Bristol Beaufort in the RAF 1 service unit
Beauforty Mk I of 22 Squadron based at North Coates on the east coast of England; summer 1940
Among the many aircraft of the Royal Air Force (RAF), which as a result of the development of events were on the sidelines of history, Beaufort occupies a prominent place. Squadrons equipped with it, serving on unreliable equipment and performing combat missions in extremely adverse conditions, almost every success (including a few spectacular ones) cost heavy losses.
In the years immediately before and after the outbreak of the Second World War, the most underfunded part of the RAF was the Coast Command, not without reason the Cinderella of the RAF. The Royal Navy had its own air force (Fleet Air Arm), while the priority of the RAF was Fighter Command (fighters) and Bomber Command (bombers). As a result, on the eve of the war, the archaic Vickers Vildebeest, a biplane with an open cockpit and a fixed landing gear, remained the main RAF torpedo bomber.
The L4445 shown in the photo was the fifth “prototype” of Beaufort and the fifth at the same time
serial copy.
The emergence and development of the structure
A tender for a successor to Vildebeest was launched by the Air Ministry in 1935. The M.15/35 specification specified the requirements for a three-seat, twin-engine reconnaissance bomber with a fuselage torpedo compartment. Avro, Blackburn, Boulton Paul, Bristol, Handley Page and Vickers took part in the tender. In the same year, specification G.24/35 for a twin-engine general purpose reconnaissance aircraft was published. This time, Avro, Blackburn, Boulton Paul, Bristol, Gloster and Westland entered. Bristol was not the favorite in any of these tenders. However, at that time, both tenders were merged, publishing specification 10/36. Bristol submitted a design with the factory designation Type 152. The proposed aircraft, based on the Blenheim light bomber design, was designed from the outset with the greatest possible versatility in mind. This has now proved to be an important advantage, as only two companies, Bristol and Blackburn, entered the new tender based on the 10/36 specification.
The prospect of an impending war and the time pressure associated with it forced the Air Ministry to order both aircraft - the Bristol Type 152 and the Blackburn Botha - and only on the basis of construction plans, without waiting for the flight of a prototype. It soon became clear that Botha had serious shortcomings, including poor lateral stability and, for a reconnaissance aircraft, visibility from the cockpit. For this reason, after a short combat career, all issued copies were sent to training missions. Bristol avoided such disgrace because his Type 152 - the future Beaufort - was practically a slightly enlarged and redesigned version of the already flying (and successful) Blenheim. The crew of the Beaufort consisted of four people (and not three, as in the Blenheim): pilot, navigator, radio operator and gunner. The maximum speed of the aircraft was about 435 km / h, cruising speed with a full load - about 265 km / h, range - about 2500 km, practical flight duration - six and a half hours.
Since the Beaufort was much heavier than its predecessor, the 840 hp Mercury Blenheim engines were replaced with 1130 hp Taurus engines. However, already in the course of field testing of the prototype (which was also the first production model), it turned out that the Tauruses - created at the main plant in Bristol and put into series shortly before the start of the war - obviously overheat. During subsequent operation, it also turned out that their power was barely enough for the Beaufort in combat configuration. It was almost impossible to take off and land on one engine. The failure of one of the engines during takeoff led to the fact that the plane turned over onto the roof and inevitably fell, so in such a situation it was recommended to immediately turn off both engines and try to make an emergency landing "straight ahead". Even a long flight on one operable engine was impossible, since at a reduced speed the air pulse was not enough to cool one engine operating at high speeds, which threatened to ignite.
The problem with the Tauruses turned out to be so serious that the Beaufort did not make its first flight until mid-October 1938, and mass production started “at full speed” a year later. The subsequent numerous versions of the Taurus engines (up to the Mk XVI) did not solve the problem, and their power did not increase one iota. Nevertheless, more than 1000 Beauforts were equipped with them. The situation was only improved by the replacement of the Taurus with the excellent American 1830 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1200 Twin Wasp engines, which drove, among others, B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, C-47 transports, PBY Catalina flying boats and F4F fighters wildcat. This modification was already considered in the spring of 1940. But then Bristol insisted that this was not necessary, as he would modernize the engines of his own production. As a result, more Beaufort crews were lost due to the failure of their own aircraft than from enemy fire. American engines were not installed until August 1941. However, soon, due to difficulties with their delivery from abroad (the ships that carried them fell victim to German submarines), after the construction of the 165th Beaufort, they returned to the Taurus. Aircraft with their engines received the designation Mk I, and with American engines - Mk II. Due to the higher fuel consumption of the Twin Wasps, the flight range of the new version of the aircraft decreased from 2500 to about 2330 km, but the Mk II could fly on one engine.
