Ark Royal Swordfish collision October 1939

[alanscheckenbach]

Hi All,

Can anyone help with dates, squadron and maybe names for a collision between two of Ark Royal's Stringbags that collided while out on patrol looking for the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic? Date is sometime in October 1939. Does any one have access to the ship's log?

Following is a cut of the incident from the book I found it in.

Any help will be really appreciated.

Thanks

Alan

From the book:



Aircraft Carriers. A Graphic History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events, Norman Polmar. In collaboration with: General Minoru Genda, Captain Eric M. Brown, O.B.E., Professor Robert M. Langdon. MacDonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd, London, 1969.

At the bottom of page 86 and the top of page 87 is the following passage:

Background is a discussion of the British carrier Ark Royal’s operations in the South Atlantic in October 1939 while they were chasing the Graf Spee.


“There was extreme boredom in flying patrol over a flat sea, most of the time with nothing in sight but sea and sky. Once the boredom was broken by tragedy. Two of the Ark Royal’s Swordfish were flying in formation when they entered a cloud; the planes closed on each other and one’s propeller chewed off the other’s tail. The pilot of the tail-less plane thought “she wasn’t answering well.” He looked around and saw he had no tail assembly. In these planes parachutes were not usually worn while flying, but were clipped onto the fliers harness when about to bail out. As the planes collided one gunner bailed out without waiting to clip on his parachute. He fell 3000 feet to the water and survived. Two of the six men in the two aircraft were killed.”