Lieutenant Commander John Moffat

Born: June 17, 1919;

Died: December 11, 2016

LIEUTENANT Commander John Moffat, who has died aged 97, was involved in an event that was a major turning point in the Second World War. In his open cockpit Swordfish biplane he and colleagues in the Fleet Air Arm fired the torpedoes that sank that mighty Bismarck – the pride of Hitler’s navy.

UK naval records now suggest that the torpedoes hit the ship's stern, jamming her rudder and preventing her from outrunning the Royal Navy who were hunting the Bismarck in the North Atlantic.

As Commander Moffat wrote in his memoirs, I Sank the Bismarck: “There's rarely been a day when I have not remembered what it was like to fly towards that great monster of a ship, or what I saw the next morning when she toppled over into the sea."

John William Charlton Moffat – widely known as Jock – was born in the Borders town of Swinton but his family lived in Earlston where his father owned the local garage. He attended Kelso High School and played for the 1stXV.

While still at school he saw an Avro 504 fly over Kelso and his passion for flying never left him. He left school at 16 to work for a local bus company, but in 1938 he applied to join the Fleet Air Arm and after training he acted as a test pilot mostly testing oxygen masks.

During one sortie he was attacked by a German fighter but he lost it in the clouds and returned home safely. During the Battle of Britain he served with 758 squadron – colleagues included Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson.

In 1940, he joined 818 Squadron on HMS Ark Royal in Gibraltar and the following year he and his crew were ordered to take off in a howling gale. The Bismarck was limping towards Saint-Nazaire for repairs and was in the Atlantic: its location supposedly remained a mystery to the Admiralty.

In fact, the boffins at Bletchley Park, from their knowledge of deciphering the German codes, knew the ship’s location. But a subterfuge had to be created - the Germans could not realise that their codes were being read and, according to Bletchley records, an RAF reconnaissance was sent out: “The RAF spotted the Bismarck so it looked as if it had been located by chance.”

The conditions were dire and as Mr Moffat’s plane approached the Bismarck the shelling was intensive. He decided to fly over the seas as low as possible. “The great thing about the Swordfish was that the bullets just went through it,” he wrote. “It was only made of canvas. Nevertheless, the stuff was coming in at such a rate I don't mind admitting that I was petrified. It was coming so thick and fast that I was inclined to duck in my cockpit and, in fact, I think I did so."

The plane was flying towards the Bismarck at a 30-degree angle, with the gunner hanging out of the plane shouting, “Not yet, not yet.”

Eventually, the gunner released the torpedo (“It felt like years to me,” Mr Moffat recalled) who then performed a complicated flying manoeuvre and returned to the Ark Royal – with no idea how successful his sortie had been. "When Churchill gave the order to sink the Bismarck, we knew we just had to stop her trail of devastation at all costs," said Mr Moffat.

Mr Moffat left the Fleet Air Arm in 1946 and lived in Glasgow where he studied for a business degree and a diploma in hotel management at Glasgow College. He was involved in hotel management for many years.

Mr Moffat, a modest and delightful man who loved telling of his war experiences and of the horrors of war, was a popular figure in Dunkeld where he retired. He loved flying all his life and was a member of the Scottish Aero Club for 30 years. He took up flying again in his 60s and flew into his early 90s and was also a keen supporter of the Fly Navy Heritage Trust. Last year, he took part in a special flight organised by the Scottish Aero Club in his honour.

Latterly, he participated for the No side in the Scottish independence referendum campaign, appearing alongside Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson in 2014 to make the defence case for the union.

During the war, he had met Marjorie Cochrane who managed a hairdresser’s salon in Glasgow. They married in 1944. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two daughters.

ALASDAIR STEVEN