‘To Force the Enemy Off the Sea’ – RAF Coastal Command’s North Coates Strike Wing 1943-45
Thursday 6th November 2025, 18.30
This lecture examines the important and hard-fought but little-known anti-shipping campaign successfully conducted by Coastal Command’s North Coates Strike Wing from early 1943 onwards.
After three years of war, heavily armed German shipping convoys were still sailing down the North Sea into Rotterdam, carrying supplies of high-grade Swedish iron ore destined for the armaments factories of the Ruhr. With great courage the “Cinderella Boys” of RAF Coastal Command had attempted to curtail this enemy supply line, but with limited success and while incurring heavy losses.
This changed dramatically during 1943 with the introduction of Coastal Command’s new ‘Strike Wings’, equipped with the tough and versatile Bristol Beaufighter, and manned by specially trained aircrew using new tactics developed to overwhelm the enemy convoys’ defences. The first of these units was the North Coates Wing. Using cannon, rockets and torpedoes in carefully planned and co-ordinated attacks, the Wing succeeded in closing the sea route to Rotterdam and so ‘forcing the enemy off the sea’. 241 Beaufighter crew from North Coates were lost but over 150,000 tonnes of enemy shipping was sunk.
Referencing original sources and using battle photographs, maps and diagrams, the lecture explains why the Wing, comprising Nos. 236, 254 and 143 squadrons, was formed and how its tactics were developed and executed, describing in detail some of its major ‘Wing Strikes’ and other operations. It also looks at the diverse backgrounds, careers and character of the participants, and their wartime life on the North Coates station.
Finally, the effectiveness of Coastal Command’s Strike Wings anti-shipping campaign is assessed generally and the lecture questions whether a larger, earlier and more extensive deployment of its Strike Wings might have led to a more rapid degradation of Germany’s industrial capability.
The evening starts with a delicious hot supper in The Hub Café at 18.30.
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Speakers
John Vimpany is the son of an RAF officer who flew as a Beaufighter navigator on the North Coates Strike Wing. He was brought up on RAF bases in the UK and overseas. John worked first in the management of international trade fairs and exhibitions, when he travelled extensively overseas, as well as major public events including the operational management of the Liverpool International Garden Festival. He then turned to cultural projects, including museum and heritage management, serving as Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust. He also created a new museum for the Royal Artillery (‘Firepower’ at the Woolwich Arsenal) and was the English Heritage Project Director for a new Stonehenge visitor centre.
David Boyd
David Boyd worked as a specialist corporate investor relations manager for a number of public listed companies in the UK and internationally, and previously held a range of general business and financial management and advisory roles in the UK, USA, and Belgium. In 2018 David’s research paper “Bridging the Gap – Exploring the role of the Staff during the 1916 campaign in Tanganyika” was published in “There Came a Time … Essays on the Great War in Africa” (TSL Publications, 2018).
David Boyd & John Vimpany are co-authors of the book ‘To Force the Enemy Off the Sea’, recently published by Helion Books Ltd. Available on-line from www.helion.co.uk
