After several German prize tankers were located, Fulmars left Ark Royal to continue the search before daylight failed. One crew instead sighted Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the warships the Royal Navy had been hunting across the Atlantic. Its wireless had failed, so the aircraft could not report immediately and had to return at maximum speed to pass the news. The episode shows how a successful reconnaissance sighting could lose much of its operational value through a single communications failure.
Notable Point · 2:09:48-2:11:11
A failed radio delays contact with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
A Fulmar searching for another captured tanker instead finds the German battlecruisers, but a failed wireless makes the sighting an hour old before Force H receives it.