What do you think?
Rate this book
I Sank the Bismarck: Memoirs of a Second World War Navy Pilot
The memoirs of a Second World War Fleet Air Arm pilot and the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. Along with twelve other brave pilots, John Moffat took down the most powerful warship of its time -- a warship that had destroyed the famed HMS Hood within minutes and withstood everything the British navy threw at it. These men, in their obsolete Swordfish biplanes, managed to avoid the fearful anti-aircraft fire and launch their torpedoes. One of them hit, holing the German warship.
This is John Moffat's story, of how as a young man he experienced first-hand the titanic struggle for naval supremacy, the cramped cabins and meagre rations of WWII, the mind-numbing patrols over hundreds of miles of ocean and the adrenalin and fear of being in a fragile aircraft sought out by gunfire. As the only surviving member of the mission, John Moffat tells of everything that led him to be able to say, "I sank the Bismarck."
This is John Moffat's story, of how as a young man he experienced first-hand the titanic struggle for naval supremacy, the cramped cabins and meagre rations of WWII, the mind-numbing patrols over hundreds of miles of ocean and the adrenalin and fear of being in a fragile aircraft sought out by gunfire. As the only surviving member of the mission, John Moffat tells of everything that led him to be able to say, "I sank the Bismarck."
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 3, 2025
Here’s one that I forgot I’d read, it was before I was on GR, so that’s a good reason to review books, it stops you from reading the same book twice. On the other hand this was well worth reading again. It’s quite a unique story, John Moffat was in the thick of the action during world war two, and when he wasn’t he relates it anyway. Not always correctly but close enough, so this book is virtually a potted history of the Fleet Air Arm in WW2. I would suggest reading some other books for more accuracy, but this one is a firsthand account so very valuable on that account. It’s an easy read, flows well, and is well written. As to the title, yes he really did, modern research came to the conclusion that it was most likely his torpedo that destroyed the steering gear of the Bismarck, which ultimately led to her demise.
I’ve read several books about the Fairey Swordfish, I still think BRING BACK MY STRINGBAG: Swordfish Pilot at War, 1940-1945 is the best, but this one is a close second. I enjoyed it a lot.
I’ve read several books about the Fairey Swordfish, I still think BRING BACK MY STRINGBAG: Swordfish Pilot at War, 1940-1945 is the best, but this one is a close second. I enjoyed it a lot.
August 8, 2018
A different read about early wartime pilots and the sinking of the Bismarck.
July 25, 2017
As a child I first read about the hunt for the Bismark in the gloriously colourful "Great Sea Battles" - ranging from Lepanto to Leyte Gulf.
As an adolescent I read "Pursuit, the sinking of the Bismark" by Ludovick Kennedy and only realised towards the end that the author had been a witness to the final tumultuous battle serving on the one of the destroys as the pride of the Kreigsmarine endured its death throes.
I found this memoir of a Swordfish pilot in a second hand book shop and picked it up as an 80th birthday present for my dad. The joy of second hand books is you don't feel so bad about read in them yourself before you wrap them up.
This is the third book by a second world war torpedo bomber pilot's book that I've read this year. Thomas Moffat - with the assistance of Mike Rossiter - is an engaging raconteur delivering a different kind of memoir. It opens with an account of a plane crash and its aftermath, though the crash happened in September 2000 when the author - then 80 years old - was piloting a single engined aircraft with his 9 year old grandson as the only passenger. It makes for a more dramatic opening than many. The aftermath of the crash provides a prompt for the author to reflect on his early life and the conspiracy of events that built up to that appointment with destiny on a stormy May night in the Bay of Biscay.
Having begun with a bang - or at least a crash - Moffat goes back to the beginning with his very early life. The taleleaps engagingly from anecdote to anecdote with the agility of a mountain goat, keeping em so enthralled that, although I only bought the book at 1.30 pm on the Monday, I'd finished it by 5 pats midnoght on the Tuesday - and that's a high indication of readbility.
Moffat's story begins as an independent minded four year old growing up with a dog called wiggy and a rare wanderlust in the Scottish borders between the wars. There isn't much war at this point, but it is interesting nonetheless. Moffat illuminates those distant simpler - maybe more primitive - times with anecdotes of life and work and love. Yes - as a rugby player and musician of some accomplishment Mr Moffat seems to have attracted attention in various quarters and, without going into any sordid details, challenges my preconceived ideas of the 1930s as an entirely chaste and sober period.
