IBCC Lecture & Supper Series – To Force the Enemy Off the Sea

Find out how the introduction of Coastal Command’s new ‘Strike Wings’, dramatically changed the anti-shipping campaign from early 1943 onwards. Discover the way this important and hard-fought, but little-known, offensive was successfully conducted.

After three years of war, heavily armed German shipping convoys were still sailing down the North Sea into Rotterdam, carrying supplies of high-grade Swedish iron ore destined for the armaments factories of the Ruhr. With great courage the “Cinderella Boys” of RAF Coastal Command had attempted to curtail this enemy supply line, with limited success and incurring heavy losses.

North Coates was the first unit to be equipped with the tough and versatile Bristol Beaufighter, and manned by specially trained aircrew using new tactics, developed to overwhelm the enemy convoys’ defences. Using cannon, rockets and torpedoes in carefully planned and co-ordinated attacks, the Wing succeeded in closing the sea route to Rotterdam and so ‘forcing the enemy off the sea’. 241 Beaufighter crew from North Coates were lost but over 150,000 tonnes of enemy shipping was sunk.

Referencing original sources and using battle photographs, maps and diagrams, the lecture explains why the Wing, comprising Nos. 236, 254 and 143 Squadrons, was formed and how its tactics were developed and executed, describing in detail some of its major ‘Wing Strikes’ and other operations. It also looks at the diverse backgrounds, careers and character of the participants, and their wartime life on the North Coates station.

Finally, the effectiveness of Coastal Command’s Strike Wings anti-shipping campaign is assessed generally and the lecture questions whether a larger, earlier and more extensive deployment of its Strike Wings might have led to a more rapid degradation of Germany’s industrial capability.

The evening starts with a delicious hot supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.