Blackburn Skua

The Blackburn Skua was operated by the British Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm in the early years of the Second World War. It combined the roles of dive-bomber and fighter. The first unit to receive the Skua was 800 Naval Air Squadron in late 1938 at Worth Down. By November the squadron had embarked on HMS Ark Royal and was followed in 1939 by 801 and 803 Squadrons.

On 10 April 1940, 16 Skuas of 800 and 803 NAS led by Lieutenant Commander William Lucy, flying from RNAS Hatston in the Orkney Islands, sank the German cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour during Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway.

Königsberg was the first major warship ever sunk in war by air attack and the first major warship ever to be sunk by dive bombing. Lucy later also became a fighter ace flying the Skua. 800 and 803 NAS suffered heavy losses during an attempt to bomb the German battleship Scharnhorst at Trondheim on 13 June 1940; of 15 aircraft in the raid, eight were shot down and the crews killed or taken prisoner.

Although it fared reasonably well against Axis bombers over Norway and in the Mediterranean, the Skua suffered heavy losses when confronted with modern fighters, particularly the Messerschmitt Bf 109, and they were withdrawn from front line service in 1941.

The Blackburn Roc was a very similar aircraft developed as a turret fighter, with all its armament in a dorsal turret.