Moffat's halting efforts to get a worthwhile job and/or an education drive him through the decade of the depression and lead him ultimately into a frustrating pursuit of a place in the Royal Naval Airforce Reserve and training to fly carrier borne torpedo bombers.
While aware of its limitations, he speaks fondly of the antiquated Fairey Swordfish - and less so of its successor the Albacore. There was power and manouverability in those old stringbag as well as an ability to take enormous punishment, as Moffat finds in several dangerous scrapes.
Moffat's work - even the routine - was dangerous. Hazardous navigation, deck landings, tested in all weathers, bombed at aerodromes. Men died all around him, victims of fickle fate. He makes the point that the solution was to live in the now, not to think too much of tomorrow or of death.
He offers a contemporary historian's insight into events he did not himself participate in - such as the raid on the Italians in Taranto Harbour. He also draws interesting contrasts in styles of leadership - Admiral Lutjens of the Bismark's depressing speech about death and glory as the Bismark strove to escape, Captain Lindemann's upbeat riposte of success and imminent relief to try and raise morale. It out me in mind of Theoden's battle cry at the Pelennor Fields (as shown in the Lord of the Ring's Film) - clashing spears and shouting out with deep foreboding about Death seems more a Lutjens than a Lindemann approach. It is a reminder that what makes inspiring reading or watching from the comfort of an armchair witnesses, doesn't make so much for inspiring living or fighting for those at the sharp end of war.
Moffat has many kind words and fond memories of Admiral Somerville a seaman's admiral. There is a point where Somerville orders the ship turned at night to go back and look for one lost pilot - it reminded me of a story of Nelson, pursued by a more powerful French force when Lieutenant (later Captain) Hardy fell overboard. Nelson, crying out, "I'll not lose Hardy" stopped his own ship and surprised the French so much they stopped too allowing Nelson to recover his officer and still escape. Somerville seems to have inspired and delivered the same kind of loyalty that Nelson did.
Moffat also tells of other less well known parts of the war. I have just seen the film Dunkirk and heard how some on the other side of the channel have expressed distaste for the slight reference it made to the sacrifice of the French. Our allies did so much to enable the evacuation by holding of the Germans and yet benefited relatively little from it in terms of numbers lifted from the beaches. But there were worse days in those dark days of 1940. Moffat talks frankly of the attacks the Royal Navy made to destroy the fleet of their erstwhile allies at Oran and Dakar - ships that could not be allowed to fall under German control through Vichy France. We read of French planes attacking British ones, of French sailors killed and their ships sunk by British torpedoes. I'll bet you never see a war movie about that!
Moffat also gives insights into life on the most famous carrier of the war - the Ark Royal and you can see how he became part of a truly elite unit.
They had to be, because when you read how they had to launch that attack on the Bismark - you can believe just getting in the air was a feat of airmanship to rival any achievement of 617 squadron (the Dambusters).
Reading Moffat's account, I am struck more so than ever before, by what a close run thing it was. How nearly the Bismark escaped and would in time have charged up the channel with Scharnhorst Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen to home and safety.
Moffat's flight was the last possible attack, his one of the last possible torpedoes. If they had not crippled Bismark then her escape was certain, after they had wrecked her rudders her fate was only a matter of time. The desperate chaos of that last attack was like the scrabbling and then pushing over for the winning try in the last seconds of a close game of Moffat's favourite sport rugby - only this was infintely more dangerous.
War was no game, victory meant success in a job, not a triumph. Moffat and his colleagues flew over the end of the battle and witnessed the great battleship roll over taking 2000 men to their deaths, that image stuck with him throughout his life.
But the voices of those who were there must be heard, and in this book, history has found a most articulate witness.
As an adolescent I read "Pursuit, the sinking of the Bismark" by Ludovick Kennedy and only realised towards the end that the author had been a witness to the final tumultuous battle serving on the one of the destroys as the pride of the Kreigsmarine endured its death throes.
I found this memoir of a Swordfish pilot in a second hand book shop and picked it up as an 80th birthday present for my dad. The joy of second hand books is you don't feel so bad about read in them yourself before you wrap them up.
This is the third book by a second world war torpedo bomber pilot's book that I've read this year. Thomas Moffat - with the assistance of Mike Rossiter - is an engaging raconteur delivering a different kind of memoir. It opens with an account of a plane crash and its aftermath, though the crash happened in September 2000 when the author - then 80 years old - was piloting a single engined aircraft with his 9 year old grandson as the only passenger. It makes for a more dramatic opening than many. The aftermath of the crash provides a prompt for the author to reflect on his early life and the conspiracy of events that built up to that appointment with destiny on a stormy May night in the Bay of Biscay.
