SEAC Beaufighter TF Mk. X, No. 22 Sqn, Bay of Bengal, 1945 – picture & profile

[Aesthete]

Here is so far the only known to me late type thimble-nosed Beaufighter TF Mk. X with extended dorsal fin at least reported to be flown in combat in Burma during WWII.

Here is the profile from the book by Militaria:

and here is the photo from the old Osprey Aircam series:

While the Temperate Land Scheme seems to be plausible in this case (contrary to the caption to the same photo in some old issue of “Scale Aircraft Modelling” suggesting the Temperate Sea Scheme), considering what is actually visible on the photo, the following questions are arising:

1. The serial “RD 747” as such as well as its colo(u)r and location (not under the horizontal tail as it is the case with some Atlantic-based Coastal Command late TF Xs);
   
2. No individual code letter: how could then be identified, that the a/c belonged to the No. 22 Sqn?
   
3. Again regarding the absence of the code letter: could an operational a/c (except PR) be flown without it, or the picture must have depicted rather a ferry flight in this case?
   
4. Were those long-range external tanks ever used during combat missions and, if so, could they be combined with rockets?
   

Well, I realize, it is hardly possible to clarify all these points having only one photo unless there might have been some reliable documents the captions to the photo and the profile are based on?...

Any input or any other pictures of such late type SEAC Mk. X are most welcomed.

Thanks in advance

[gingerbob]

Again regarding the absence of the code letter: could an operational a/c (except PR) be flown without it...

I've certainly seen photos of fighter squadrons in the air (presumably on ops, or at least "operational") where certain aircraft have not yet been marked up with code letters.

[Test Graham]

To answer point 2:

Perhaps the photo came from a member of 22 Sq, or was in some other way connected to the unit.

Or, once the serial is known then the aircraft's history can be traced from the Air Britain serial books or even the National Archives. Sadly, in RAF Aircraft PA100-RZ999, RD747 is not recorded as serving with 22 Sq, and indeed did not go out to the Far East at all. RD746 did, but can the serial be read from the photo? The AB book does have a very interesting photo of RD758 (serial under the tail) on its way to the Far East in very similar appearance to the Osprey photo. This includes the tail band not shown on the profile, but with the mounting for the twin pair rocket launcher rather than the four rails. RD758 is camouflaged with two uppersurface colours of fairly low contrast, and carries European-style roundels and finflash without the white SEAC bands. To me this suggests that it might well be camouflaged in TSS rather than TLS. I've not seen any comment on how aircraft were coming off the Bristol production line, but presumably (in line with other types) they will have been in a limited range of colour schemes to speed production.

Aircraft in this serial grouping generally did not reach the squadrons, but were converted to target tugs.

[Seahawk]

There are lies, damned lies and colour profiles. If the profile is intended to represent the aircraft in the photo, it is at fault in omitting the rocket rails and the fairing behind the cockpit. Which makes me very suspicious of any other details shown on the profile that I can't see myself from the photo.

[Seahawk]

To be a little more constructive! Congratulations on finding a very interesting photo. I hadn't even realised that the old Osprey Aircam series covered the Beaufighter. Is it a dedicated title or a page in one of the more generic titles in the S series? A few rambling points which may or may not be of use to you:

• I have had a rummage through the best of my Beaufighter references ¹ without finding another single photo of a late Beaufighter TF.X with fin fillet and thimble radome in SEAC. However JDR Rawlings' Coastal, Support and Special Squadrons of the RAF lists the following Beaufighter TF.Xs as having served with 22 Squadron: NE407/H, NE748/V, NE629/Q, NE716/B and RD515/Q: there is a photo of NE748 (no thimble, no fillet). From what I can glean from photos of RD-serialled aircraft, Beaufighter Xs started being fitted with the thimble radome somewhere between RD367 (which didn't have one) and RD438 and subsequent (which did). So RD515 ought to have had a fin fillet and thimble radome like the aircraft in your photo. But that's pure surmise: I've no photographic confirmation of that. Worse, the Air Britain book doesn't even show this aircraft going out to the Far East.
  

