Katyushas – The Rocket Launcher Germany Captured But Couldn’t Build

Summer 1940.

Atlantic convoy routes west of Ireland.

Faulkwolf Condors fly in from Bordeaux.

Four engines droning, bomb racks loaded.

Crews scanning the sea for columns of merchant ships.

They find convoy after convoy with no fighter protection.

The Condors drop to 150 ft, release their bombs in low-level passes, and climb away unchallenged.

Nobody can touch them.

In January 1941 alone, condors sink 17 ships.

Churchill calls the FW200 the scourge of the Atlantic.

The Admiral T needs a fighter over mid- ocean convoys immediately.

No escort carriers exist.

No longrange patrol aircraft are available.

Someone proposes bolting a catapult to the bow of a cargo ship and launching a hurricane into the sky.

One time, no landing gear, no flight deck, no way back.

The pilot fights, then ditches in the North Atlantic and hopes someone fishes him out before hypothermia kills him.

Naval experts call it suicidal.

They build it anyway.

Within months, Condor pilots refused to attack any convoy carrying a catapult ship.

The idea that should not have worked became the weapon the Luftwaffer feared most.

To understand why Britain resorted to something this desperate, you need to understand the Condor.

The FW200 started life as a civilian airliner designed by Kurt Tank in 1936 for Deutsche Lufanza.

In August 1938, a Condor flew non-stop from Berlin to New York.

It was elegant, long-ranged, and structurally fragile.

When the Luftvafa converted it into a maritime bomber, the civilian airframe cracked under combat stress.

At least eight Condors broke their fuselages in half during hard landings.

But none of that mattered in 1940 because what the Condor had was range.

3,560 km, roughly 14 hours of endurance, enough to sweep the entire Mid-Atlantic where no Allied fighter could follow.

The principal wartime variant, the FW 200C3, carried four BMW Brammo 323R, two radial engines producing, 1200 horsepower each.

Maximum speed 360 km/h at altitude.

Bomb load up to 2100 kg on external racks beneath the wings.

Its typical mission was a giant ark.

Depart Bordeaux at dawn, sweep southwest over Bisque, turn northwest, scanning for convoys, then curve north to land at Tronheim in Norway.

Return 2 days later along the reverse route.

Between August 1940 and February 1941, Condors claimed approximately 30 65,000 tons of Allied shipping sunk.

The devastation was specific and documented.

On October 26th, 1940, Oberloidant Bernard Yope attacked the RMS Empress of Britain, 42,348 gross register tons, the largest liner serving as a troop ship.

His bomb set her ablaze 70 mi northwest of Ireland.

2 days later, U32 finished her with torpedoes.

She remains the largest ship lost by Britain in the war.

In February 1941, convoy HG53 lost five ships to Condor bombing in a single day 400 m southwest of Lisbon.

Combined with Yubot attacks, nine of 21 ships in that convoy were destroyed.

The root of the problem was geography.

Allied aircraft could provide air cover only within range of bases in Britain, Iceland, and Newfoundland.

This left a gap in the Mid-Atlantic roughly 300 m wide and 500 m long.

Sailors called it the black pit.

Coastal command in 1940 and41 was desperately underequipped.

Short Sunderlands and Catalinas had decent range but still could not close the gap.

The aircraft that could, the consolidated B24 Liberator in its very long range configuration was hoarded by bomber command for strategic bombing.

Proper escort carriers did not yet exist.

HMS Audacity the first entered service in September 1941 and promptly shot down seven condors in three convoy escorts, proving the concept.

But she was torpedoed and sunk in December 1941 and mass production of Americanbuilt escort carriers would not deliver meaningful numbers until mid 1943.

The Admiral Ty could not wait 2 years.

On December 27, 1940, Churchill wrote to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound demanding an answer.

What had been done about catapulting expendable aircraft from ships? 3 days later, on December the 30, 1940, the decision was taken in principle to fit merchant vessels with catapults carrying expendable fighters.

Churchill’s Battle of the Atlantic directive of March 6th, 1941 made it an order.

Extreme priority proposals within a week.

The answer came in two parallel programs.

Fighter catapult ships were five vessels commissioned as Royal Navy warships crewed by Navy sailors with fleet airarm pilots from 804 Naval Air Squadron.

They carried no cargo and served purely as escorts, but their numbers were tiny and two were sunk before the program matured.

The far larger effort was the CAM ship proper.

CAM stood for catapult aircraft merchant man.

35 ordinary cargo vessels continuing to carry normal cargos under the red enen each fitted with a single rocket propelled catapult on the bow.

Their fighters were crewed not by the fleet airarm but by the merchant ship fighter unit an RAF formation established on May 5, 1941 at RAF Speak, now Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

MSFU personnel signed ships articles as civilian crew under the authority of the merchant navy master.

RAF men technically becoming temporary members of the merchant navy.

Each ship’s aviation detachment was tiny.

One pilot, one engine fitter, one airframe rigger, one radio operator, one fighter direction officer from the Royal Navy, and one catapult electrician.

The catapult itself was an approximately 85 ft rocket propelled rail mounted on the forastel.

18 3-in rockets accelerated a trolley carrying the aircraft from standstill to approximately 70 knots in under 3 seconds.

The pilot experienced an estimated 3 to 3 1/2 g.

He applied 30° of flap, opened full throttle, pressed his head into a reinforced headrest, and lowered his left hand as the signal to fire.

The duty officer counted to three, waited for the bow to rise from a wave trough, and hit the firing switch.

The aircraft was the Hawker C Hurricane Mark 1A, universally nicknamed the Huracat.

Approximately 250 standard Huracan Mark 1’s were converted by General Aircraft Limited at Hanworth.

Many airframes were near obsolete Battle of Britain Veterans.

