OK, Library of Congress books on Swordfish have now been read and digested. Here's a summary:
Schofield, B. B. (Vice-Admiral) The Attack on Taranto. 1973
This is the best book on Taranto of the three 'dedicated' books, the other two being Smithers' Taranto 1940 and Lowry & Wellham The Attack on Taranto. I say 'best' advisedly as there is almost no 'new' material in this book not covered elsewhere (with the exception of a new first hand recollection by M.R. Maund, pilot of E4F). There is a very good chapter on the subsequent bombing of the HMS Illustrious by Stukas in January. For modelers, there is no new information and the photos have all been published elsewhere.
Hurren, B.J. The "Swordfish" Saga. 1946.
You'll be hard-pressed to find this book though it offers nothing new on the Swordfish for modelers. As it was written immediately post-war, it still has traces of military censorship plus of course, a wee too much Swordfish hagiography. It did have a couple of interesting photos that I include below (ones I had not seen in any other Swordfish book and I sure have read a lot of them now)
Wellham, John. With Naval Wings. 1995.
You can think of this as a companion to To War in a Stringbag by Charles Lamb. Wellham was also a pilot at Taranto and survived the war. This is a story of all of his wartime exploits from pre-war training to the Mediterranean to Eritrea, South Atlantic, escort carriers, adn finally the Far East. Nothing of specific interest to modeling but an entertaining and well-written account of being in the FAA. This book is available at Amazon UK here for a reasonable price.
As neither Wellham nor Lamb ever remarked on their Taranto planes being altered with a black paint scheme as suggested by Aeromaster Decals, I remain skeptical that the Taranto planes were altered from normal camouflage for the mission. Nor do either ever mention this for other night raids such as launched over Libya in 1940/41.
Brown, Eric (Captain). Wings of the Navy. Flying Allied Carrier Aircraft of World War II. 1980.
For modelers, this is the best of the bunch by far. Brown acted as an evaluator of aircraft used by the FAA or considered for use by the FAA during the War. As such, he flew each of the planes listed below. The book has a chapter on each plane and includes his personal experiences, some technical details, and (the most interesting to you guys), a two page exploded view of the plane with every bit named plus the same for the cockpit view with every bit named. I included these for the Swordfish at the bottom of this post.
The book is mostly a collection of separately published articles from AIR International so you may already have seen these elsewhere (I had not).The book is available used from Amazon UK here.
The chapters (with equivalent drawings as posted below) are:
- Fairey Swordfish
- Vought Chesapeake
- Blackburn Skua and Roc
- Grumman Wildcat
- Douglas Dauntless
- Fairey Albacore
- Fairey Fulmar
- Vought Corsair
- Curtiss Helldiver
- Fairey Barracuda
- Hawker Sea Hurricane
- Grumman Avenger
- Supermarine Seafire
- Fairey Firefly
- Blackburn Firebrand
- Grumman Hellcat
Here are the pictures - starting with torpedo dollies for Aaron:
Deck landing sequence taken from a wartime movie:
Exploded views of Swordfish Mk II
