FAA Night Fighters

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Justo Miranda

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FAA Night Fighters

I am looking for information about a "Black Flight" of night fighters operating from HMS Indefatigable in January 1945. I have found contradictory information about the subject and I do not quite understand if it were some Firefly FR. I day fighters of the 1770 Sqn equipped with an ASH radar (AN/APS-4) operating in AI mode or were authentic night fighters of the NF.I model equipped with shrouded exhausts and antiglare shields and belonged to another squadron. Can anyone help?
 
Justo Miranda said:
FAA Night Fighters

I am looking for information about a "Black Flight" of night fighters operating from HMS Indefatigable in January 1945. I have found contradictory information about the subject and I do not quite understand if it were some Firefly FR. I day fighters of the 1770 Sqn equipped with an ASH radar (AN/APS-4) operating in AI mode or were authentic night fighters of the NF.I model equipped with shrouded exhausts and antiglare shields and belonged to another squadron. Can anyone help?
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In everything I’ve read about the Firefly and the FAA in WW2 I’ve never read of 1770 or 1771 or 1772 having any night fighters.

“Squadrons and Units of the FAA” only gives second line squadrons 746 & 784 plus 1790, 1791 and 1792 as Firefly NF.I users in WW2. 1790 was the first sent out to join the BPF in June 1945, finally joining Implacable in in Jan 1946.

746 and 784 jointly put a 2 aircraft Firefly NF.I Flight on the Escort Carrier Premier in Feb 1945 which then moved to Searcher in March and April.

While some of the first batch of Fireflies supposedly built as FR.I, those with MB*** serials, reached the operational BPF squadrons in 1945, I don’t recall seeing any photos of one with an ASH pod, just rocket rails and/or drop tanks. And many of those ended up with the 3 front line NF units.
 
Somewhere in my stash I have a NF Mk.I conversion for the Firefly, and looking on the internet, I saw a couple of images of a real one. One image said 812 NAS ---- I've got the NF Mk.II conversion too ---
 
Radar equipped Firefly were used in Korea as Nightfighters and Fighter bombers. The possible confusion might be too easy.
 
The only unit that flew the early Mk.I Firefly in Korea was 827 from HMS Triumph between July and Sept 1950. BUT it lost the NF.I aircraft it had in June 1950 before deploying to Korea.

The Mk.5 Firefly was designed to be easily swapped between roles. So an FR variant could be changed to an AS variant in about 30 minutes but a change to the NF variant took about 3 hours as the exhaust shrouds had to be changed. The other problem with the NF.5 was that it was only suitable for night deck landings by “very experienced pilots of ‘above average’ deck-landing capability”. (Fairey Firefly by Harrison).

So all the units that deployed to Korea did so with the FR variant, at least one squadron swapping out AS configured aircraft for FR aircraft. I don’t recall reading of any Korean Firefly night operations.
 
The article you posted about HMAS Sydney specifically states on p 40 (page 5 of the extract) “.... and there was no night flying.”

From Hobbs “The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945” p55 re Korean War Operations

“....None of the British carriers carried out night missions during the Korean War, principally because the light fleet carriers lacked the manpower to sustain operations by both day and night. The nights also gave the squadron maintenance personnel a chance to work on their aircraft to repair damage and carry out routine maintenance. However, the enemy used the hours of darkness to move men and supplies towards the front line in trucks with dimmed lights. By carrying out night launches, Ocean’s aircraft could position themselves to interdict vehicles that were still on the move in the open in the twilight before sawn.....”

British in this context included the Australian Sydney. Looking through the chapter in “With the Carriers in Korea” on Sydney’s operations in 1951/52 there is no mention of any night operations, confirming the statement in the article you posted.

Pre-dawn take-offs were nothing new to the RN. That had been practiced in WW2.
 
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@EwenS : Night fighters launched during day lights still had their radar operators as crew member since the radar operator is also acting as a navigator and observer. This is my understanding.
 
I’m really not clear what point you are trying to make here.

The basic Firefly 5 was a two seater and was flown as such in the Korean War by all the carriers. All versions FR, NF and AS carried radar in the pod on the starboard wing, balanced by a fuel tank on the port wing.

The changes needed between versions were mostly internal AIUI. The only external differentiator of an NF version is the exhaust “shrouds” which seem to have consisted of a metal strake above the exhaust ports and extending aft towards the cockpit designed to reduce the glare.

But why outfit an aircraft for the NF role when there was no intention to use it as such? And given the limitations on flying the Firefly 5 at night that I noted just how many aircrew would have had the requisite skills to do so?

All the evidence is that there were no night operations by the FAA in Korea.
 
I am not contesting this. The point is that night fighters were operating over Korea, albeit, as you implied, not during night time! I have no remembrance of reading anything saying the contrary.
 

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