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The Channel Dash (, Operation Cerberus) was a German naval operation during the Second World War. A Kriegsmarine (German Navy) squadron comprising two s, and , the heavy cruiser and their escorts was evacuated from Brest in Brittany to German ports. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had arrived in Brest on 22 March 1941 after the success of Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. More raids were planned and the ships were refitted at Brest. The ships were a threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys and RAF Bomber Command attacked them from 30 March 1941. Gneisenau was hit on 6 April 1941 and Scharnhorst on 24 July 1941, after dispersal to La Pallice. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM; German Navy High Command) to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases in case of a British invasion of Norway. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around the British Isles for surprise and air cover by the Luftwaffe and on 12 January 1942, Hitler gave orders for the operation.
The British exploited decrypts of German radio messages coded with the Enigma machine, air reconnaissance by the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) and agents in France to watch the ships and report the damage caused by the bombing. Operation Fuller, a joint Royal Navy–RAF contingency plan, was devised to counter a sortie by the German ships against Atlantic convoys, a return to German ports by circumnavigating the British Isles, or a dash up the English Channel. The Royal Navy had to keep ships at Scapa Flow in Scotland in case of a sortie by the from Norway. The RAF had sent squadrons from Bomber and Coastal commands overseas and kept torpedo bombers in Scotland ready for Tirpitz, which limited the number of aircraft available against a dash up the Channel, as did the winter weather which reduced visibility and blocked airfields with snow.
On 11 February 1942, the ships left Brest at (German time) and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery. The Luftwaffe provided air cover in Unternehmen Donnerkeil (Operation Thunderbolt) and as the ships neared Dover, the British belatedly responded. Attacks by the RAF, Fleet Air Arm, Navy and bombardments by coastal artillery were costly failures but Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines in the North Sea ( Scharnhorst was out of action for a year). By 13 February, the ships had reached German ports; Winston Churchill ordered an inquiry into the débâcle, and The Times denounced the British fiasco. The Kriegsmarine judged the operation a tactical success and a strategic failure because the threat to Atlantic convoys had been sacrificed for a hypothetical threat to Norway. On 23 February, Prinz Eugen was torpedoed off Norway and after being repaired, spent the rest of the war in the Baltic. Gneisenau went into dry dock and was bombed on the night of never to sail again; Scharnhorst was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943.
Three Beauforts carried bombs to damage the torpedo nets that were presumed to protect the ship and three carried torpedoes. Two of the bombers bogged when taxiing for take-off and the third never found Brest in the thick weather. Two of the torpedo-bombers arrived off Brest, where they were to wait until the nets had been bombed. As dawn arrived the Beaufort flown by Kenneth Campbell attacked and dropped the torpedo as they passed over the mole giving it the maximum distance to arm on its run to its target. There were no torpedo nets and Gneisenau was hit on the starboard side near the after turret; the Beaufort was shot down, killing all on board. The damage to Gneisenau was severe, affecting the starboard propeller shaft bearings and shaft tunnel, causing flooding where the explosion destroyed the watertight integrity of . Fuel and seawater got into some important compartments and some equipment suffered shock damage. A salvage tug was needed to assist in getting the flooding under control.
Gneisenau went back into dry dock; on the night of was hit by four bombs and had two near misses. One of the hits did not explode but the others killed 75 crewmen, jammed 'B' turret and distorted the armoured deck near it, made about a third of the crew quarters uninhabitable by fire and blast damage, destroyed the kitchens and bakery and affected some gunnery control systems. The damage to Gneisenau led the Seekriegsleitung (SKL) to raise the question of the suitability of Brest for heavy surface units; Raeder disagreed and wanted more air defences instead. Scharnhorst was not damaged but the bomb hits on the docks delayed its refit, which included a substantial overhaul of its machinery; the boiler superheater tubes had a manufacturing defect that had plagued the ship throughout Operation Berlin. Repairs had been expected to take ten weeks but delays, exacerbated by British mine laying in the vicinity, caused them to miss Unternehmen Rheinübung (Operation Rhine Exercise). The sortie by and Prinz Eugen into the North Atlantic went ahead and Bismarck was sunk; Prinz Eugen returned to Brest on 1 June. Hitler ordered that capital ships must operate with much greater caution, that severely limited the freedom of action of the German surface fleet.
