The raid's effect cannot be understood by imagining only the larger force that might have been available. Its actual results depended on crews such as John Wellham and Pat Humphreys extracting the maximum from the aircraft they had. A pop-culture comparison sets Star Trek's Enterprise, which seems to succeed primarily because of its crew, against Star Wars's Millennium Falcon as a characterful partner in its own right. The analogy frames the Swordfish as more than a collection of engineering features, because its identity and record arose through repeated human use. The Swordfish reputation also commemorates the Fleet Air Arm personnel who made the aircraft effective under exceptional conditions.
Notable Point · 30:06-32:53
The crew-and-aircraft partnership behind Swordfish legend
Taranto's Swordfish legend belongs to the aircraft and to the aircrew who extracted extraordinary results from it under combat conditions.