Having begun with a bang - or at least a crash - Moffat goes back to the beginning with his very early life. The taleleaps engagingly from anecdote to anecdote with the agility of a mountain goat, keeping em so enthralled that, although I only bought the book at 1.30 pm on the Monday, I'd finished it by 5 pats midnoght on the Tuesday - and that's a high indication of readbility.
Moffat's story begins as an independent minded four year old growing up with a dog called wiggy and a rare wanderlust in the Scottish borders between the wars. There isn't much war at this point, but it is interesting nonetheless. Moffat illuminates those distant simpler - maybe more primitive - times with anecdotes of life and work and love. Yes - as a rugby player and musician of some accomplishment Mr Moffat seems to have attracted attention in various quarters and, without going into any sordid details, challenges my preconceived ideas of the 1930s as an entirely chaste and sober period.
Moffat's halting efforts to get a worthwhile job and/or an education drive him through the decade of the depression and lead him ultimately into a frustrating pursuit of a place in the Royal Naval Airforce Reserve and training to fly carrier borne torpedo bombers.
While aware of its limitations, he speaks fondly of the antiquated Fairey Swordfish - and less so of its successor the Albacore. There was power and manouverability in those old stringbag as well as an ability to take enormous punishment, as Moffat finds in several dangerous scrapes.
Moffat's work - even the routine - was dangerous. Hazardous navigation, deck landings, tested in all weathers, bombed at aerodromes. Men died all around him, victims of fickle fate. He makes the point that the solution was to live in the now, not to think too much of tomorrow or of death.
He offers a contemporary historian's insight into events he did not himself participate in - such as the raid on the Italians in Taranto Harbour. He also draws interesting contrasts in styles of leadership - Admiral Lutjens of the Bismark's depressing speech about death and glory as the Bismark strove to escape, Captain Lindemann's upbeat riposte of success and imminent relief to try and raise morale. It out me in mind of Theoden's battle cry at the Pelennor Fields (as shown in the Lord of the Ring's Film) - clashing spears and shouting out with deep foreboding about Death seems more a Lutjens than a Lindemann approach. It is a reminder that what makes inspiring reading or watching from the comfort of an armchair witnesses, doesn't make so much for inspiring living or fighting for those at the sharp end of war.
Moffat has many kind words and fond memories of Admiral Somerville a seaman's admiral. There is a point where Somerville orders the ship turned at night to go back and look for one lost pilot - it reminded me of a story of Nelson, pursued by a more powerful French force when Lieutenant (later Captain) Hardy fell overboard. Nelson, crying out, "I'll not lose Hardy" stopped his own ship and surprised the French so much they stopped too allowing Nelson to recover his officer and still escape. Somerville seems to have inspired and delivered the same kind of loyalty that Nelson did.
Moffat also tells of other less well known parts of the war. I have just seen the film Dunkirk and heard how some on the other side of the channel have expressed distaste for the slight reference it made to the sacrifice of the French. Our allies did so much to enable the evacuation by holding of the Germans and yet benefited relatively little from it in terms of numbers lifted from the beaches. But there were worse days in those dark days of 1940. Moffat talks frankly of the attacks the Royal Navy made to destroy the fleet of their erstwhile allies at Oran and Dakar - ships that could not be allowed to fall under German control through Vichy France. We read of French planes attacking British ones, of French sailors killed and their ships sunk by British torpedoes. I'll bet you never see a war movie about that!
Moffat also gives insights into life on the most famous carrier of the war - the Ark Royal and you can see how he became part of a truly elite unit.
They had to be, because when you read how they had to launch that attack on the Bismark - you can believe just getting in the air was a feat of airmanship to rival any achievement of 617 squadron (the Dambusters).
Reading Moffat's account, I am struck more so than ever before, by what a close run thing it was. How nearly the Bismark escaped and would in time have charged up the channel with Scharnhorst Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen to home and safety.
Moffat's flight was the last possible attack, his one of the last possible torpedoes. If they had not crippled Bismark then her escape was certain, after they had wrecked her rudders her fate was only a matter of time. The desperate chaos of that last attack was like the scrabbling and then pushing over for the winning try in the last seconds of a close game of Moffat's favourite sport rugby - only this was infintely more dangerous.
War was no game, victory meant success in a job, not a triumph. Moffat and his colleagues flew over the end of the battle and witnessed the great battleship roll over taking 2000 men to their deaths, that image stuck with him throughout his life.
