Bristol Beaufort. Part Five. British Users, part two.

 

The first major Beaufort operation in Europe, took place on the night of 15th to 16th April 1940 when nine Beauforts dropped mines on the Schillig Roads maritime area, north of Wilhelmshaven, one of the major German ports of the North Sea. On this operation one Beaufort didn't make it back home. 

Another squadron, No.42 began to re-equip with Beauforts in April. The Beaufort had still some unsolved problems and, a Court of Enquiry came to the conclusion in June 1940 that the Taurus engine were not reliable, so both operational squadrons were grounded until engines could be modified.

The first torpedo attack in World War 2 carried out by the Royal Air Force (RAF) took place on 11th September 1940 when five Beauforts of No.22 Squadron attack a convoy of three merchant ships off Ostend, in Belgium. Shortly later, on 15th September, a "Rover" operation (an armed reconnaissance mission against enemy shipping made by small independent airplanes) took place. These were very common missions for the following 18 months.

The other United Kingdom based Beaufort-equipped squadrons were Nos. 86 and 217, which were not fully operational until 1941. 

The Beauforts were involved in many attacks on German capital ships. The first of which took place on 21st June 1940 when nine Beauforts of No.42 squadron attacked the German Battleship Scharnhorst off the Norwegian coast. They had to employ bombs as they had no torpedoes available. From this sortie, only four Beaufort returned as they encountered a force of some Messerschmitt Bf.109 and, shortly later, the Beaufort were grounded to modify their Taurus engines. 

Later, in early April 1941 a raid against the German naval base at Brest took place. However, due to bad weather, the raid was a failure. Later, on the night of 11th to 12th June 1941 thirteen Beauforts of No. 42 Squadron plus five Beaufort of No. 22 Squadron were dispatched from RAF Wick, Scotland to find the German Cruiser Lützow with an escort of four destroyers which were sighted off the coast of Norway. This attack was a failure too, because the Beauforts turned out to be too slow. The Court of Enquiry reached the conclusion that a faster land-based torpedo-bomber was needed, so Bristol began to work on a torpedo-bomber conversion of the Beaufighter.

During the famous Channel Dash, when various German ships crossed the English Channel, some Beauforts made fake torpedo runs and acted as flak-suppressers to reduce attention on the real torpedo bombers. After that, the Beaufort was sent to other operational theatres of the war, namely the Mediterranean and the Far East.

In the Mediterranean, No. 39 Squadron transitioned from the Martin Maryland to the Beaufort in August 1941 and, on 28th January 1942 they attacked an Italian convoy, making it the first Beaufort attack in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations (MTO). 

During the early hours of 15th June 1942 Beauforts of No. 217 Squadron torpedoed the Italian Heavy Cruiser Trento which was left crippled and was sunk by the British submarine HMS Umbra which had witnessed the aerial attack.

By July 1942 both No 86 Squadron arrived in Malta to be absorbed by the No. 39 Squadron, with No. 217 Squadron being rebased to Ceylon.

For the following 11 months, the Beaufort force, this time accompanied with Beaufighter and torpedo-equipped Vickers Wellington at night, were instrumental at attacking Axis convoy lines that were supplying Axis forces in North Africa. In June 1943 No.39 Squadron, converted to Beaufighters.

Sources:

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufort

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bristol_Beaufort_operators

3 Hall Park Books - Warpaint 50 - Bristol Beaufort