• To be honest I can't even positively identify where the serial is on the aircraft in your photo, much less read what it is. From rummaging though Beaufighter pics it seems to be that the serial is invariably in black under the tailplane – except for one SEAC example: the famous RD367/H of 27 Squadron has a serial in white or light grey forward of and slightly lower than the tailplane (but higher than shown in your artwork). Picking up on Graham's point about aircraft being delivered in TSS, I'm wondering if this is an indicator of an aircraft repainted in SEAC colours in theatre (something similar is the case with Spitfires: black serial = Day Fighter Scheme, white serial = Tropical Land Scheme.) - though surely more got repainted than that? In your photo, because I can't see it clearly in white forward of the tailplane, I'm inclined to think it's in black under the tailplane. [Edit: better quality print of the OP's original photo on p.139 of Crowood shows black serial, still unreadable, forward of fin and quite low on fuselage exactly as drawn on artwork presented by OP. Another photo of u/i Beaufighter on p.142 has it in same position. So there were clearly 3 possible serial positions for SEAC Beaufighters: black under tailplanes, black forward of tailplane and low on fuselage and white forward of tailplane with top edge just below leading edge of tailplane. See post 8.]
  

I think I need to get out more. Or maybe I could try some modelling..

¹ Bingham: Bristol Beaufighter, Parry: Beaufighter Squadrons In Focus, Bowyer: Beaufighter, Bowyer: Beaufighter At War, Warpaint 1: Beaufighter, Modeller Datafile 6: Bristol Beaufighter.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Seahawk

[Nick Millman]

FWIW there are photographs of SEAC thimble nosed, fin fillet Beau TFX in Air-Britain's 'Scorpion's Sting' (84 Sqn) and 'The Flying Camels' (45 Sqn). Colour schemes are speculated with no confirmation of TSS or TLS but I'm sure I have a reference somewhere for TSS where role required it. There is mention of some Beaus with a single dark upper surface colour too.

What many of these Beaus do have is a white rear fuselage band (both sqns) which goes over the fillet and this is mentioned as being applied in-theatre as a recognition marking so does not appear to be a DFS Sky band. It was a strange choice because Japanese aircraft were also marked with a white fuselage band - the senchi hiyoshiki (literally "war front sign") and Beaus were known to have been attacked by Mustangs and Lightnings!

Edited August 17, 2012 by Nick Millman

[Seahawk]

FWIW there are photographs of SEAC thimble nosed, fin fillet Beau TFX in Air-Britain's 'Scorpion's Sting' (84 Sqn) and 'The Flying Camels' (45 Sqn). Colour schemes are speculated with no confirmation of TSS or TLS but I'm sure I have a reference somewhere for TSS where role required it. There is mention of some Beaus with a single dark upper surface colour too.

What many of these Beaus do have is a white rear fuselage band (both sqns) which goes over the fillet and this is mentioned as being applied in-theatre as a recognition marking so does not appear to be a DFS Sky band. It was a strange choice because Japanese aircraft were also marked with a white fuselage band - the senchi hiyoshiki (literally "war front sign") and Beaus were known to have been attacked by Mustangs and Lightnings!

I was confining myself to the WW2 period. Aren't Beaufighter operations by 45 and 84 Squadrons strictly post-war (Dec 46 - Feb 50 and Dec 46 - Sep 48 respectively)?

[Test Graham]

I have found a few more photos of these aircraft, in Jerry Scutts' Crowood "Bristol Beaufighter" and his In Action booklet. A repeat of the Osprey photo that started this thread suggests that the serial is dark, ahead of the tailplane, and almost totally obscured by the wing. I'm only mentioning photos in wartime camouflage. Two of the photos (in the Sq In Action) have dark rings around the roundel suggesting ortho film, and on these photos there is a very high contrast between the uppersurface colours, which to me is suggestive of TSS on ortho. Were this pan film I'd suspect nightfighters, but these are Mk.10s with 45 and 84 Sq respectively: RD785, with the twin pair rocket pylons, and RD813 84/S (dark code - red or black). Serials are black and under the tailplane. Both have a tail band, but I don't think this is light enough to be white, and it is best visible (and surely not white) on RD758 mentioned above which was taken on delivery down to the SNAKE suffix on the serial. So this is not an example of bands painted in theatre, casting doubt on this aspect. I feel it would still be unsuitable for the reason Nick mentions. I can think of no other mention of such a band, and wonder if it is part of the ferry instructions, particularly as it is painted out on one clear photo (see below) and may have been retained on postwar examples, too late for the war, just by inertia. Not a particularly likely suggestion, I feel, but are other examples known?

The Crowood photos are predominantly postwar; but there is one, serial unclear, still in SEAC markings with four separate rocket rails and no bands at all. The serial is black and ahead of the tailplane - it might be RD784 but that's a big leap. There is a Tempest and two Vengeances in the background, plus another - too distant- Beau. Then there are RD770 84/A, RD805 45 OB-J in postwar roundels but tail band, and RD816 OB-J with D roundels, possibly a painted-over tailband and the twin launcher. Serials are not visible, suggesting under the tailplane. There are various grades of contrast between the uppersurface colours, as perhaps might be expected in a tropical climate postwar.

