lined up on the flight deck of
Ark Royal During late 1938, initial deliveries of the Skua commenced; the first unit to receive it was
800 Naval Air Squadron at Worthy Down, supplementing and eventually replacing their
Hawker Nimrod and
Hawker Osprey biplanes. By November, the squadron had embarked on and, during 1939, was followed by both 801 and 803 Squadrons. By the start of the Second World War, there were 33 operational Skuas; the type quickly proved itself in combat. On 14 September, three Skuas took off from
Ark Royal to go to the aid of the which had been attacked by a
U-boat. When they arrived, the
Fanad Head was being shelled by the and all three dived to attack the submarine, which quickly dived to safety. Two of the Skuas were damaged by the blast of their 112 lb A/S bombs and had to ditch. This was due to that the bombs had been incorrectly fused with too brief a time lapse. As a result of this error the weapons detonated almost instantaneously, thus badly damaging the Skuas.
U-30 returned to Germany with the crews of the two ditched Skuas, who became the first naval airmen to be prisoners of war in the conflict. . One of 16 Skuas from
RNAS Hatston to attack and sink the in
Bergen on 10 April 1940. This aircraft
spun on the return flight and crashed, the only aircraft lost on that day. Skuas were originally credited with the first confirmed kill by British aircraft during the Second World War; on 26 September 1939, three Skuas of
803 Naval Air Squadron, flying from
Ark Royal, shot down a
Dornier Do 18 flying boat over the
North Sea. (An earlier victory by a
Fairey Battle on 20 September 1939 over
Aachen, was later confirmed by French sources). 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 made a 330 mile night flight to arrive at the very limit of their radius - at dawn over Bergen Harbour. They attacked and sank
Königsberg with several direct hits. Jackson wrote of the sinking as being the high point of the Skua's career as a dive-bomber. On 26 and 27 April Skuas destroyed eight He 111 bombers and damaged several more whilst defending the fleet. During June 1940, Skuas of 801 Squadron flew from shore bases in
Kent in support of the
Dunkirk evacuation, acting as a unit of
RAF Fighter Command. However, these Skuas were attacked on several occasions by RAF fighters who were unfamiliar with the aircraft and its paint scheme, with at least one aircraft being shot up by Spitfires and the gunner killed. It was to later crash land at Manston airfield. On 13 June 1940, two mostly-Skua squadrons suffered heavy losses during an attempt to bomb the at
Trondheim; of 15 aircraft in the raid, eight were shot down and the crews killed or taken prisoner. Among the latter were both squadron commanders,
Captain RT Partridge (RM) and Lieutenant Commander John Casson (RN). One bomb hit
Scharnhorst; however, this did little damage. Despite its limitations, the Skua attained considerable success as a fighter against Axis bombers and flying boats over Norway, and to a lesser extent, in the Mediterranean in the early stages of the conflict. In action off Norway Skuas destroyed 28 Luftwaffe aircraft in air to air combat, including 17 He 111s and five Ju 88s; all kills being confirmed via Luftwaffe records. Lieutenant Commander William Lucy went on to become a
fighter ace while flying his Skua. Later on the Skua was found to be too slow and under-powered to be an effective fleet defence fighter. Common Axis aircraft such as the
Junkers Ju 88 and
Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 were much faster than the Skua, making interception of these aircraft extremely difficult. The armament of four forward-firing .303 rifle caliber machine guns was becoming increasingly inadequate for this role and the type was withdrawn from front line service during 1941. Most Skuas were replaced by another two-seater, the Fulmar, which doubled the Skua's forward armament and had a speed advantage of . A number of aircraft were converted to
target tugs, following withdrawal from front line service. Other Skuas were completed as target tugs from the factory and used by the RAF and Fleet Air Arm in this role (Fleet Requirements). The
Blackburn Roc was a very similar aircraft developed as a turret fighter, with all its armament in a
dorsal turret. The Roc was expected to fly with the Skua. Rocs were attached to Skua squadrons to protect the fleet anchorage at Scapa Flow in early 1940 and briefly from and
Ark Royal during the
Norwegian Campaign. Skuas and Rocs flew fighter sweeps and bombing sorties over the English Channel during
Operation Dynamo and
Operation Aerial, the evacuations of Allied forces from Dunkirk and other French ports. ==Variants==