From
Senior Officer 4th Minesweeping Flotilla, HMS Niger
REPORT ON ENEMY AIR ATTACK ON FOUR FLEET
MINESWEEPERS: NIGER, SELKIRK, FITZROY AND HUSSAR – 10TH
DECEMBER 1940
Date & Time:
10th December 1940 1125-1140
Position:
2 miles south of No.53 buoy
Course &
Speed: Flotilla in uniformed state, taking up K formation on a
course 348˚, speeds 7 to 14 knots
Weather:
Wind WNW force 4, sea 24, sky 10/10 covered cumulo nimbus
1000 feet, patches of fracto-nimbus 500 feet, intermittent drizzle
Two enemy aircraft – opinions differ as to the
type, but the majority opinion, with which I concur, favours
Messerschmitt 110’s. In the low ceiling prevailing, sighting was
mutual and at the time the aircraft were flying away from ships, who
had ample time to open fire before being attacked. Aircraft attacked
independently using cloud cover, carrying out shallow dive bombing
and machine gun and cannon fire attacks.
Four or five bombs were dropped, one of which
failed to explode – the others were fitted with impact fuzes; size
of bombs probably 100 kilograms or larger – average distance of
misses over 200 yards. Average height of release 600-800 feet. Two
machine gun attacks pressed home to 300-400 feet. All ships went on
to full speed and employed drastic alterations of course.
Some superficial damage to Fitzroy only – the
only item of damage affecting the fighting efficiency was that the
main steam pipe of M/S winch was damaged and machine bullets
embedded in one drum of sweep wire, thus rendering her unfit for
sweeping. No casualties on Fitzroy and no damage or casualties in
any other ship. It is considered probable that at least one aircraft
was damaged, the 4” shell from Selkirk was observed to burst very
close to one aircraft about 5 minutes after the beginning of the
action, the aircraft immediately gave a violent lurch and
disappeared from view with black smoke coming from its’ tail: he did
not reappear although his colleague kept up the action for a further
ten minutes. This other aircraft was hit by close range weapons from
Fitzroy during two machine gun and cannon attacks on that ship, and
pieces of his undercarriage were observed to fall off.
Bombing was so inaccurate that it is difficult to
estimate which ships were attacked: it is probable that Fitzroy and
HUSSAR were the targets. It is of interest to note that two bombs
were released while the aircraft was banking at an angle of 60˚ to
the horizon. Two half hearted and completely ineffective machine gun
attacks were made on HUSSAR, that ship’s 4” barrage fire probably
prevented the aircraft from pressing an attack home; two similar
attacks, pressed well home in a determined fashion were made on
Fitzroy, with the results as mentioned above. It was extremely
fortunate that the attack took place just before sweeps had been got
out; had sweeps been streamed, it is considered that much damage
would probably have been sustained by H M Ships, unless an immediate
decision had been made to cut sweeps, which action would have
resulted in the loss of a sweeping day of comparatively calm weather
that is rare at this time of year.
