Russian use of Handley Page Hampdens

[Paul Thompson]

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