A Fairey Swordfish at an airshow in 2015. The same type of aircraft conducted a flyover of HMS Queen Elizabeth this week (Photo by: Robert Plattner/Oneworld Picture/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A pair of World War II-era Royal Navy aircraft conducted a flyover of the service’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier as it embarked on its three-month deployment around the British Isles and to northern Europe in support of NATO. The conventionally powered aircraft carrier, which returned from a nearly two-year-long refit that began in November 2024, assumed the role of NATO’s Afloat Command Platform for Allied Response Force (Maritime) in July, and departed from His Majesty’s Naval Base, Portsmouth, last Friday.
The flyover was truly a mix of old vs. new, as it included a Fairey Swordfish, a biplane torpedo bomber that was largely obsolete by the outbreak of the Second World War, and a Supermarine Seafire, the naval version of the famed Supermarine Spitfire fighter that was adapted for operation from aircraft carriers.
Neither aircraft could land or take off from the current generation of carriers, but the flyover still marked how far British naval aviation has progressed in the past 80-plus years.
“@HMSQNLZ had a flypast from a Swordfish and a Seafire from Navy Wings. The Swordfish is famous for the Fleet Air Arm attack on Taranto in Nov 1940, and the Seafire is the navalised version of the Spitfire,” the official social media account of HMS Queen Elizabeth wrote in a post on X.
Both the Swordfish and Seafire are maintained by Navy Wings, a naval aviation charity that restores, maintains, and flies historic Royal Navy aircraft. The group strives to serve as a living memorial to honor the service and sacrifice of British naval aviators and aircrews by preserving classic Fleet Air Arm and Royal Naval Air Service aircraft as airworthy. Navy Wings is based at the Royal Navy aerodrome at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton in Somerset, England, and is run by the Fly Navy Heritage Trust. It is supported entirely by public donations.
The Fairey Swordfish
The sight of the Fairey Swordfish flying over HMS Queen Elizabeth might have seemed like an anachronism compared to the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning fifth-generation stealth fighters that are embarked on the carrier. However, even in the early stages of World War II, the open cockpit biplane may have seemed like a leftover from the First World War.
Yet, the torpedo bomber still played a significant role in two operations with the Royal Navy. More than a year before the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, in November 1940, Swordfish aircraft successfully attacked the Italian Regia Marine at anchor in the harbor of Taranto.
In total, 21 Swordfish, in two waves of 12 and nine aircraft, took off from the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious and sank the Italian battleship Conte di Cavour, and heavily damaged the two additional battleships, Caio Duilio, which was only saved by it running aground, and Littorio, which was hit by multiple torpedoes but didn’t sink.
The attack not only crippled the Italian fleet, but it inspired the Japanese as well – whose military planners studied the attack as a model for their campaign at Pearl Harbor a year later.
A Fairey Swordfish I of 820 Squadron over HMS Ark Royal, 1939. (Photo by Charles E. Brown/Royal Air Force Museum/Getty Images)
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In late May 1941, Fairey Swordfish, operating from the HMS Ark Royal, contributed to the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
The Swordfish also went on to sink a greater tonnage of Axis shipping than any other Allied aircraft during World War II, and it remained in service until V-E Day, operating longer than some of the aircraft that were introduced to replace it.
The Supermarine Seafire
The naval version of the Spitfire was introduced in 1942, and the Seafire saw service with the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, the French Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Irish Air Corps across several theaters of operation. With the Fleet Air Arm and the RCN, it was used in the Mediterranean and the Pacific Theater, where it excelled at intercepting Japanese kamikaze attacks.
The Seafire supported the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, and it remained in frontline service throughout the rest of the Second World War and saw further combat in the Korean War.
The Royal Navy During The Second World War, A Supermarine Seafire taxies to park after landing on board HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, February 1943. (Photo by Royal Navy Official Photographer/ Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)
Imperial War Museums via Getty Images
It was not an ideal aircraft for carrier operations, however, as the Spitfire was originally designed as a lightweight, land-based interceptor. Its narrow undercarriage and delicate structure were not fully ruggedized for the heavy impacts of carrier deck landings. It suffered a high accident rate during carrier operations.
Few Remaining Of Either Aircraft
A total of 2,391 Swordfish were built between 1936 and 1944, but there are just nine surviving Swordfish and just four of them airworthy.
By the time production ended in January 1949, 2,646 Seafire aircraft were produced across all variations, but only 17 have survived, with just a small handful of those warplanes capable of flight.
That made this week’s flyover something truly special.
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