On this day 23 May 1943

On 23 May 1943, U-752 was attacked by a Fairey Swordfish of 819NAS, flown by Sub Lieutenant H Horrocks RNVR from the escort carrier HMS Archer, 750 miles west of Ireland (escort carrier for Convoy HX239) in the mid-Atlantic. The Rocket Spear, a new weapon with a solid cast iron head, entered and left the pressure hull leaving large holes, and the U-boat went down with twenty-nine crew members, including her commander. Of the forty-six crewmen aboard, seventeen survived the sinking. This was the first success of the Rocket Spear.

From then until the end of the Second World War in Europe, the FAA used the rockets as one of their primary weapons against shipping and surfaced U-Boats.

HMS Archer was a Long Island-class escort carrier built by the United States in 1939–1940 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 6 May 1942. She was built as the cargo ship Mormancland, but was converted to an escort carrier and renamed HMS Archer.