D-Day FAA Hellcats

[BruceMk11]

Thanks Adriano. That's a very handy book you have!

Is there any mention of Lt-Cdr Gerald Mellor Haynes?

[Bruce Dennis]

Hello Bruce, Adriano and Andy
The logs of the two carriers equipped with FAA Hellcats around D-Day make no mention of rockets. The same applies to the Hellcat squadrons employed later in the south of France operations.
Hope this helps,
Bruce

[BruceMk11]

Just noticed there is a pic of FAA Hellcats (on an unidentified carrier) being armed with rockets in the first group of plates in the 1986 edition of Mike Crosley's 'They Gave Me A Seafire'. Several of the groundcrew are wearing only shorts, so the location is presumably the Med or Far East.

[James A Pratt III]

Both the FCWD part 4 and my notes from the book Seafire the Spitfire that went to sea have 4 Seafire or 3 Seafire and 1 FAA Spitfire lost do to Flak on D-day.
885 Squadron S/Lt A.H Basset and S/lt H.A. Cogshill KIA Lt C.L. Metcalfe WIA
886 Squadron Lt C.L. Metcalfe bailed out unharmed.

VCS 7 1 Seafire lost

Luftwaffe over Norway loss section has JG 5 with 3 109 losses on 8May 1944
and the claims list has JG 5 with 3 Hellcat claims on this date. Uffz Hallstick 2 and Ltn Prenzler 1 both of 10/JG5

On 14 may according to my notes 1/406 lost 2 He-115 shot down and 3 destroyed on the water by 800 Squadron.

Also Oblt Schnieder of 10/JG5 Spitfire claim of 11 Feb 44 was most likely S/LtW.L. Horner in a Seafire IB MB353 HMS Furious off Norway. He was KIA. The other pilots in his flight claimed 1-1-3 but there are no reports of any loss or damage in the Luftwaffe lost list for this day.

[bearoutwest]

Hi BruceMk11,

In Ray Sturtivant's "Fleet Air Arm at war" chapter on East Indies Fleet 1945, there appear two photos of RN FAA Helcats with rocket projectiles.

On p.113, there is Hellcat JX688 B-8H (896 Sqn HMS Empress) armed with British-style RPs on rails (not the usual USN RPs on zero-length launchers).

On p.114, there is a scene of senior officers visiting 896 Sqn ashore. Aircraft JX690 is coded 2-AB, and has what appears to be 4x RP rails under each wing. The partial view of another Hellcat aircraft on the edge of the photo shows 4x RP rails as well.

The Channel Operations chapter (covering the D-Day landing support ops) has photos of Avengers and Wildcats (no RPs) and lots of Swordfish (with RPs), but no Hellcats. These RN FAA aircraft are shore based. 896 Sqn - equipped with Wildcats at that stage - operated off HMS Pursuer. The 24th Naval Fighter Wing - Seafire IIIs of 887 and 894 Sqns - flew escort missions to fighter-bomber Typhoons, but were shore based.

Sorry, no other mentions of other Hellcat squadrons involved in Normandy in this book, but hope it's of some help.

From Kenneth Poolman’s “Allied Escort Carriers of WW2”:
Hellcats of 804 Sqn were aboard HMS Ameer in December 1944, when it arrived to support British Army operation along the coast of Burma. The D-Day reference for Gerald Haynes may just be a journalist mistaking a general D-Day reference – meaning a beachhead landing day – for the Normandy Overlord landings. On 18th Jan 1945, HMS Ameer’s Hellcats flew top cover for the landings at Kyaukpyu, north Ramree Island – on the central west coast of Burma.

In Operation Dracula (imaginative names!), the amphibious assault on Rangoon – 20 Hellcats of 804 Sqn were embarked on the “assault carrier” HMS Empress, as well as 4 additional 804 Sqn Hellcats on the GP carrier HMS Shah. Hellcats of No3 Naval Fighter Wing were aboard HMS Khedive and Emperor. In my 2nd edition copy of “They Gave Me A Seafire” (poorer paper, so photo is quite grainy) the photo of the Hellcat with RP rails – which a number of sailors are rearming with RPs, the Hellcat has the same markings (white engine nose ring and tip of tail above fin flash) as the photo of HMS Khedive’s Hellcats (without RPs) in Poolman’s book. Campaign markings for the entire fleet? So it’s likely the Hellcats used RPs when flying strikes in these amphibious landing campaigns around Burma in 1944-45. The Hellcats off HMS Empress and Shah flew the last strikes on Car Nicobar as part of Operation Dracular.

Following the sinking of the Japanese heavy cruiser Haguro on 16 May 1945, HMS Emperor “…launched four Hellcats with eight 27kg (60 lb) RPs apiece to find Kurishoyo Maru No 2, but she had in fact already berthed at Penang. ….” (This is the only actual reference I managed to find of RN Hellcats operating with RPs.)

Regards,
...geoff