The Most Lethal Airplane Hunting the Seas

On a stormy night in June 1941, a Bristol Beaufort, the RAF’s first monoplane torpedo bomber, roared through black clouds on the kind of daring mission it was designed for, attacking the German heavy cruiser Lützow, recently spotted off the coast of Norway.
As it fought against the howling winds and turbulent skies, this Beaufort had somehow separated from the rest of the RAF’s 42 Squadron and was now flying solo. Flight Sergeant Ray Loveitt gripped the controls tightly. The 22-year-old pilot wasn’t normally superstitious, but on this Friday, the 13th, the odds felt particularly grim.
As the North Sea waves began to shimmer with the first light of dawn, Loveitt’s heart skipped a beat. There, cutting through the horizon, was the unmistakable silhouette of Lützow. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
But, unlike his Beaufort, the heavy cruiser wasn't alone. Surrounding her were four destroyers, their guns bristling in the dim light, and a swarm of Junkers Ju 88s and Messerschmitt Bf 110s patrolling the skies. Getting the bomber close enough to Lützow to drop its payload would require nerves of steel and a stroke of luck.
Loveitt’s mind raced as he observed the recognition signals exchanged between the German aircraft and the ships. Mimicking these signals was a long shot, but it was his only chance. He held his breath as he sent the coded blinks. To his amazement, the Germans accepted his Beaufort as one of their own.
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All content on Dark Skies is researched, produced, and presented in historical context for educational purposes. We are history enthusiasts and are not always experts in some areas, so please don't hesitate to reach out to us with corrections, additional information, or new ideas.

[@obiemichaels9675]

When I was a kid my old next-door neighbour Claude Pope his name was, had been a navigator on the Bristol Beaufort during World War II. I still have the clock out of one that he gave me when I was a kid. Rest in peace hero.

[@guaporeturns9472]

That’s very cool. What a great neighbor. Would be kinda cool to find his kids/grandkids and gift it to them… would probably love it

[@elennapointer701]

By the way, in RAF parlance, the squadron numbers are prounounced "Twenty-Two Squadron" and "Forty-Two Squadron" if it's a two-digit name. If there's only one digit, it would be, for example, "Number Four Squadron". Should it be a three-number unit, the numbers are pronounced individually again, i.e. "Six One Seven Squadron" or "Two Four Two Squadron"; ditto for maintainance flights, conversion training units, etc, which often had four-digit numbers. If you ever see an RAF squadron's number, this is the rule that's applied. We're just funny like that.

[@christopherrobinson66]

This is correct; British Commonwealth squadrons all use cardinal numbers when referencing their flying units. It is the Americans (USN, USMC, USAF) who use ordinal numbers for their flying units. Cheers!

[@jameseadie7145]

Royal Engineers have squadron s with similar numbering eg 73 sqn would be seven three, however 12 nova scotia squadron is just twelve squadron

[@longrider42]

I don't think who ever puts these video's together cares too much. I've never seen a response to any comment. Plus I think the commentary is AI based.

[@robertcamble3543]

Beaufighters dont get the respect it deserves . Its overshadowed by the mossie .

[@carrickrichards2457]

'Beaufighters' are another aircraft altogether. The Japanese confusing the two in the Bismark Sea (1943) was an important error!

[@brianmerz6070]

I appreciate that your videos never contain any click bait, and always deliver solid historical information.

[@johndoe-so2ef]

Hey, you got jokes....

[@user-gq4vl9pm9n]

At the same time, the video is about the Bristol Beaufort, but the video thumbnail displays the much more powerful Bristol Beaufighter....

[@obiemichaels9675]

As Sheldon would say ‘sarcasm?’

[@dukecraig2402]

​@@obiemichaels9675 "Oh....ha!"

[@damienmaynard8892]

RAAF Beauforts in the Pacific? Did a lot of damage to the Japanese merchant shipping! Wildebeest in RNZAF service were sacrificed pointlessly at Singapore. RAAF is said "R double-A F" or "Raff" We're bloody picky too! ;)

[@user-ze5tu4ck1t]

Hoo Pedantic we Are .

[@fedupgamer9075]

That's a Bristol "Beaufighter" in the thumbnail mate.

[@darrenwilson8042]

all references to Beauforts seem to be supported by images of Beaufighters ......

[@Chris-mh3vf]

You are lucky it’s not a flying fortress

[@IntrospectorGeneral]

Swapping images is a 'Dark Skies' tradition. It's done at least once every episode to keep us on our toes.