During the summer the new RAF attacked Gneisenau, Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst. Prinz Eugen was hit on the night of and put out of action. The sailing on 21 July of Scharnhorst to La Pallice forestalled a surprise attack by Bomber Command. Scharnhorst was attacked by six Short Stirling bombers on the evening of 23 July and German fighters shot down one bomber. The attack on Brest took place in daylight on 24 July, with a loss of La Pallice was bombed again by fifteen Halifaxes. The formation was met by and anti-aircraft fire (FlaK) five bombers being shot down, five seriously damaged and Scharnhorst hit five times. While returning to Brest containing of seawater, Scharnhorst was attacked by a Beaufort but shot it down before it could drop its torpedo. By late July 1941, the bombing left the three large ships in Brest undergoing extensive repairs. Lützow had been seriously damaged by a torpedo on 13 June; Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper were undergoing maintenance in German shipyards, was still working up and Bismarck had been sunk. British code breakers had contributed to the destruction of the German supply-ship network in the Atlantic that supported surface ship actions against Allied convoys.
From 28 March to the end of July, of bombs were dropped in Bomber Command, which also sent sorties, with another Coastal Command, laying off Brest; the British lost three being mine layers. For the next two months, Bomber Command made frequent small attacks, then attacked on the night of followed by on the night of Frequent small attacks were resumed and about were flown from July to December. At the start of the month, the Brest Group was made the Bomber Command priority again and from 11 December, bombing and mine laying took place nightly. When Prinz Eugen was found out of dry dock on 16 December, a attack was made on the night of followed by a day operation by bombers on the afternoon of 18 December, escorted by ten fighter squadrons. Gneisenau was slightly damaged and dock gates were smashed, stranding Scharnhorst for a month, for the loss of six bombers. Attacks continued all month and another day raid by Halifaxes was made on 30 December. From 1 August to 31 December, of high explosive and of incendiaries were dropped, eleven heavy bombers were shot down and considerable damage was inflicted on the docks and the town but none of the ships were hit again. Gneisenau was damaged on the evening of 6 January; 37 per cent of Bomber Command sorties between 10 December and 20 January 1942 were flown against the ships at Brest.
From 16 to 23 December, Enigma decrypts showed that the gunners of the ships were on the Baltic, conducting gunnery training. Next day, the Admiralty warned that an attempt to break out was likely. On 25 January 1942, the ships were photographed in the harbour and two short periods in dry dock by two ships were seen. From the end of January to early February, torpedo boats, minesweepers and destroyers joined the big ships; together with news that the battleship Tirpitz in Norway had moved to the south, this led the Admiralty to issue an appreciation on 2 February that the three ships were going to attempt to sail up the channel and sent the signal Executive Fuller, the order to begin the operation to prevent the German Fleet from breaking into the North Atlantic. Next day Enigma and RAF photographic reconnaissance (PR) found that the number of German ship reinforcements from Brest to the Hook of Holland had risen to seven destroyers, ten torpedo-boats, more than and many smaller craft.
Hitler noted that the ships at Brest had diverted British bombing from Germany but that the advantage would end as soon as the ships were sufficiently damaged. Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax outlined a plan for a standing start at night to gain surprise and to pass the Strait of Dover, wide and the narrowest part of the Channel, during the day, to benefit from fighter cover at the danger point. The Luftwaffe refused to guarantee that the available could protect the ships but Hitler accepted the plan. Hitler ordered that the battleship Tirpitz, already in Norway, was to be moved south to Trondheim. At a conference on 22 January, Hitler announced that all ships and U-boats should assemble for the defence of Norway and on 25 January, Vizeadmiral Karl Dönitz (Befehlshaber der U-Boote BdU, Commander of Submarines) was ordered to withdraw eight submarines to patrol off Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland. Despite protests from Dönitz, another twelve U-boats were reserved for Norway, along with the surface ships being concentrated in Norwegian waters.
