Bismarck hero Kenneth Pattisson’s son on the warpath
The son of the pilot who crippled the Bismarck, Nazi Germany’s mightiest warship, is taking on Wikipedia in an attempt to win proper recognition for his father’s achievement.
The online encyclopaedia has given credit to another pilot, John Moffat, who wrote a book called I Sank the Bismarck.
Since the book was published it has been proved that Mr Moffat could not have dropped the torpedo that disabled the ship’s rudder — but Wikipedia still credits him rather than Sub-Lieutenant Kenneth Pattisson, who actually dealt the decisive blow.
The pilot’s son, Rodney Pattisson, a double gold medal-winning Olympic sailor, says his father was denied credit because of an error by an amateur American historian.
He is backed by some of the Royal Navy’s most senior retired officers as well as the former director of the Fleet Air Arm museum and Navy Wings, which is responsible for conserving vintage naval planes.
However, despite his impressive armoury of supporters he says he has been unable to set the record straight because of the intransigence of editors at Wikipedia.
On May 26, 1941, Sub-Lieutenant Pattisson was flying a Fairey Swordfish biplane towards the largest and most heavily armoured warship in the German fleet. Two days earlier Bismarck had sunk HMS Hood, one of the Royal Navy’s most powerful battlecruisers, with the loss of all but three of her 1,418 crew.
Sub-Lieutenant Pattisson and another pilot from 810 Squadron had launched from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and emerged from a snow squall to see Bismarck in front of them. At 900 yards and 90ft above the waves he launched his torpedo. Dodging anti-aircraft fire, he did not hang around to see whether it hit.
The torpedo tore a hole in the Bismarck’s hull and damaged her steering gear, sending the starboard rudder crashing into her three huge propellers. From that moment she was a sitting duck.
She sank in the mid-Atlantic the following day under a barrage from the 16in guns of the Royal Navy’s biggest ships and scuttled by her crew.
The death of the Bismarck became a subject of fascination for naval historians. Speculation by Mark Horan, an American historian, that the torpedo had struck the warship’s port side led him to conclude it had been dropped by Mr Moffat, flying another Fairey Swordfish from the opposite direction. As a result Mr Moffat was hailed as a hero and his memoirs became part of naval history.
Rodney Pattisson said: “From the moment that book was written things changed. There were newspaper articles about the guy that sank the Bismarck based on an assumption by this American historian who has since admitted he got it wrong.”
Sub-Lieutenant Pattisson died in 2002 and Mr Moffat’s account went unchallenged until the wreck was found at a depth of 4,791m. Underwater cameras proved that the torpedo had struck the starboard side — but Mr Moffat refused to change the title of his book, despite an appeal from Mr Pattisson. Mr Moffat died in 2016 at the age of 96,
Mr Pattisson, 75, said: “He spent the last nine years of his life being wined and dined at naval functions because he was good for fundraising. He revelled in it. He was introduced as the man who crippled the Bismarck. He didn’t say ‘no I didn’t’. He just stood there and smiled.”
Mr Pattisson’s attempts to persuade Wikipedia to change its entries have fallen on deaf ears. Rear-Admiral John Tolhurst, former captain of the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible, also wrote an email but in vain. He told The Times: “I’m totally convinced that the torpedo must have been launched from the starboard side. Unfortunately the Fly Navy Historic Trust [now Navy Wings] paraded Moffat around to help their fundraising. There’s no doubt he enjoyed the glow and he allowed it to happen and there were no survivors around to argue.”
Another of Mr Pattisson’s supporters is Lord Boyce, the former first sea lord and chief of the defence staff. He said: “I don’t know whether John Moffat claimed in so many words to have sunk the Bismarck but it is fair to say he was economical with the truth and didn’t set the record straight when people said he had.”
Both the FAA Museum and Navy Wings now accept that Sub-Lieutenant Pattisson is likely to have fired the torpedo that crippled the Bismarck. But Mr Pattisson said: “It seems to be impossible to get Wikipedia to accept that.”
Занимаясь всякими торпедоносными делами уже более четверти века, я лично опять утверждаюсь во мнении, что с 01 мая 1917 и немецкого биплана Hansa-Brandenburg GW по 01 мая 1951 и американского штурмовика AD-1 (т.е. первый и последний результативный боевой сброс авиаторпед в истории - за исключением возможно применения торпед между Китаем и Тайванем позже, но у меня нет достоверных данных), то есть ровно за 34 года, через кабины разных торпедоносцев во всех странах прошло, примерно и очень грубо, 46000 человек. И только чуть более 300 из них во что-то попали хотя бы по одному разу, и НИКОГДА нельзя быть уверенным, что через какое-то время и изучение реальной фактуры (а тут только один критерий - реальное ползание в ластах или батискафах по погибшим шипрекам, где это возможно)- в результате, долгое время считавшимся несомненным, не может быть отказано любому из этих пилотов....
Ну и чисто английский прикол - Моффат из RNVR, и его конечно пиарили как истинного народного героя. Паттисон - кадровый офицер RN, и собственно RN его тихонько наградил и забыл об этом, и всё общество тоже. Впрочем, это бывает и за пределами UK. Что-то типа Гастелло и Маслова (или кто там реально упал на немцев под Радошковичами) "Мы признаём не сами факты. Мы признаём как факты то, что признают таковыми все остальные вокруг нас" (с) Гёте.
>О том, что Марк Хоран вот тут - http://kbismarck.com/article2.html - сильно ошибся в 2000 на основе анализа документов и вот тут - http://39-45war.com/bismarck3.html в самом конце признает эту ошибку. Торпеда в рули "Бисмарка попала справа, а не слева. И вот тут восстанавливается доброе имя хероя, который на самом деле попал в попку "Бисмарка" - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bismarck-hero-kenneth-pattisson-s-son-on-the-warpath-htr3hgcb6 (ниже полный текст статьи, ибо "Таймс" требует регистрации по мэйлу, что не все любят):
Значит Барон М-Р врёт как очевидец, описывая атаку с левого борта?
И Дулин с Гарцке маленько ошиблись в своей Bismarck's Final Battle