Swordfish Torpedo Attack on Bismarck

Swordfish pilot Sub Lieutenant John Moffett recalls in his memoir his torpedo run on Bismar. The Germans in their big battleship were trying to kill me and it was not pleasant. I continued to drop height with Bismar blooming bigger. Some of her guns flashing from amid ships with vivid orange flames now aimed at us. The big explosions that had blown us about did not follow us down to this height. But the smaller cannon and machine gun fire with their red tracer bullets were coming towards us in a torrent. As he gets closer to Bismar, Moffad hears his observer, temporary subleutenant JD Dusty Miller, shouting into his ear, "Not yet. Not yet." And I thought, "Has he gone mad? What is he doing?" Miller is leaning out of the cockpit to make sure that Moffett does not fire the torpedo into the crest of a wave from which it may be knocked off course. Moffett continues, "We were getting closer and closer. The ship was getting bigger and bigger and I thought, bloody hell, what are you waiting for?" Then he said, "Let her go, John." And I pressed the button on the throttle. Dusty yelled, "I think we have got a runner.