Wartime Service
From 1943 Searcher operated mainly around the UK as a Fighter Carrier. In late December 1943 she provided Atlantic convoy escort, escorting ships to the USA, and arriving at Norfolk on 2 January 1944. She participated in the attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz as part of the Home Fleet Strike force of Operation Tungsten, during which her role was to provide fighter cover. In August 1944 she took part in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of Southern France.
On 4 May 1945 aircraft from the escort carriers Searcher, Queen, and Trumpeter, taking part in Operation Judgement, sank the German submarine U-711 in Kilbotn harbour in the Arctic near Harstad, Norway. Avenger torpedo bombers escorted by Wildcat fighters attacked the submarine tender Black Watch, the supply ship Senja and the former Norwegian coastal defence ship HNoMS Harald Haarfagre, which had been rebuilt by the Germans as the Flak ship Thetis. U-711 was alongside Black Watch when she was sunk in position 68°43.717′N 16°34.600′E / 68.728617°N 16.5767°E / 68.728617; 16.5767 by bombs aimed at Black Watch. Black Watch and Senja were also sunk. This was the last sinking of a U-Boat by the Fleet Air Arm, and the final air-raid of the war in Europe.
Searcher was sent to the Far East as part of the British Pacific Fleet but arrived in mid-August as the war ended.
Read more about this topic: HMS Searcher (D40)
Famous quotes containing the words wartime and/or service:
“The man who gets drunk in peacetime is a coward. The man who gets drunk in wartime goes on being a coward.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)