Lieutenant-Commander Bobby Lawson, a Fleet Air Arm pilot in World War II, twice mentioned in dispatches, dropped the torpedo which was one of the only two to hit the German battleship, Bismarck. This engagement crippled the Bismarck, leaving it able only to sail in a circle and a sitting target for the British Navy’s onslaught which sunk her a couple of days later.
Bismarck’s naval warfare career was short – a single operation – but immediately went down in history. Intended to act as a surface raider on the Atlantic convoys from the USA to the UK, her first battle followed her discovery in the Denmark Strait by the ageing pride of the British Navy, the battlecruiser Hood and the new battleship, Prince of Wales.
In the short engagement that followed, the accuracy of Bismarck’s firing saw her sink the Hood in four minutes. The national shock at this loss led to then Prime Minister, Winston Churchill’s unequivocal instruction to ‘Sink the Bismarck’.
This is where Bobby Lawson comes in and where Bismarck’s end began.
Lawson volunteered for the Royal Navy Reserve at the outbreak of war and on 24th May 1941 – the day the Hood was sunk with the loss of all but three of the 1418 men aboard her – he was airborne in pursuit of the Bismarck.
His was one of the 9 aircraft in Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde’s 825 Naval Air Squadron , flying off the fleet carrier Victorious. 825 Squadron had only been aboard Victorious for a few days, Lawson had made his first ever deck landing five days previously and the Squadron had not practised formation attack.
On the night of 24th May 1941, the Squadron was airborne in search of Bismarck and flying under the cloud base over the North Atlantic. Their initial focus turned out not to be Bismarck but the battleship was six miles south of their position, saw them and opened fire.
The Squadron broke up with individual planes taking to the clouds for cover. When Lawson’s Swordfish V4295 emerged for a quick recce, he found himself close to Bismarck which, turning, was vulnerable to attack.
He approached on her starboard side and dropped his fish. His observer saw a column of water rise on the battleship’s starboard side, indicating a hit. Bismarck’s guns gave him a hot response for his trouble and he turned away back to Victorious which, almost out of fuel, he was lucky to reach.
Bismarck escaped detection for a short time after this, but the impact of Lawson’s torpedo shook loose some packing put in place to staunch some relatively minor damage sustained in the Denmark Strait engagement, forcing Admiral Lutjens to reduce speed.
This brought the battleship within the range of a Catalina reconnaissance flown out of Northern Ireland shortly afterwards, in the morning of 26th May – 69 years ago tomorrow. Her position then known, 818 Squadron took off that evening from Ark Royal to attack her. A torpedo dropped from one of 818′s Swordfish hit the Bismarck’s rudder – and the endgame commenced.
Bobby Lawson died back on 17th February this year at the age of 91 but the air ace born in East Kilbride had a link with Argyll.
In 1943 he was based for a short time at Machrihanish, the airbase now being disposed of by the Ministry of Defence and the subject of a planned community buy out by the Machrihanish Airbase Community Company (MACC).
At Machrihanish Lawson carried out deck landing trials on two merchant ships converted to convoy escort carriers, HMS Activity (left) and HMS Rapana, before moving to take command of 815 Squadron.
In later life Lawson was awarded the OBE for his work in business – he was Chair of the Anglo-Turkish Chamber of Commerce, based in Istanbul; and a representative of the Confederation of British Industry.
It’s fun for MACC to add this story to the history of the site it is determined to acquire as an asset towards building a sustainable community. The site hosted the flyer who dropped the torpedo, which damaged the Bismarck, which contributed to her sinking and avenged the Hood.
The photographs accompanying this article show:
- Top, the battleship Bismarck in 1940 from the German Federal Archive and reproduced here under the Creative Cmmons licence.
- Above, HMS Activity, the merchant ship converted as a convoy escort carrier, operating from the start of 1943 and one of the two such ships on which Lieutenant Commander Bobby Lawson conducted deck landing trials when he was based at Machrihanish in Kintyre in 1942. The photograph was taken by an official Royal Navy photographer and is in the public domain.
My Father, Reginald Robinson was aboard HMS Ark Royal duing this event.
He sailed into the Atlantic as part of Task Force ‘H’ to track down and sink the Bismark.
He was an air artificer and spent the war years based on several ships and many bases within England and Scotland.
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