But the voices of those who were there must be heard, and in this book, history has found a most articulate witness.
November 22, 2016
Very interesting
July 30, 2021
It’s astounding to think what the Fairey Swordfish crews were up against in World War II – just flying off rickety carriers, rattling about the North Atlantic or Mediterranean for three or four hours at a time, and then finding their way back for a safe landing was a remarkable feat every time they did it. Their moment of glory, for which the Swordfish rightly takes its place in history, then required their taking on the greatest warship of the time, the Bismarck: a biplane made of fabric stretched across a steel frame and piloted by a fellow wearing a wool-lined jacket and mittens, versus a 50,000-ton battleship arrayed with dozens of anti-aircraft guns.
One lucky torpedo was what they needed and that’s what John Moffat, the man in the mittens who wrote this book, delivered. The sinking of the Bismarck is such an astonishing story that you can’t not read Moffat’s chapter on the attack if you happen upon this book. And even if you know all about it already, it’s worth it.
The conditions over the days of the hunt for the German ship were so atrocious that the deckhands would be lashed to the ship with ropes and they in turn would have to hold down the aeroplanes to stop them sliding overboard. The attack itself, by 15 planes, was airborne chaos – the planes got separated in the impossible conditions and then faced the onslaught of anti-air fire in ones, twos and three – so much so that the pilots themselves didn’t know who made the two (or three?) hits. It was years before dedicated historians analysed the attack in forensic detail and worked out that Moffat was the likeliest marksman.
For that chapter alone the book gets 4 stars.
The rest of it can be a little pedestrian. Moffat really was just your average young man who, because there was a World War under way, ended up flying aeroplanes off aircraft carriers more by luck than design or obvious predilection. Literally every flight he took on active duty was risky and challenging and puts our modern anxieties in perspective, but his participation in the attack on the Bismarck was an outlier of such proportions that the rest of it can appear rather mundane. The Swordfish, it turns out, did a lot of patrolling.
At times the story is enlightening. Moffat describes, for instance, how he was posted to active war duty on HMS Ark Royal in Gibraltar without ever having flown off a carrier deck, let alone landed on one. His senior officer isn’t chuffed at the news, but this is hardly the first time he’s heard it and he remedies the situation forthwith.
The benefits of bringing in a professional writer, Mike Rossiter, are abundant: the pages turn easily and there is solid coverage of many naval encounters that would have required decent historical research. You also get a reasonable sense of the pilot’s life and attitudes at the time. Of course, there is more that you want to know – what was it like facing those guns, then preparing to go back and do it again?! – but that would be too much to ask of a war veteran in his late eighties (when the book was written). And yet there are moments, particularly Moffat’s memory of witnessing the Bismarck's crew, “those poor men struggling in the freezing oily water”, where there is genuine insight into and poignancy for the otherwise perfectly normal heroes who performed these courageous, other-worldly deeds so many decades ago.
One lucky torpedo was what they needed and that’s what John Moffat, the man in the mittens who wrote this book, delivered. The sinking of the Bismarck is such an astonishing story that you can’t not read Moffat’s chapter on the attack if you happen upon this book. And even if you know all about it already, it’s worth it.
The conditions over the days of the hunt for the German ship were so atrocious that the deckhands would be lashed to the ship with ropes and they in turn would have to hold down the aeroplanes to stop them sliding overboard. The attack itself, by 15 planes, was airborne chaos – the planes got separated in the impossible conditions and then faced the onslaught of anti-air fire in ones, twos and three – so much so that the pilots themselves didn’t know who made the two (or three?) hits. It was years before dedicated historians analysed the attack in forensic detail and worked out that Moffat was the likeliest marksman.
For that chapter alone the book gets 4 stars.
The rest of it can be a little pedestrian. Moffat really was just your average young man who, because there was a World War under way, ended up flying aeroplanes off aircraft carriers more by luck than design or obvious predilection. Literally every flight he took on active duty was risky and challenging and puts our modern anxieties in perspective, but his participation in the attack on the Bismarck was an outlier of such proportions that the rest of it can appear rather mundane. The Swordfish, it turns out, did a lot of patrolling.
At times the story is enlightening. Moffat describes, for instance, how he was posted to active war duty on HMS Ark Royal in Gibraltar without ever having flown off a carrier deck, let alone landed on one. His senior officer isn’t chuffed at the news, but this is hardly the first time he’s heard it and he remedies the situation forthwith.