[@gregmacdonald7710]

Beaufort is correct!...

[@steverichardson6920]

The thumbnail definitely a Beaufort not a Beaufighter….

[@docersatz5228]

Somehow doesn't seem to merit the title "The Most Lethal Flying Hunter of the Seas"

[@tobyrobson2939]

Because it wasn't. But KZbinrs wanting to monetise clicks put hyperbole before accuracy...

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

That title could arguable be given to either the Bristol Beaufighter or the de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito, both of which were used in there maritime attack role very successfully. That being said, the Bristol Beaufort was no slouch, though she did quickly become horrible obsolete.

[@gumpyoldbugger6944]

@@tobyrobson2939 Especially the Dark team......they were good back in the begining with Dark 5, but now.....meh at best.

[@outinthesticks1035]

Lots of different planes could carry the title , sbd after midway , b-25 at Bismarck sea , hellcat , beaufighter , even the string bag for its role in sinking the Bismarck

[@longrider42]

The old Swordfish, now there was a lethal aircraft. Obsolete from the beginning of the way. But served all the way through to the end.

[@goldenageofdinosaurs7192]

Just wanted to say that I’ve been watching your videos since right near the beginning & your voiceover work has substantially improved. Great work, sir🫡

[@guyh9992]

Lord Beaverbrook persuaded Australia to build the Beaufort primarily because it suited British industry even though it was a terrible bombing platform. It went on to do a lot more bombing over New Guinea and surrounds than launching torpedos. Australia learned from this experience. The team subsequently tasked with selecting a fighter and heavy bomber to manufacture undertook its due diligence by touring both the USA and UK. The outcome was the decision to build the P-51 Mustang fighter and Lancaster/Lincoln bomber. Production of the Beaufort did however set Australia up to build the Beaufighter. RAAF is pronounced R-Double A-F.

[@seanlander9321]

The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was the pinnacle of the Australian made version of the Bristol’s, a defeat for the Japanese in the most one sided battle of WWII.

[@ianjay5301]

The one in London is actually a Canadian made plane. After the war, Britain scrapped ALL of their planes for the metal. Canadian planes were also sold off, but a bunch found their way to the western prairies where they were sold off to farmers. One of the things to make them more saleable was that they could be bought with a full load of fuel. When Britain came looking for one, they retrieved some of these surplus planes (trees had been growing around them. There is one being restored at the Canadian Warplane Museum at the Mount Hope airport (Hamilton, Ontario) but they are a long way from completing it. Saw a volunteer riveting a panel for it yesterday. That airport also has an operational Lancaster for which you can purchase flights. (About $4000 cdn per person) I was there to have a flight on their Canso (Consolidated PBY). I flew on their Lancaster last year.

[@androidemulator6952]

So the Aussies fitted American Pratt & Witney Double Wasp radials , in place of the unreliable and underpowered ?? Bristol Taurus ? - would be interesting to see the performance change of the Aussie Beauforts ! :)

[@drmarkintexas-400]

🏆⭐🎖️🙏 Thank you for sharing this

[@captaccordion]

Very good information in this one, and much less mismatch of the images and dialogue. Very well done!

[@DONALDSON51]

Great video always had a soft spot for the Beaufort

[@chrisreynolds7164]

There is a Beaufort being restored in Caloundra Queensland Australia. Impressive progress has been made, but still a long way to go.

[@sailordude2094]

Lol, @1:07, the pilot required nerves of steel, showing a pilot franticly puffing on a smoke. Thanks for the video, interesting footage!

[@nopelindoputraperkasa5869]

Nice sharing Vidio.. very inspiring and informative.. great 🇮🇩😮❤

[@richardreynolds6398]

The Dauntless SBD sank 6 carriers, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, and several other ships. The A-20's in Soviet hands sank over 100,00 tons of Axis shipping and the B-25 gunships in the New Guinea campaign rained hell down on the Japanese coastal and merchant shipping. Appreciate the Beaufort launched torpedoes and was very effective but it may not have been the "...most lethal...".

[@daleirvine7548]

You need to look into and be surprised by the tonnage sunk by th3 Fairy Swordfish. Supposedly > 1 million.

[@richardreynolds6398]

@@daleirvine7548 Yes - surprising, indeed. Much more than the Beaufort, though, and simply makes my point. I was just grabbing a few examples but it is surprising. Thank you.

