernest is this place in Bristol
Watch Urlaug on youtube.
If you are sick and tired of Lancasters and bf109.
❤
I'm glad you used subtitles; needless to say why...
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The Australian Beaufighters were named 'the whispering death' by Japanese forces in the Pacific theatre.
So were Cosairs. But I've never seen any Japanese people commenting on this....
I appreciate that your videos never contain any click bait, and always deliver solid historical information.
Hey, you got jokes....
At the same time, the video is about the Bristol Beaufort, but the video thumbnail displays the much more powerful Bristol Beaufighter....
As Sheldon would say ‘sarcasm?’
@@obiemichaels9675
"Oh....ha!"
Not only is the thumbnail a Beau Fighter, but It’s Two two and Four Two squadron …not Twenty second and Fourty second. They were R.A.F. squadrons. NOT U.S.A.A.F. R.A.F. LOOSHORE is actually Lucas’s
The 'gardening' operations were often tied in with the Bletchley code breaking operations as they would be reported by Germany using the enigma code.
Beaufighter TF Mk.X was a more legendary plane. Bristling with Cannons and Rockets and a Torpedo....... (The Coastal command variant)
Whispering death is what the Japanese called them.
They were very well armed and extremely tough and effective.
My favourite behind the mosquito.
.LEST WE FORGET.
Bob. Australia.
Who writes this garbage ?
The thumbnail is a Bristol Beaufort. Check them out on Wikipedia. The Japanese referred to the Beaufighter as “Whispering Death”, or so my mother told me (Air evac nurse New Guinea 1944-45).
WOW> that Beaufort sounds like a disaster to me. Most of the time it missed. Pilots died easily. Overheating. Slow. Horrible flight characteristics. Sounds and looks to me like a flying Porcupine!
My Father George Sayce was a mechanic in the RAAF 100 squadron in Milne bay New Guinea he told me that Australia had built 700 Beaufort's, in Queensland Aust. they are rebuilding a Beaufort to flying condition, it will be the only one flying.
For an excellent history of RAF Coastal Command during WW2 I recommend reading "The Cinderella Boys" by Leo McKinstry. It was a long hard fight, both against the German and the Air Ministry.
Definitely lethal. The Australian built Beaufort's had a problem with the control rod to the elevator trim tab falling off. 90 aircraft were lost before they found the problem.
Beauforts to deal with bigger things...
Beaufighters to make smaller things vanish...