Air cover was to be provided by the Luftwaffe and six destroyers would escort the Brest Group on the first leg, to be joined by ten E-boats at dawn; a mixture of E-boats, and small craft would join at Cap Gris Nez. During January, the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe rehearsed for the operation but the ships had lost seaworthiness and many technicians and experts had been transferred from Brest to more pressing duties. By 9 February, the ships had completed their trials in Brest roads and the sortie was set for 11 February. Morale of the crews was high, no sabotage had occurred at Brest and the crews went ashore freely. Among locals there was no doubt that the ships were preparing to depart and as a deception, tropical helmets were brought on board, French dock workers loaded oil barrels marked "For Use in the Tropics" and false rumours were spread around town.
The convoy route was divided into three sectors using the Jafü (Fighter Sector) boundaries but to ensure local control Max Ibel, the former commander of Jagdgeschwader 27 (Fighter Group 27) was appointed Jagdfliegerführer Schiff (Jafü Schiff, Fighter Controller: Ship) and embarked on Scharnhorst as a signals officer to communicate with Luftwaffe units during the operation. Eight rehearsals, involving around were made from 22 January to 10 February. The Jagdgeschwader (day fighter wings) and the night fighters of Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 (Night Fighter Wing 1), were swiftly to prepare aircraft for the next sortie by rearming and refuelling in no more than thirty minutes. Galland decided that the aircraft should fly high and low cover, the low groups flying under British coastal radar. A standing patrol of least was to be maintained, in two formations of eight aircraft for their patrol altitudes, with each formation in two Schwärme of four aircraft. One Schwarm was to fly out to sea and one towards land in a zigzag and all Schwärme were to fly back and forth along the line of ships in wide figures of eight, in radio silence. Every sortie was timed to allow the fighters over the ships, just enough time for relieved units to refuel, rearm and return. During Donnerkeil, the relieving sortie arrived after only 20 minutes which meant that fighter cover for half the dash would be
As the German ships moved beyond the Straits of Dover, six Harwich-based destroyers of the Nore Command would make torpedo attacks and the RAF would continue bombing and also lay mines in the paths of the ships. Bomber Command intended to have at four hours' notice (about of its operational strength), by reserving around from each group. Of the other half would continue operations against Germany and the rest would be preparing for operations next day. The aircraft reserved for Fuller were rotated and weather permitting, bomb Brest. Fighter Command would escort the torpedo-bombers with fighters from 10 Group in the south-west and the squadrons of 11 Group in the south-east. Each service arm had exchanged liaison officers at headquarters and operations rooms but did not use a common communications system.
The six operational Swordfish torpedo-bombers of 825 Squadron FAA (Lieutenant-Commander Eugene Esmonde) were moved from RNAS Lee-on-Solent to RAF Manston in Kent, closer to Dover. The RAF alerted its forces involved in Operation Fuller to indefinite readiness and on 3 February, 19 Group, Coastal Command began night reconnaissance patrols by Air to Surface Vessel Mk II radar (ASV) equipped , supposedly able to detect ships at range. Patrol line Stopper was already being flown off Brest and Line South East from Ushant to the Île-de-Bréhat and Habo from Le Havre to Boulogne began. Coastal Command had three Beaufort torpedo-bomber squadrons in Britain, 42 Squadron at Leuchars Station in Scotland, of 86 Squadron and 217 Squadron in Cornwall and seven 217 Squadron aircraft at Thorney Island (Portsmouth). Two days later, Enigma showed that Ciliax had joined Scharnhorst and with the recent exercises, led the Admiralty to predict an impending departure. On 8 February, in a break in the weather, PR found that the ships were still in harbour, Scharnhorst was in dock and that another two destroyers had arrived.
Air Chief Marshal Philip Joubert de la Ferté, the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) Coastal Command, sent an appreciation to Fighter and Bomber commands, that a sortie could be expected any time after 10 February. The Coastal Command groups were alerted and 42 Squadron was ordered to fly its south to Norfolk (the move was delayed until next day by snow on the airfields in East Anglia). Air Vice Marshal Jack Baldwin, AOC Bomber Command, stood down half of its bombers and reduced the other from four to two hours' notice, without informing the Admiralty. On 11 February, Sealion moved towards Brest on the afternoon tide, found nothing and returned at to re-charge batteries, ready for another try the next day. The German ships had been scheduled to depart Brest at but were delayed by a Bomber Command raid, which had been ordered after photo-reconnaissance had found the ships still in harbour with deployed at For the previous week, Enigma had been providing information that the Germans were minesweeping on a route that made a dash up the Channel a certainty and with reference to captured charts gave away the German route, which was passed on by the Admiralty at on 12 February. (The daily naval Enigma Home Waters settings for took Bletchley Park until 15 February to break.)