[@jagsdomain203]

Find saw Beaufort at the United States Air Force museum in Ohio that thing was a lot larger than I had expected

[@richard392]

when i watch these videos it reminds me of the quote "Never in the field of human conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few' Winston Churchill. That pilot was 22 guys 22! Kid out of high school.

[@sunderwood121]

I lived at 58 BeaufortvCescent, RAF Leuchars from 73 ~76. Leuchars is, by the way, pronounced Lewkars. Great programme. Thanks.

[@davidmaule3266]

Or locally with ch as in loch, not k as in lock.

[@marioalejandromedina6127]

Great machine ¡¡¡

[@mohammedsaysrashid3587]

A wonderful historical coverage video about the brustl boffer royal navy and a royal navy airforce

[@Walter-wo5sz]

I love the gardening term.

[@johndoe-so2ef]

Except it's totally inaccurate. Gardening was a term Harris used for random terror bombing on land.

[@RemusKingOfRome]

Great video. Wonder if the rear gunner was effective ?

[@stephenbesley3177]

I was born in Filton. Family worked on various planes during the war and I witnessed Concords maiden flight.

[@glennsimpson7659]

The shot of the Prinz Eugen at 10:56 is her in US Navy service post war, on her way to the atomic bomb test sites in the Pacific. You can tell by the US Army radar van welded on top of the conning tower to give her some navigational radar capacity.

[@senianns9522]

This was certainly lethal this Beaufort! Lethal for the flying crews!

[@Dackah]

Good video, but I was perplexed with your pronunciation of the airfiefd in Fife , Scotland that the Beauforts took off from-then I realised you were talking about RAF Leuchars-it's pronounced "Lookers" not Looshars😀

[@kevanhubbard9673]

The Beaufort is very much in the shadow of the Beaufighter and you don't hear as much about its successes as you do it's closely related sibling.

[@defender1006]

Just imagine a bigger and more powerful Beaufort or even an upscaled Beaufighter with Centaurus engines, a 'Mossie' contender to be sure, The 'whispering death', to be sure!

[@tileux]

Lutzow was renamed by hitler but she was renamed Lutzow because the original, uncompleted, Lutzow was sold to the soviet union and the protocol required the same name be used. Lutzow was a real bomb, shell, and torpedo magnet, taking two torpedo hits through her career and being the only german ship I know of to be damaged by norwegians, british, french and soviets. She had a series of ever more hapless captains who managed to get her, variously, run aground and - twice - ambushed by complete surprise. Hitler was so unimpressed with her and her sister ships he actually ordered them all melted down for scrap metal. Ironically, that would have been a good idea because the germans wasted a lot of resources on ships that they could have used on tanks, but the german naval commanders talked hitler out of that.

[@timmalone3672]

Just to say my grandparents met in the factory making the wings for these. So this plane is Marty McFly important to me 😂

[@csjrogerson2377]

"The most lethal", seems to be an unsupported accolade for a disaster of a plane. See the summary at 12:43. "Not particularly effective and often seen as a disappointment". Perhaps the Beaufighter should have the title which "more effective" (13:00)

[@freebeerfordworkers]

Apparently a tour of duty in bomber command required 30 missions before the crew arrested. A torpedo bomber crew only had to do three attacks before they were rested it was that dangerous. I hadn't heard of the Beaufort being involved in the channel dash all the attention seems to have gone to the half a dozen navy swordfish that were destroyed. It was years after the war it came out that the naval officer commanding Dover tried to cancel the attack because it was suicidal and pointless and said so. The reply from the Admiralty was, the Navy must do its duty. It wasn't completely pointless by getting them massacred trying and giving out decorations they had saved their **** covering up a complete cock up..

[@paulkendall6069]

I Read it was also a very good Night Fighter, the pub near me was named after an ace who flow the Beaufighter it was called The Cunningham I beleive it had his portrait with the Fighter in the background.

[@aussie6910]

Cunningham scored 20 victories at night, the top German night fighter ace, Schnaufer, had 121. But the Germans flew until they died & had a much more target rich environment.

[@swanseajaffa]

I take it he was the famous "Cat eyes Cunningham" who was said to eat carrots to improve his night vision where in reality Britain had just started to fit airborne radar to our night fighters but wanted to keep in secret from the Germans.

[@keithdrower9120]

The Australian Beaufighters were named 'the whispering death' by Japanese forces in the Pacific theatre.

