Quote:
Originally Posted by Juha
Not much, there is a short mention in http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/210_wwII.html. Also some in a couple books. According to Ashworth's RAF Coastal Command 1936-1969 (1992) p. 62 none of the Catalinas were lost. There is also an article or two in old Aeroplane Monthly/ies on Catalina activities in Spitzbergen which might have been connected with PQ 18 but I cannot remember exactly the dates of those ops. They were connecting on the reoccupation of Spitzbergen by the Free Norway Forces with the help of RAF and RN. |
Hello Juha,
Thank you for a very good review of the various sources! I will follow up and see if I can find anything on Catalina operations in Russian.
Having consulted Morozov's book, I can say that my memory was wrong and it was in fact the Hampdens that sank the Leesee. See summary of the three notable attacks below:
On 14 January 1943, 2 Hampdens attacked a convoy with 2 torpedoes, the submarine chaser UJ 1108 was slightly damaged by machine-gun fire with 1 dead and 2 wounded on board. 1 Hampden flown by Bashtyrkov was shot down.
On 25 April 1943, 5 Hampdens attacked a large convoy with 5 torpedoes, the transport ship Leesee of 2624 grt was sunk with the loss of 3 members of the crew. 1 Hampden flown by Kiselev (who hit Leesee) was shot down.
On 4 July 1943, 3 Il-4s and 2 Hampdens attacked a convoy with 5 torpedoes, the transport ship Pernambuco was slightly damaged by machine-gun fire. 1 Il-4 (flown by Balashov) and 2 Hampdens (flown by Shipilov and Mart’yanov) were shot down.
There were no successes in any of the other torpedo-bomber missions flown by the Hampdens.
Regards,
Paul