Chris Cartledge
Fleet Air Arm pilot who bombed Tirpitz, flew ‘the Bent-wing Bastard’ and twice crashed at sea
CHRIS CARTLEDGE, who has died aged 100, was a Fleet Air Arm pilot who flew the F4U Corsair – the “Bent-wing Bastard” – on operations against the Germans and the Japanese in the Second World War; he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross aged 20 and qualified twice as a member of the Goldfish Club, whose members had ditched at sea.
In August 1944 Cartledge took part in Operation Goodwood, the attack on the German battleship Tirpitz, which was hiding in the Norwegian fjords. Goodwood was the largest-scale bombing raid by the Fleet Air Arm so far in the war, over a period of several days, when many newly qualified naval aviators were blooded.
To maintain surprise, a number of faster Corsairs of 1842 Naval Air Squadron carried 1,000lb bombs: it was not known whether they could even take off in the wind but, using the full length of Formidable’s flightdeck, they flew at sea level to avoid German radar before climbing over the mountains.
The Corsairs led the attack, surprising the
Tirpitz before the Germans could generate a smokescreen and dive-bombing from 10,000ft at a 45-degree angle. Cartledge was third in line behind his commanding officer, Tony “Judy” Garland. Cartledge recalled that the air was thick with black bursts of flak and yellow balls of tracer from blazing guns on the side of the fjord and from Tirpitz as she appeared to slip past his head.
There were funnels of frothing foam from exploding bombs as he saw his wingman, John French, blasted out of the sky, and pulling away so hard that he almost blacked out, he sped along the floor of the fjord as bullets kicked up the surface of the water.
Cartledge was awarded the DSC. He was puzzled to be singled out, but decided that a few medals were being sprinkled about, and he accepted the award on behalf of all his squadron.
Next, 1842 Naval Air Squadron deployed in Formidable to the Far East, where they took part in bombing and strafing operations against land and sea targets on Japanese islands and the mainland. He was airborne when Formidable was hit by a kamikaze pilot on May 4 1945, and had to land on the carrier Indomitable. Despite three killed and 47 wounded, and 11 aircraft destroyed, Formidable, thanks to her armoured flightdeck, was quickly serviceable again.
Then on July 17 1945 his aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire as he strafed the Matsushima airfield on the mainland of Japan. He struggled back to Formidable, thinking his hydraulics had been damaged and opting to bale out close to “mother”. Finding that he was unable to release the cockpit hood, he circled the ship waiting for her to complete emergency landing preparations, all the while continuing to try to jettison the hood.
He let go of the control column to enable him to twist round and get both hands on the canopy, at which point his Corsair cartwheeled and crashed into the sea. Luckily, the impact snapped Cartledge’s parachute and seat straps, knocked off the canopy and threw him clear.
He was picked up by an accompanying destroyer, and suffered no more than a few cuts and bruises. All he remembered was coming to, floating on the water in his Mae West, and watching the last of his plane sinking under the water.
On September 19 1945, at war’s end, as Formidable steamed into Sydney harbour, Cartledge reflected that of the 18 pilots in the first squadron photograph, only nine had survived: “I hope [their lives] weren’t wasted, but one shouldn’t forget, otherwise what little we did achieve will definitely be wasted.”
Christopher Reginald Cartledge was born at Egham, Surrey, on December 16 1923 and educated at City of London School, at its wartime home at Marlborough College. His father had been shot down while flying a Sopwith Camel of the Royal Flying Corps and spent much of the First World War as a prisoner of war.
Young Cartledge volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm as soon as he could and on his 18th birthday started his naval training. He first flew the de Havilland Tiger Moth before taking passage in RMS Queen Mary to continue his training in Canada.
Returning to Britain on August 18 1943, Cartledge was attempting his first deck landing in a Sea Hurricane on the carrier Argus off Scotland when, going round on his fourth try, he veered to starboard off the centreline of the flightdeck, and the ship’s radio mast sliced three feet off his starboard wing. His aircraft slid over the side and made a graceful, curved descent into the Clyde: he was taken aboard a destroyer, given dry clothes and filled up with gin. A month later he returned to make his first successful deck landing.
Later, while based at the airbase HMS Nightjar, as RNAS Inskip was known, Cartledge borrowed an unfamiliar Sea Skua in order to keep a date with a Wren in Liverpool. Unfortunately, he collided with a Seafire while taxi-ing, causing minor damage, and on returning was charged and court-martialled.
The court was unimpressed by his defence, which was that the Seafire’s camouflage was so good that he could not see it against the background of a muddy airfield, but his CO thought he was too good a pilot to lose and spoke up for him strongly in front of senior officers. He was found guilty but only lost two months’ seniority.
In 1944 Cartledge returned to North America, to Brunswick, Maine, to learn to fly the long-nosed, high-performance Chance Vought Corsair. It was so difficult to handle in the approach to carrier landings that it became known as the “Bent-wing Bastard” or “the ensign killer” and it was given to the US Marine Corps and to the Royal Navy to master. Adopting a curved approach to ensure that the flightdeck was kept in sight as long as possible, young FAA pilots like Cartledge tamed the Corsair, and it was brought into service on small British carriers before it was cleared for use in the US Navy.
Post-war he joined his grandfather’s company, A Cartledge and Sons, buying and selling non-ferrous metals.
As a youth Cartledge was rebellious, but in the early 1960s he converted to Catholicism, and his religion found practical expression as a volunteer with Meals on Wheels and the St Vincent de Paul Society, as organist and choir director, and as treasurer or chairman of the churches where he worshipped. Until a year ago he travelled long distances to visit family members and called on former neighbours in their care homes.
Cartledge’s story and that of his flying companions in the British Pacific Fleet is told in Will Iredale’s The Kamikaze Hunters (2015).
In 1948 he married Dorothy Taylor, a calligrapher and bookbinder, whom he met while he was a student at Goldsmiths Art College on an ex-servicemen’s grant. She predeceased him in 2009. He is survived by their three daughters and a son.