A made up Norwegian Swordfish story?

By: snafu - 18th August 2014 at 00:06

In the best traditions of finding one thing whilst looking for another I can across this post:

The good old "Stringbag", always held a place in my heart! One of the last Biplanes ever, replace breifly by the Albacore which was the last Biplane IIRC and the last ever to serve the FAA.

The best story I ever heard was of one in Norway in the last days of the German invassion. An Airfield up in Bodo was being evacuated and the Hurricans flew out all except one, the CO. A Stringbag was sent to find out what had happened and if nessecary destroy the plane lest it fall in the wrong hands. When the Swordfish arrived, they saw that the CO was still there but with a broken leg. The pilot, with some quick thinking, landed the plane. Not on the runway, it had been damaged by He-111's, but on the roof of the main building where a telegraph wire was crossing over the roof. The pilot used this wire like an arrester wire on the carrier and landed safely with a couple of feet to spare. The nav and gunner helped turn the plane around and the CO got into the Navs position, the Nav flew the plane back to the carrier. Mean while the Pilot jumped in the Hurri and used a road to take off just as old Herman was coming down the same road in the opposite direction. Back over the carrier the idea was to land the hurricans using the barrier. Needless to say, the whole thing worked and the Pilot got a comendation and the FAA got new monoplanes soon after!

I always love hearing that story! But now I'm telling it, wow I am getting old :(

"We the unknowing who have been doing so much for so long with so little, now attempt to do the impossible with nothing"!

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?879-Swordfish&p=6938#post6938

Anyone else heard it before?

The carrier would be unhappy HMS Glorious, the Hurricane would be from 46 Squadron, and the CO would be S/Ldr Kenneth 'Bing' Cross - and as luck would have it he was one of only 38 survivors from the Glorious after she was sunk, with her escorts HMS's Acasta and Ardent (just one survivor from each), after they ran into the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau .

There is no mention of a broken leg in any biog of Cross, indeed it is mentioned that he flew his Hurricane onto Glorious with the help of a 15lb sandbag in the aircrafts rear.
The Swordfish pilot entrusting his aircraft, himself and his crew to a telegraph wire? On the roof of a building? Then allowing his navigator to take off without accelerator assistance (trusting the wind was fortuitously in the right direction!), fly back to the carrier and land on it? Without asking how they got the CO with his broken leg on to the roof of said building...?
If this had happened there would have been one or two reports that would have generated one or two medals, but there isn't anything of the sort to be found because...it can only be the fantasy of someone having a laugh.

Can't it?