Picture the job description. You sit strapped into a fighter perched on a rail over the bow of a cargo ship, somewhere in the North Atlantic. When an enemy bomber appears, rockets fire you off the front of the ship. You fight. And then, because there is nowhere to land, you bail out or ditch in the sea beside the convoy and hope a ship picks you up before the cold kills you.

That was the reality for the pilots of the CAM ships, the Catapult Aircraft Merchant ships of 1941 to 1943. Each carried a single Hawker Hurricane with one purpose: to kill or drive off the long-range German bombers stalking Britain's convoys, at the price, almost always, of the aircraft itself.

The Condor Problem

In 1940 and 1941 the Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor was a menace out of all proportion to its numbers. Flying from western France, the long-range four-engined aircraft could find convoys far out in the Atlantic, report their position to the U-boats, and bomb stragglers. It operated beyond the reach of any land-based British fighter, and there were not yet enough aircraft carriers to escort the convoys.

The Royal Navy tried first with fighter catapult ships, commissioned naval vessels such as HMS Maplin. On 3 August 1941 Lieutenant Robert Everett was catapulted from Maplin while escorting convoy OG 17 and shot down a Condor, the first success for a catapult-launched Hurricane. Everett, remarkably, had won the Grand National steeplechase in 1929. He was picked up by a destroyer.

Merchant Ships With a Sting

The CAM ships took the idea further. They were ordinary merchant ships, sailing under the Red Ensign and carrying full cargoes, with a 75-foot rocket-fired catapult on the forecastle. The RAF formed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on 5 May 1941 at Speke near Liverpool under Wing Commander E.S. Moulton-Barrett. Each ship carried a small team: a pilot, a fitter, a rigger, a radio operator, a fighter direction officer and a seaman who looked after the catapult's electrics.

Keeping a fighter serviceable on an open bow in the North Atlantic was its own battle. A Royal Air Force maintenance report, quoted by the Naval Historical Society of Australia, described covers ripped off, airframes corroded and the electrics soaked.

A 1940 Royal Navy instructional film on the catapult ships and how their fighters were launched. Video: Editions Audioviseul BEULAH

Eight Launches

For all the effort, CAM Hurricanes were launched in anger only eight times. The first came on 1 November 1941, when Flying Officer George Varley was fired off SS Empire Foam in convoy HX 156 and drove away a Condor. On 26 April 1942 Flying Officer John Kendal launched from SS Empire Morn with the Arctic convoy QP 12. He shot down a Junkers Ju 88, but his parachute opened too late when he baled out, and he died of his injuries. He was the only CAM pilot lost.

The best single result came on 18 September 1942 with convoy PQ 18 to Russia. Flying Officer A.H. "Jackie" Burr launched from Empire Morn, was credited with two Heinkel He 111s, and then, instead of ditching, flew on to land at Keg Ostrov near Archangel. The final launches came on 28 July 1943, when Hurricanes from SS Empire Darwin and MV Empire Tide, sailing with the homeward convoy SL 133, each shot down a Condor.

Replaced by Carriers

The eight launches produced eight German aircraft destroyed: three Condors, four He 111s and a Ju 88, with one more damaged and three driven off. Eight Hurricanes went into the sea. Counts vary slightly between sources depending on how shared and probable claims are treated, but the pattern is clear: almost every launch cost an aircraft, and nearly every one achieved something.

The real value may have been the threat. A Condor crew could no longer circle a convoy at leisure if one of the ships might fire a fighter at it. As escort carriers arrived in numbers, CAM sailings on the North American and Arctic routes ended in August 1942. Fighter Command ordered the MSFU disbanded from 8 June 1943, and the last unit closed on 7 September 1943. Twelve of the 35 CAM ships had been sunk.

Period footage of a Sea Hurricane IA being catapulted from a merchant ship. Video: Aviation videos archives

It was an improvisation, and everyone involved knew it. But for two years it gave convoys something they had lacked entirely: a fighter of their own, far out at sea, flown by volunteers who launched knowing they would not be landing.

A documentary on the CAM ships and the Condor threat. Video: British Naval History

Sources: Wikipedia (CAM ship, Fighter catapult ship), Naval Historical Society of Australia