Patrol Stopper, near Brest, was being flown by an ASV Hudson from 224 Squadron when the Brest Group began assembling outside the port. At the patrol height of the ASV had a range of about but the Hudson was flying south-west as the ships turned towards Ushant and received no contact. The last eight minutes of the next Stopper sortie came within about of the ships but received no contact on the radar.
Line South East ran past Ushant to the vicinity of Jersey, to find a sortie from Brest which had turned up the Channel. The Brest Group crossed Line South East at on 12 February, but the Hudson patrol was not there, having been ordered to return when its ASV failed. Joubert was short of aircraft and sent no replacement, also because Stopper had reported nothing untoward and if the Brest Group had sailed before Stopper began, it would already have passed Line South East. Habo, the third patrol line, from Cherbourg to Boulogne-sur-Mer was conducted as usual, until a dawn fog was forecast over British airfields and the aircraft was called back at when the Brest Group was still west of the line.
News of the sighting was rushed to 11 Group and the Navy at Dover by (One pilot then mentioned a big ship and a certain sighting was received as he was being Debriefing.) By coincidence, two senior fighter pilots from RAF Kenley had decided to fly an intruder mission to the French coast at while the other pilots were grounded due to the bad weather. The pair spotted two Messerschmitt Bf 109s (Bf 109) and attacked, then found themselves over a German flotilla of two big ships, a destroyer screen and an outer ring of E-boats. The Spitfires were dived on by about fighters and escaped through anti-aircraft fire from the ships, Strafing an E-boat and made off at wave-top height. After they landed at the pilots reported that the German ships had been off Le Touquet at by the alarm had been raised that the Brest Group was entering the Straits of Dover with air cover.
At Bomber Command had been alerted that the Brest Group was near Dover and warned the groups to be ready. Including aircraft that had flown the night before and those at four hours' notice, Air Marshal Richard Peirse had about but the on two hours' notice had been loaded with semi-armour-piercing bombs which were effective only if dropped from or higher. Visibility was poor with rain and to cover, down to and unless there were breaks in the cloud just when needed the task was impossible. Peirse ordered general-purpose bombs to be loaded, which could only cause superficial blast damage and attacks at low altitude, in the hope that the attacks would distract the Brest Group as Coastal Command and the Navy made torpedo attacks.
At the Dover guns fired their first salvo but with visibility down to , there could be no observation of the Indirect fire. The gunners hoped that the radar would detect the shell splashes and allow corrections to be made, although this method had never been tried before. "Blips" on the K-set clearly showed the ships zig-zagging but not where the shells were landing. Full battery salvo firing began and the four 9.2-inch guns fired at the German ships, which were moving out of range at and all missed. German sources state that the fleet had already passed Dover when the coastal artillery opened fire and that the shells landed well astern of the major German units. The coastal guns ceased fire when light naval forces and torpedo-bombers began to attack and by the German ships passed beyond the effective range of the British radar.
The five operational Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) based at Dover left harbour at and sighted the German warships at The RAF fighter cover for this attack was not airborne in time, one MTB had engine-trouble and the rest found their approach blocked by twelve E-boats in two lines. The defective MTB fired torpedoes at the extreme range of before returning to Dover; the rest were not able to get much closer and torpedoed through the gap between the E-boat lines, mistakenly claiming a hit on Prinz Eugen. Two motor gun boats (MGBs) arrived from Dover in time to defend the last MTB from a German Narvik-class destroyer. Two more MTBs had left Ramsgate at but approached from too far astern of the German squadron and were unable to get into a position to attack before deteriorating weather and engine problems forced them to turn back.
