Swordfish patrols were searching for suspicious merchant ships that might support Scharnhorst and Gneisenau when Moffat found Bianca sailing without a flag. He recognised her as a captured tanker under a German prize crew and used his forward machine gun to signal that she should heave to. The Germans opened the seacocks and began abandoning ship, so Moffat and his observer fired at the lifeboat without aiming at the sailors, forcing the crew back aboard. Renown then sent a boarding party that captured the prize crew, extinguished fires, and preserved the tanker for towing into port.
Chapter · 2:04:44-2:09:46
A Swordfish forces a German prize crew back aboard Bianca
Moffat recounts how reconnaissance from Ark Royal identified the captured tanker Bianca and helped a boarding party from Renown recover her from a German prize crew.