Made in the late 1940s but probably prior to 1948, THE NAVY FLIES shows planes of the Royal Canadian Navy landing aboard Canada’s first aircraft carrier (and one of three the nation operated in the post-WWII era). The planes shown include the Fairey Firefly. The ship is HMS Warrior, a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier which served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1946 to 1948 (as HMCS Warrior), the Royal Navy from 1948 to 1958, and the Argentine Navy from 1959 to 1969 as ARA Independencia. Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, she was originally to be called HMS Brave; the Royal Navy had originally intended to rush her into service for operations in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War, thus she was built without heaters for some onboard equipment since heat was unnecessary in tropical operations. Warrior was launched on 20 May 1944 and completed on 24 January 1946. She was loaned to the RCN, commissioned as HMCS Warrior and placed under the command of Captain Frank Houghton. She entered Halifax harbor on 31 March 1946, a week after leaving Portsmouth. She was escorted by the destroyer HMCS Micmac and the minesweeper HMCS Middlesex. Initially, Warrior was equipped with Supermarine Seafires of 803 Squadron and Fairey Fireflies of 825 Squadron. The RCN experienced problems with the unheated equipment during operations in cold North Atlantic waters off eastern Canada during 1947. The ship was transferred west to Esquimalt in November 1947. The RCN deemed her unfit for service and, rather than retrofit her with equipment heaters and with reduced defense spending, the RCN could not afford two aircraft carriers. Warrior was then returned to the Royal Navy in exchange for Magnificent in February 1948.
At 5:10, the ship pays a port of call to Kingston, Jamaica. At 8:00 the destroyer R16 is shown being refueled at sea. This is HMCS Crescent, a C-class destroyer that was built for the Royal Navy but was transferred before completion and saw active service with the Royal Canadian Navy. At 9:00 flight deck operations with the Fairey Firefly are shown. At 11:00, anti-aircraft gunners do some practicing and at 11:11 the Fairey Fireflies perform bombing exercises.
The Fairey Firefly was a British Second World War-era carrier-borne fighter aircraft and anti-submarine aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Designed to the contemporary FAA concept of a two-seat fleet reconnaissance/fighter, the pilot and navigator/weapons officer were housed in separate stations. It was superior in performance and firepower to its predecessor, the Fulmar, but entered operational service only towards the end of the war when it was no longer competitive as a fighter. The limitations of a single engine in a heavy airframe reduced its performance, but it proved to be sturdy, long-ranged, and docile in carrier operations.
The Fairey Firefly served in the Second World War as a fleet fighter but in postwar service, although it was superseded by more modern jet aircraft, the Firefly was adapted for other roles, including strike operations and anti-submarine warfare, remaining a mainstay of the FAA until the mid-1950s. UK and Australian Fireflies flew ground attack operations off various aircraft carriers in the Korean War. In foreign service, the type was in operation with the naval air arms of Australia, Canada, India and the Netherlands whose Fireflies carried out a few attack sorties as late as 1962 in Dutch New Guinea.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