Several Whirlwind fighters on a routine patrol were intercepted by the fighter screen at The seven Beauforts at Thorney Island were closest to the Brest Group when it was sighted. Two Beauforts had been bombed up and one went unserviceable, before the other four took off at The four Beauforts were late to meet their fighter escorts at Manston and the torpedo-bombers and fighters were ordered independently to the German ships. The position, course and speed of the Brest Group was given by voice (radiotelephone) to the Spitfires and Morse (W/T) to the Beauforts. The torpedo-bombers failed to receive the orders, because 16 Group forgot that they had been fitted with R/T for Operation Fuller. When the Beauforts reached Manston they circled with numerous fighters which appeared to ignore them. Two Beauforts flew to the French coast, found nothing and landed at Manston where the confusion was resolved. The other two aircraft had already landed at Manston, where the crews found out what was going on and set off for the Belgian coast, arriving at (when the Nore Command destroyers were attacking). Both bombers flew through the German flak and attacked Prinz Eugen, dropping their torpedoes at , to no effect.
The 42 Squadron Beauforts from Scotland had to divert to RAF Coltishall in Norfolk because of snow but the torpedoes to be loaded were over 100 miles away at RAF North Coates in Lincolnshire and came by road too late. Nine of the aircraft had flown south with torpedoes on and took off at leaving the other four behind to rendezvous with their fighter escorts and several Hudsons, intended to create a diversion. The Beauforts reached Manston at and tried to formate behind the Hudsons, which did the same thing; attempts to get the fighters to join the formation also failed. The Beaufort crews had been briefed that they would be escorted all the way, the fighters that they were to cover the Dover Strait in general and the aircraft circled Manston for thirty minutes, each formation under the impression that another one was leading. The Beaufort commander then set off, using the position of the Brest Group given at Coltishall and six Hudsons followed, the other five circling and waiting for the fighters, before giving up and landing at
The Beauforts and Hudsons flew towards the Dutch coast and lost touch in the cloud and rain but the Hudsons made ASV contact and attacked the ships, two being shot down for no result. Six of the Beauforts then attacked through the flak and released their torpedoes, also with no effect. (The other three Beauforts had already attacked, possibly against British destroyers.) The two 217 Squadron Beauforts that had flown earlier had reached Manston, set off again independently and made ASV contact, attacking Scharnhorst at The remaining Beauforts at St Eval in Cornwall had been sent to Thorney Island, arriving at to refuel and be briefed to link with fighters at Coltishall in East Anglia, where they arrived at to find no escorts waiting. The Beauforts pressed on to a position sent by wireless and at as dark fell, with visibility down to and the cloud base at only saw four German minesweepers. One bomber attacked a "big ship" but flak damage jammed the torpedo and as night fell around the rest turned for Coltishall; two Beauforts were lost to flak or the weather.
The destroyers , of the 21st Flotilla and , , and of the 16th Flotilla (Captain Charles Pizey), from Nore Command were First World War-vintage and usually escorted east coast convoys. The ships were practising gunnery off Orford Ness in the North Sea when alerted at The destroyers sailed south to intercept the Brest Group but it steamed much faster than expected and to catch up, Pizey took the destroyers over a German minefield. At just before the destroyers attacked, north of the Scheldt Estuary, Scharnhorst had hit a mine and was stopped for a short time, before resuming at about . At the destroyers made radar contact at and visual contact at at Walpole had already dropped out with engine trouble; as the other five emerged from the murk, they were immediately engaged by the German ships. The destroyers pressed on to and two destroyers fired torpedoes; Worcester closed further and was hit by return fire from Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen, then the last two destroyers attacked but all their torpedoes missed.
OKM called Cerberus a tactical victory and a strategic defeat. In 2012, Ken Ford wrote that the German ships had exchanged one prison for another and that Bomber Command raids from terminally damaged Gneisenau. Operation Fuller had failed, a British destroyer had been severely damaged and had been lost in fighter, and Command sorties.
British public opinion was appalled and British prestige suffered at home and abroad. A leading article in The Times read,
In 1955, Hans Dieter Berenbrok, a former Kriegsmarine officer, writing under the pseudonym Cajus Bekker, judged the operation a necessity and a success. He quoted Raeder "…we are all convinced we cannot leave the ships in Brest any longer". Raeder wrote that the operation was necessary because of a lack of training opportunities for the crews, lack of battle experience and the general situation made raiding operations in the "old pattern out of the question". According to Bekker, Hitler and Raeder shared the conviction that if the ships remained in Brest that they would eventually be disabled by British air raids.