[@gregmacdonald7710]

Named after the Duke of Beaufort 🧐👍

[@Olleetheowl]

Not only is the thumbnail a Beau Fighter, but It’s Two two and Four Two squadron …not Twenty second and Fourty second. They were R.A.F. squadrons. NOT U.S.A.A.F. R.A.F. LOOSHORE is actually Lucas’s

[@jill-ti7oe]

👍

[@catandtheostrich]

This has probably been noted before, but Leuchars - the ch is like a k, it's not a soft ch. Try pronouncing it as "Lookars".

[@johnforrester9120]

We built them at chullora railway workshops in nsw which we used them against the japs to great effect

[@vbprogman]

Please is there any truth to what l have been told in that the Beaufort simply could not fly on one engine?

[@14rnr]

Some great old footage there

[@kjellg6532]

Why all that disturbing noise in the background?

[@charlesarmstrong5292]

Sounds like a pretty bad failure until the Beaufighter arrived.

[@robertjohnstone3706]

No that’s a Beaufort , rear turret and windows on the front .

[@HappyTrails1]

Considering the content isnt the title a bit on the clickbait side?

[@user-ze5tu4ck1t]

Very Brave Men ,Now its done with Drones ,missiles from a Distance.

[@markharvey6172]

Thought this was going to be about the Beaufighter……..

[@utbdoug]

Dang it Austin, how many times... It's pronounced "Look-ars" lol

[@amblt1]

Just to add to a previous comment - we DO NOT USE ORDINALS in Commonwealth squadron numbering. Please stop.

[@steveshoemaker6347]

🇺🇸

[@genemaster74]

G'day ....the RAAF and all Australian forces did a lot of upgrades on many platforms during WW2. Because we where more isolated than many other countrys, we had to be more self reliant and innovative. Which helped all the allies in the Pacific theatre, both here in main land Australia and on the Front. Well what do ya expect when the Brits sent all their so called "Criminals"🚔 to a big island hidden for millennia🧐 where only the strong survive💀, Let them stew down there for 150yrs, and it sort of builds a small but tenacious innovative society😤. Cheers for the great Docs ya making over at "Dark Media Inc". From a true Blue Aussie, part of 4 generations of family Servicemen, over the last hundred years. Goodonya (Good-on-ya) from A M8 Downunder🙃

[@ant13665]

as a child i learnt the difference between we're , where, & were.

[@martinbather4835]

It's,42 & 22 Sqn.........not 42snd or 22 snd Sqn....

[@grahamo22]

Its not 'Loo-shar' - its Luke-ers

[@zygmuntthecacaokakistocrat6589]

So, not "The Most Lethal Flying Hunter of the Seas" A bit of a disappointment, really. The Beaufighter had a much greater success rate.

[@jamesragus1577]

Complimentary algorithm enhancement comment!😊

[@williamkennedy5492]

The aircraft shown is not a Beau !!!

[@garywatson1012]

one point for improvement, its not RAF "Looshar" it is RAF "Loo~chers" the "ch" pronounced the same as in "loch"

[@petel4119]

You've excelled yourself. It took 8 seconds for the first mistake to show up. That ain't a Beaufort, more like a Hudson.

[@sunrayisdown1690]

These are Bristol Blenheims. More American diahorreah.

[@plantfeeder6677]

Most lethal huh?! Well other than the A-20 and the B-25 then ya, most lethal

[@prowlus]

This youtuber “sexes up” their aircraft they want to highlight. They’d probably describe for example , the Supermarine Swift as “The versatile swept wing fighter that served the RAF for only a few months”

[@tobyrobson2939]

Sadly, this is consistently one of the least pictorially accurate and most title 'click baity' channels. Id dont know if thats deliberate, but its a shame, as the author is clearly spending money on his archive material.

[@rafaelclass5744]

I'm the first viewer

[@JSFGuy]

No, Besides, BFD.

[@Area51UFOGynaecology]

i never watched it

[@JSFGuy]

@@Area51UFOGynaecology No doubt, most pick me comments don't watch the video.

[@paulryan2128]

Shouldn't you just keep that to yourself? 😊

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

Bargain basement avaition airplane channel. Well funded simultaneously.

[@jockster5525]

Awesome..the airfield in fife is pronounced..lookers

[@trschreck]

while a good documentary on an important airplane, the title is a tad misleading. you can only get away with this for so long before people stop watching.