The main weapons of the Beauforts, at least in theory, were 18-inch (450 mm) Mark XII aircraft torpedoes weighing 1610 pounds (about 730 kg). However, it was an expensive and hard-to-find weapon - in the first year of the war in Great Britain, the production of all types of torpedoes was only 80 pieces per month. For this reason, for a long time, the Beauforts' standard weapons were bombs - two of 500 pounds (227 kg) in the bomb bay and four of 250 pounds on pylons under the wings - possibly single, 1650 pounds (748 kg) magnetic sea. mines. The latter were called "cucumbers" because of their cylindrical shape, and mining, probably by analogy, was codenamed "horticulture".
Debut
The first Coastal Command squadron to be equipped with Beauforts was 22 Squadron, which had previously used Vildebeests to search for U-boats in the English Channel. Beauforts began to receive in November 1939, but the first sortie on new aircraft was made only on the night of April 15/16, 1940, when he mined the approaches to the port of Wilhelmshaven. At that time he was in the North Coates on the coast of the North Sea.
The monotony of routine activities was interrupted from time to time by "special actions". When intelligence reported that a German Nuremberg-class light cruiser was anchored off the coast of Norderney, on the afternoon of 7 May, six Beauforts from 22 Squadron were sent to attack her, specially adapted for the occasion to carry single 2000 lb (907 lb) bombs. kg). On the way, one of the planes turned around due to a malfunction. The rest were tracked by Frey's radar and the expedition was intercepted by six Bf 109s from II.(J)/Tr.Gr. 1861. Uffts. Herbert Kaiser shot down a Stuart Woollatt F/O, who died along with the entire crew. The second Beaufort was so badly damaged by the Germans that it crashed while trying to land, but its crew escaped unscathed; the aircraft was piloted by Cmdr. (Lieutenant Colonel) Harry Mellor,
squadron leader.
In the following weeks, the 22nd Squadron, in addition to mining shipping lanes, also attacked (usually at night with several aircraft) coastal ground targets, incl. On the night of May 18/19, refineries in Bremen and Hamburg, and fuel tanks in Rotterdam on May 20/21. He made one of the few daytime outings during this period on May 25, hunting in the IJmuiden area on Kriegsmarine torpedo boats. On the night of May 25-26, he lost his commander - in / to Harry Mellor and his crew did not return from mining near Wilhelmshaven; their plane went missing.
In the meantime, in April, Beauforti received No. 42 Squadron, another Coastal Command squadron, re-equipped by Vildebeest. It debuted on the new aircraft on 5 June. A few days later, the battle for Norway came to an end. Despite the fact that the whole country was already in the hands of the Germans, British aircraft were still operating on its coast. On the morning of June 13, four Beauforts of 22 Squadron and six Blenheims attacked the airport at Varnes near Trondheim. Their raid was designed to neutralize the German defenses from the arrival of Skua dive bombers, taking off from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (their target was the damaged battleship Scharnhorst) 2. The effect was the opposite - the previously picked up Bf 109 and Bf 110 did not have time to intercept the Beauforts and Blenheims , and dealt with the carrier-based bombers of the Royal Navy.
A week later, Scharnhorst made an attempt to reach Kiel. On the morning of June 21, the day after going to sea, he was spotted from the reconnaissance deck of the Hudson. Escorting the battleship were the destroyers Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z10 Hans Lody, and Z15 Erich Steinbrinck, as well as the torpedo boats Jaguar, Grief, Falke, and Kondor, all with heavy anti-aircraft armament. In the afternoon, a pitiful handful of a dozen or so aircraft began attacking them in several waves—Swordfish biplanes, Hudson light bombers, and nine Beauforts from 42 Squadron. The latter took off from Wyck at the northern tip of Scotland, armed with 500-pound bombs (two per plane).
The target was out of reach of the then British fighters, so the expedition flew unaccompanied. After 2 hours and 20 minutes of flight, the Beaufort formation reached the coast of Norway southwest of Bergen. There she turned south and shortly thereafter collided with the ships of the Kriegsmarine off the island of Utsire. They were escorted by Bf 109 fighters. An hour earlier, the Germans had beaten off an attack by six Swordfishes (taking off from the Orkney Islands airfield), shooting down two, then four Hudsons, shooting down one. All torpedoes and bombs missed.
At the sight of another wave of aircraft, the Germans opened barrage fire from a distance of several kilometers. Nevertheless, all the Beauforts (three keys, three aircraft each) crashed against the battleship. Diving at an angle of approximately 40°, they dropped their bombs from a height of approximately 450 m. As soon as they were out of range of anti-aircraft artillery. ships were attacked by Messerschmitts, for whom they were easy, almost defenseless prey - on that day, Vickers machine guns were jammed in all Beauforts in the dorsal turrets due to shells in poorly designed ejectors. Fortunately for the British, only three Bf 109s were patrolling near the ships at that time. They were piloted by Lieutenant K. Horst Carganico, of. Anton Hackl and Fw. Robert Menge of II./JG 77, who shot down one Beaufort before the rest disappeared into the clouds. P/O Alan Rigg, F/O Herbert Seagrim and F/O William Barry-Smith and their crews were killed.