Stephen Roskill, the British naval official historian, wrote in 1956 that the German verdict was accurate. Hitler had exchanged the threat to British Atlantic convoys for a defensive deployment near Norway against a threat that never materialised. Roskill wrote that the British had misjudged the time of day when the German ships would sail but this mistake was less influential than the circumstantial failures of Coastal Command reconnaissance to detect the ships which had been at sea for four of them after dawn had broken, before the alarm was raised. Churchill ordered a Board of Enquiry (under Sir Alfred Bucknill), which criticised Coastal Command for failing to ensure that a dawn reconnaissance was flown to compensate for the problems of the night patrols off Brest and from Ushant to the Isle de Bréhat. The inquiry also held that there should have been more suspicion of the German radar jamming on the morning of 12 February and that involving Bomber Command in an operation for which it was untrained was a mistake.
The board found that the delay in detecting the German ships led to the British attacks being made piecemeal, against formidable German defensive arrangements and that the few aircraft and ships that found the group were "cut to pieces". In 2012, Ken Ford wrote that the inquiry was, perforce, a whitewash, blaming instrument failures rather than incompetence but the report was still kept secret until 1946. In 1991, John Buckley wrote that the ASV Hudsons had been forbidden to use flares off Brest, because of the presence of Sealion and that one of the technical faults to an ASV could have been repaired, had the operator carried out a fuse check properly. Joubert was criticised for complacency, in not sending replacement sorties, despite his earlier warning that the Brest Group was about to sail, because of the assumption in Operation Fuller since 6 April 1941, that a day sailing was certain,
The Dash exposed many failings in RAF planning, that only three torpedo-bomber squadrons with were in Britain, that training had been limited by the lack of torpedoes and the example of Japanese tactics had been ignored. The effectiveness of Bomber Command against moving ships was shown to be negligible and the failure to ensure unity of command before Operation Fuller began, led to piecemeal attacks using unsuitable tactics.
R. V. Jones, Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science) at the Air Ministry during the war, wrote in his memoir, that for several days, army radar stations on the south coast had been jammed. Lieutenant-Colonel Wallace, a member of the army Radar Interception Unit, had reported this through the chain of command. On 11 February, Wallace had called for Jones to assist him in bringing attention to the German radar jamming. A gradual increase in the jamming had misled most operators to its intensity. Martini had unobtrusively made the British radar cover "almost useless". Jones quoted Francis Bacon,
and included an anecdote of the chain of command breaking down under the shock of the Brest Group sailing so far up the Channel undiscovered. were said to have sat on each other's desks, thinking of pilots they could telephone to find the ships; even after the Brest Group had been found, contact was lost several times. In 1955, Jones met Captain Giessler, the Navigating Officer on Scharnhorst, who said that the worst time in the operation was the thirty minutes that Scharnhorst was stationary, after hitting a mine just beyond Dover; in the low cloud none of the British aircraft found them. In the Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force (1994) Brereton Greenhous et al. wrote that the Canadian 401 Squadron had been sent "to intervene in a battle between German E-boats and British MTBs"; 404 Squadron was ordered
and 411 Squadron had been ordered on an "E-boat search". "The 'Channel block' had failed ignominiously".
In the German semi-official history Germany in the Second World War (2001), Werner Rahn wrote that the operation was a tactical success but that this could not disguise the fact of a strategic withdrawal. Brest was a location from which the Kriegsmarine had anticipated much success, especially after the Japanese entry into the war had diverted Allied resources to the Pacific, creating new opportunities for offensive action in the Atlantic. Rahn also noted that some members of the German Naval War Staff took the view that German war potential had reached its limit and that
In 2018, Craig Symonds wrote of the futility of keeping heavy units in Brest,
Scharnhorst later joined Tirpitz in Norwegian waters as a threat to Allied Arctic convoys of World War II supplying the USSR.
On 10 February 2017, at the Fleet Air Arm memorial church at RNAS Yeovilton (HMS Heron), a ceremony and flypast by four Wildcat HMA2 helicopters of 825 Naval Air Squadron was conducted, marking the 75th anniversary of Lieutenant-Commander Esmonde and 825 Naval Air Squadron's attack.
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