HISTORY

drop the bombs on any target they could come

across. Once they started to run out of fuel, they

turned to their return path. They themselves

became the target of the airships they were

supposed to attack. Only two aircraft reached

their mother ships. Oly by a miracle none of the

pilots perished even though two of them were

shortly interned in the neutral Netherlands.

One of the aircraft that landed in Denmark after a successful raid on the Tondern base.

the raid, but one had to drop out and there was

no time to train his replacement. Mission F.6

was launched in the morning of June 27, 1918,

however, when two days later the formation

rendezvoused with the support group, the

mission had to be aborted due to the strong

winds. The second attempt was code-named F.7

and was launched on June 17 when HMS Furious

set sails again escorted by destroyers. In the

morning of June 18, at 03:04 am, there were

seven Sopwith 2F.1 Camels ready on the HMS

Furious deck when the storm struck. Instead

of aborting the mission again it was decided to

postpone it for 24 hours and HMS Furious, with

her escort, waited out the storm by cruising near

the Danish coast till the morning of June 19. The

Photo: Van A. Swindelle Collection

The short platform mounted on the gun

turrets were of course only suitable for takeoff and if there was no ground base within

reach the pilot’s only option was to land on

water. Then he and his airplane were retrieved.

The ship concept allowing to land and take off

again dated back to 1912 experiments. The ship

featured the take off platform on the bow and

the landing one on the stern. In March 1918,

the armored cruiser HMS Furious, properly

modified, and prepared, was chosen for the

trials.

There were three hangars at Tondern base

which names started with the letters TO, i.e.

Tobias, Tonia and Tosca. When HMS Furious

entered the service, the Admiralty immediately

came up with the idea of how to test her in

combat. The plan for the attack on Tondern was

code-named Operation F.6 and copies of the

Tondern hangars were built at the Turnhouse

airfield. Initially eight pilots were chosen for

Photo: archive

Tondern and HMS Furious

Squadron Commander Edwing H. Dunning flying Sopwith Pup is performing the first successful landing on the HMS Furious deck on August 2, 1917, during the trials in Scapa

Flow. The ship was sailing at 26 knots with 21 knots headwind. That provided 87 kph headwind speed on the deck therefore the airplane flew at very low speed relative to the

deck. Five days later, during the third attempt to land, Dunning crashed into the sea and perished.

18

INFO Eduard

July 2023