So the torpedo-dropper has to come down as low as he possibly can to lessen the shock. I have been present at a good many torpedo dropping exercises in the course of the past twenty years. I have seen a line of battleships attacked by eight machines. The pilots of six of them misjudged their height. Their torpedoes hit the water with a terrific thud and when the splash had subsided there were the torpedoes up-ended bobbing about helplessly like so many dead dolphins, The other two torpedoes which had gone into the water more gently ran towards the line of battleships and one hit the after-end of the ship I was in in a very vulnerable spot. I need hardly add that the torpedo was fitted with a dummy head in which there was no explosive, otherwise I doubt if I should be here today.
The Navy became at one time very doubtful sbout the value of torpedo-dropping. There, were so many failures of the kind I have mentioned that a number of senior and influential officers would have been glad to see the whole idea abandoned. But a small school of enthusiasts plugged away at the problems (and there were a good many other things besides the actual dropping which had to be re-solved)—and in this war torpedo-dropping aircraft both of the Fleet Air Arm and of the Coastal Command have had some startling successes.
There is an important difference tactically between the bomb and the air borne torpedo. You will notice in studying any accounts of the war at sea thst whereas bombs have been able to damage ihe smaller ships Such as destroyers and light cruisers. and even to damage them so severely that they cannot get back to har-hour, the bigger ships (the battleships and battle-cruisers) have been more or less unharmed by bombing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.