The benefits of bringing in a professional writer, Mike Rossiter, are abundant: the pages turn easily and there is solid coverage of many naval encounters that would have required decent historical research. You also get a reasonable sense of the pilot’s life and attitudes at the time. Of course, there is more that you want to know – what was it like facing those guns, then preparing to go back and do it again?! – but that would be too much to ask of a war veteran in his late eighties (when the book was written). And yet there are moments, particularly Moffat’s memory of witnessing the Bismarck's crew, “those poor men struggling in the freezing oily water”, where there is genuine insight into and poignancy for the otherwise perfectly normal heroes who performed these courageous, other-worldly deeds so many decades ago.
June 25, 2011
This book is an autographical account mixed in some added historical facts of John Moffat's time and service of life before and during World Word II, during which he spent mostly piloting the swordfish aircraft participating in the action that led to the sinking of the famous german battleship the Bismarck.
I immensely enjoyed reading this book. It is very straight forward and reads out like somebody ( maybe your grandfather ) telling you their story out aloud. Particularly interesting is John Moffat's perspective and calling not as a super solider or best of the best fighter ace but as a trainee gaining the experience needed in the Royal Naval Reserve, being called to serve in times and situations where the outcome looked completely grim.
I found alot to learn from John's story. There have been many dots in my knowledge that are now joined together that I think would of missed had a historian or journalist had written it as in the fact that although we look down today on Prime mininster Chamberlain's attempt to make peace with Hilter he was popularly supported because the country was still so scarred from the effects of the the first world war as John describes in his relationship to this father.
Overall I am very grateful for reading this book. It does seem today to be taken for granted that the allies won WWII, we do forget how perilessly close the free world as we know it came to being defeated and how uncertain it really was for all those who lived and served through that time. I think this book is a good reminder of that with its lifestory and perspective
I immensely enjoyed reading this book. It is very straight forward and reads out like somebody ( maybe your grandfather ) telling you their story out aloud. Particularly interesting is John Moffat's perspective and calling not as a super solider or best of the best fighter ace but as a trainee gaining the experience needed in the Royal Naval Reserve, being called to serve in times and situations where the outcome looked completely grim.
I found alot to learn from John's story. There have been many dots in my knowledge that are now joined together that I think would of missed had a historian or journalist had written it as in the fact that although we look down today on Prime mininster Chamberlain's attempt to make peace with Hilter he was popularly supported because the country was still so scarred from the effects of the the first world war as John describes in his relationship to this father.
Overall I am very grateful for reading this book. It does seem today to be taken for granted that the allies won WWII, we do forget how perilessly close the free world as we know it came to being defeated and how uncertain it really was for all those who lived and served through that time. I think this book is a good reminder of that with its lifestory and perspective
December 12, 2012
Most historians have given a general account of the chase that led to the sinking of the Bismarck. There are only a very few accounts that concentrate on the aerial attacks on the Bismarck.
For enthusiastic readers of military history, it might be relevant that someone interview the remaining survivors of those aviators who took part in the torpedo attacks. With the passage of time, there are probably only a few such survivors still alive today.
At last, Mike Rossiter has interviewed Sub Lieutenant John Moffat who could have dropped the torpedo that damaged the rudders and steering gear of the Bismarck.
The ex pilot was humble enough to admit that he did not want to claim any honors even if it was his torpedo that slowed the Bismarck. He said that he was only doing his job and the credit should go to the entire squadron. He was also interviewed in an episode on The History Channel's TV series "Dogfights."
Although the main focus of the book was the raid on the Bismarck, the book went on to trace Mr Moffat's career abroad the Ark Royal and the Formidable.
A compelling read for those interested in naval aviation and want an insight into what it was like to serve abroad Royal Navy carriers during the Second World War.
For enthusiastic readers of military history, it might be relevant that someone interview the remaining survivors of those aviators who took part in the torpedo attacks. With the passage of time, there are probably only a few such survivors still alive today.
At last, Mike Rossiter has interviewed Sub Lieutenant John Moffat who could have dropped the torpedo that damaged the rudders and steering gear of the Bismarck.
The ex pilot was humble enough to admit that he did not want to claim any honors even if it was his torpedo that slowed the Bismarck. He said that he was only doing his job and the credit should go to the entire squadron. He was also interviewed in an episode on The History Channel's TV series "Dogfights."
Although the main focus of the book was the raid on the Bismarck, the book went on to trace Mr Moffat's career abroad the Ark Royal and the Formidable.
A compelling read for those interested in naval aviation and want an insight into what it was like to serve abroad Royal Navy carriers during the Second World War.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews