Written by
Gaël Le Dimet

A Latécoère 298 of Escadrille T2 powers up off the Normandy coast during an unusually sunny spring day in 1940.

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Overview

In the early 1930s, the Marine nationale (French navy) was looking to replace its aging Levasseur PL15 and Latécoère 290 torpedo seaplanes. The new aircraft had to be stable in flight, drop torpedoes, dive-bomb, and carry out long-range reconnaissance patrols. When the Société industrielle d’aviation Latécoère (SILAT) presented its Latécoère 298 project in 1934, the model had no competitor. The Laté 298 was a monoplane with large floats, metal structure, and a metal skin with some fabric-covered parts, powered by a Hispano-Suiza 12Ycrs inline engine that drove a Ratier variable-pitch propeller. The radiators were retractable and located below the wing roots. One pilot, one rear gunner, and one navigator/radio operator (who was carried only if required) operated the aircraft. Ordnance could be attached under the fuselage, partially stored in a recessed bay. The fuselage could not accommodate the desired 20-mm (0.79-in) Hispano-Suiza HS.9 cannon, leaving forward firing armament to consist of only two 7.5-mm (0.295-in) Darne machine guns in the wings. The rear gunner manned a single mobile weapon of the same type.

The Aéronautique navale (naval aviation) authorities accepted the project for evaluation, and SILAT built the first prototype in Toulouse-Montraudan. Its maiden flight took place May 8, 1936 from St-Laurent-de-la-Salanque. Extensive testing led to only minor modifications and the Aéronautique navale ordered the type in August 1937.

The first examples delivered to operational units, in January 1939, equipped Escadrille (Flight) T2, based in Cherbourg. Escadrille T1, based in Berre, adopted the type shortly thereafter, as did Escadrilles HB1 and HB2, which, while theoretically assigned to the seaplane carrier Commandant-Teste, never flew Latés - which were not designed for catapult launches - from the ship. Early in deployment, two fatal accidents revealed that the crews needed supplementary training to handle these modern highly wing-loaded aircraft. T3 received its seaplanes in September 1939 and T4 was so equipped in early 1940.

With the declaration of war in 1939, T2 began to patrol the English Channel in an uneventful hunt for German submarines, but the unit would face the more substantial threat of German ground forces the next year. On May 19, the Armée de l’air headquarters of the Zone d’opérations aériennes Nord (Northern France air operations zone; ZOAN), overwhelmed by German pressure, requested help from the Aéronautique navale. The commander-in-chief of the Forces maritimes du Nord (Northern France naval forces) at first committed its naval dive-bombers to the ground battle, and, on May 23, ordered T2 to destroy an enemy armoured column “somewhere between Abbeville and Boulogne”. The headquarters officers of the Aéronautique navale tried to help stem the German invasion but were not necessarily well informed about modern air war and the capabilities of the naval aircraft under their command.

Despite the T2 commander’s protests that his aircraft were only equipped with anti-shipping bombs and his crews were not trained to attack ground targets, the order was confirmed – anything that might slow down the Germans was to be attempted. On the first sortie, the crews of the Laté 298s could not locate the target column, but one of the seaplanes was shot down by flak. Another four T2 Latés took off for a second attack on the same poorly defined target, and this time encountered nine Bf 110s of I./JG 27. Only one Laté made it back home. Even more desperate missions of this type were carried out by the crews of T2 and T3.

In June, following Italy’s declaration of war on France, the Laté 298-equipped units were redirected towards the Mediterranean. Escadrilles T2 and HB2 engaged a few Italian naval targets, with little result, shortly before the Armistice came into effect. By then, most torpedo seaplanes had been evacuated to North Africa, with the exception of Escadrille T4, which had been training and remained in southern France.

According to Armistice terms, all French aircraft were grounded, but after the Royal Navy attack on the French fleet in Mers el-Kébir, maritime patrol off the North African coast became a regular duty for the crews. In spite of the Royal Navy attack, one Latécoère crew defected to British-held Malta in July 1940. The airmen joined the RAF, and their aircraft, repainted in RAF colours, was used operationally for reconnaissance and leaflet dropping. Most Latés saw little use during the Armistice period as several units were disbanded at German request. Vichy France sent Escadrille 1T (formerly T1) to the Levant States in summer 1941 to help fend off British and Free French forces, but the unit arrived too late and without the equipment to play a significant part in the fratricidal conflict before Syria and Lebanon fell.

The Operation Torch landings in North Africa did not mark the end of the Laté’s career, as it did for many other French aircraft types. The need to secure the new Allied stronghold in the Mediterranean forced the Marine nationale to use the Latés for coastal patrol, as a complement to other Allied types such as the Supermarine Walrus.

When German forces invaded southern France in November 1942, they captured 54 Laté 298s. The Italians expressed an interest in acquiring the seaplanes but did not receive them before surrendering to the Allies. The Germans, having evaluated two examples captured in 1940, planned to convert the 45 remaining airworthy Latés for use by Luftwaffe units. Machine guns, bomb racks, and radio sets were to be replaced by standard German equipment. A single converted example was tested in May 1944, but the project came to an abrupt end when in August the Allies landed in southern France, where the Latés were stationed.

After the war, the Aéronautique navale found itself in control of a large number and wide variety of seaplane and flying boat types, including Allied aircraft such as Consolidated Catalinas, Short Sunderlands, Supermarine Sea Otters, ex-Luftwaffe Dornier Do 24s, and even Japanese-built aircraft captured in French Indochina. The Latécoère 298 was assigned trainer duties with Escadrille 53.S before being phased out of service in 1951.

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Variants

Note: Variant letters were only used on factory orders and by the manufacturers themselves. They were not used by operational units in documents such as after-action reports or pilot’s logs, neither were they painted on the aircraft’s rudders.

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Specifications

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References

Morareau, L. Le Latécoère 298. Lela Presse, Paris, 2000. ISBN -914017-01-4

Ehrengardt, C.-J. L’aéronautique navale en guerre (1939-1940), in Aéro-Journal, No. 18, April 2001

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