Engine: Rolls-Royce Merlin 3 1030 horsepower.

Maximum speed 317 mph at 15,000 ft.

Armament 8.303 in Browning machine guns.

Range 505 miles, modest by 1941 standards, but enough to shred a Condor.

Here was the feature that made cam ship duty uniquely terrifying.

After the catapult fired, the pilot had no way to land back aboard.

No flight deck, no arresttor gear, just a standard cargo ship with a singleuse launch rail.

Every operational sorty was a one-way mission.

The pilot’s options after combat were bail out by parachute near an escort vessel, ditch the hurricane on the water, or fly to land if an airfield happened to be within fuel range.

On Arctic convoys, North Atlantic water temperatures of 0 to 4° C made rescue a race against death.

Hypothermia could kill in 30 to 90 minutes.

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The combat record of CAM ships spans eight verified launches.

Every single one resulted in either a confirmed kill or the enemy being driven off.

Not one launch failed to achieve its objective.

The first cam ship combat launch came on November 1, 1941.

Flying officer George Wallace Vley launched from SS Empire Foam during convoy HX 156.

An FW200 dived to wavetop level and fled when it saw the rocket flash.

Vi chased into cloud but lost contact.

Patrolled for an hour and 40 minutes, then bailed out and was recovered by HMS Broke.

The Condor was driven off without pressing its attack.

The program’s most dramatic sequence came in May 1942 on Arctic convoy PQ16.

Pilot officer Alistister Haye, a South African, launched from SS Empire Lawrence into a mass attack by Hankls and Junas.

He destroyed one H111 and damaged another before a shell penetrated his cockpit.

Later confirmed as friendly fire from a trigger-happy American gunner on a nearby freighter.

Wounded with a bullet in his thigh, Hay bailed out.

His dinghy was punctured.

He was rescued by HMS Volunteer within 6 minutes.

A signal went to Empire Lawrence.

Your pilot is safe.

He’s having a bullet removed from his thigh.

Empire Lawrence herself was sunk in the same attack.

Hey received the distinguished flying cross in September 1942 during the heavily escorted convoy PQ18.

Flying officer Burr launched from SS Empire Mourn against torpedo carrying H111s.

He destroyed two in quick succession, expending all ammunition.

Then he continued making dummy attack runs on subsequent waves, forcing them to drop torpedoes out of range.

When his fighter direction officer asked if he intended to bail out, Burr replied it was too cold and requested a heading for Russia.

He flew 240 mi to Keg Ostro Aerad Drrome near Archangel, landing with 5 gall of fuel remaining.

It was the only combat launch where the hurricane was recovered.

On November 1, 1942, flying officer Norman Taylor launched from SS Empire Heath during convoy HG91 and destroyed an FW200 Condor.

Taylor was already a seven victory ace from the Battle of Britain.

After the kill, he performed celebratory rolls, then noticed portwing damage.

Ordered to bail out, his ill-fitting parachute harness slammed him into the sea on his back.

His life jacket failed, his legs tangled in the parachute.

Taylor could not swim.

a detail he had neglected to mention during selection.

He was rescued on the verge of drowning by corvette HMS Sweetbrier.

The final cam ship launches came on July 28, 1943.

Flying officer Jimmy Stewart launched from SS Empire Darwin during convoy SL 133.

His fighter direction officer called out, “Bandit 3:00 moving right to left.” Stuart answered, “Taliho.” He made two attack passes before his guns jammed, but the Condor was observed by multiple ships to crash into the sea.

Stuart bailed out, spent 15 minutes in the water, and was picked up by Sloop HMS Enchantress, where he received a hot bath and a glass of whiskey.

He was awarded the DFC, 8CAM ship launches, 6 to eight confirmed enemy aircraft destroyed, three Condors, three or four H11s, one JU88, one pilot killed, flying officer Kendall on the Mammansk run in May 1942.

That is an 87.5% pilot survival rate on what was designed as a suicide mission.

But the kills were not the real story.

The real story was deterrence.

From mid 1941, coinciding precisely with the appearance of catapult fighters, KG40 issued orders for Condor crews to cease direct attacks on convoys and avoid combat.

The Condors role shifted entirely from offensive bomber to reconnaissance platform, shadowing convoys for yubot rather than pressing home attacks.

Merchant ship losses to Condor strikes practically ceased when a catapult fighter was present.

The Admiral T even fitted two ships, Cape Clear and City of Johannesburg, with dummy catapults and imitation aircraft purely as a bluff.

The fact that a decoy version was deemed worth building tells you everything about the deterrent value.

Total Allied shipping losses to aircraft dropped from 323,454 gross register tons in April 1941 to just 9,275 gross register tons in July of the same year.

Multiple factors contributed, but the timing aligns exactly with cam ship deployment.

The program was always a stop gap.

When escort carriers and VLR liberators arrived in numbers during mid 1943, the CAM ship became redundant overnight.

The MSFU was formally disbanded on September the 7, 1943, 27 months after its formation.

35 ships, 170 convoy voyages, eight combat launches, one pilot killed.

The Admiral’s farewell signal captured the moment with characteristic understatement.

My lords would like to express their great appreciation of the services rendered by the RAF in providing this valuable defense for our convoys.

It is with great regret that they now recommend this association of the RAF with the merchant navy should be brought to an end.

The CAM ship was a weapon that should not have worked.

A worn out hurricane, a cargo ship, a rocket rail, and a volunteer who knew the ride was one way.

It was desperate, improvised, and by any rational assessment, absurd.

It also changed the behavior of every condor crew operating over the Atlantic.

The men of the merchant ship fighter unit climbed into obsolete fighters on the boughels of merchant ships with no guarantee of survival and no possibility of return.

They made the scourge of the Atlantic flinch.

British innovation under pressure, validated by results.