I don't have the 84 or 45 Sq books, but I'd like to know if the tailband is clearly white in any of the photos, for none of these are as crisp as I would like. However, the best is RD758.

I think the postwar photos are of interest as they still show features of the wartime camouflage and differing equipment fit, and all the more so if they are bombers in TSS. If.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Graham Boak

[Nick Millman]

Sorry about the WWII proviso - didn't notice that!

There is a long footnote about the bands in the 45 Sqn book refuting the idea that they were Sky for various reasons - the footnote is far too long to reproduce here - but it seems most of the original batch of Beaus had them. Impossible to tell for certain from the photos in the book if it was really white but it looks white!

There are three photos of Beaus with this band in the 84 Sqn book, one of them RD822, but in one of them 'A' (serial unknown) the band does not look white but is the same tone as the lighter of the two upper surface colours. There is some speculation about them being flight colours but that seems a bit unlikely.

[Test Graham]

From the Crowood book, 84/ A is RD770. Flight colours are unlikely because the band appears on the ferry photo of RD758/SNAKE, where it is slightly lighter than the underside..

The Crowood book has another ferry picture, Mk.VI SNAKE/X7228 in nightfighter colours, and apparently a band slightly darker than Medium Sea Grey in the same place as the torpedo bombers. If that is what it seems, then it definitely isn't white. X7228 has early AI radar.

[Seahawk]

The better quality repeat of the Osprey photo in the Crowood book shows I was wrong: my post 6 edited accordingly.

I do think discussing 45 and 84 Squadron has clouded the question the OP originally raised since neither unit received Beaufighters until over a year after WW2 had ended - and when the danger of confusion with Japanese aircraft with similar markings had presumably receded. Nor would I rule out their having received fresh aircraft from UK rather than SEAC handdowns: extrapolating SEAC markings from them then becomes risky.

But now we're on the subject now, as regards the white bands, I am not going to be rash enough to try and distinguish between white and sky on B+W prints. Without my head clouded by inconvenient facts, my instinctive reaction would have been that the 45 and 84 aircraft are in bog standard Day Fighter Scheme, complete with C/C1 roundels/fin flash and sky fuselage band, like a lot of other aircraft like Spitfires than went out east around or just after war's end. To which Jefford, while conceding that they look like 18" sky bands, objects in his long footnote (p.328) that a. the Beaufighter was never painted as a day fighter (well, except for very early aircraft) and b. when post-war camouflage was promulgated in April 1946 no mention was made of sky bands. True, oh, king. But he doesn't come up with much in the alternative suggestion line so I think he rejects, rather than refutes, the idea.

Edited August 17, 2012 by Seahawk

[Test Graham]

Whereas you are right about the theatre-specific markings, we do have a photo of a wartime ferry aircraft and another in SEAC roundels to work with so photos showing the same apparent scheme postwar can be relevant. Particularly bearing in mind the difficult conditions existing immediately postwar, as described in Paul Lucas's work on the Spitfires that went to Japan. Aircraft would not, indeed could not, readily be stripped and repainted. Discussions about the scheme has rather avoided the problem that although Beaufighters only may have been delivered in TSS, this would be suitable for precisely those coastal operations for which the Beaufighter was being used. I started out just musing over it as a possibility, but the question now arises whether ANY were repainted in theatre in TLS at all?

I'd rule out Day Fighter because why should any Beaufighter receive this scheme, and because the earlier (hence less weathered) photos don't show enough contrast.

This tail band on ferry aircraft is an interesting feature in itself. However, if RD758 is indeed in TSS it has Sky undersides, and the band is lighter than the underside. Whereas RD785 (Sq In Action) is on ortho film but the band remains light - so it isn't yellow. If the aircraft were delivered in TLS with MSG undersides (as normal for operational SEAC aircraft, but not for factory deliveries) then it is more consistent with Sky.

[Aesthete]

Thanks to everyone for the reply.

My modelling project should be strictly wartime thimble nosed, fin fillet Beau TFX with white SEAC bands, however, it seems, all what we have so far, is this single photo, which doesn’t unfortunately provide enough info for the correct representation on a model…

Anyway, trying to summarize this really interesting discussion:

- the colour and location of the s/n as depicted on the profile can probably be confirmed;

- the lack of the code letter on the operational a/c is possible;

- the first 2 digits of the serial are most likely "RD" and the rest is probably not "747";

- all other known pictures show either post-war or ferry a/c or the ones without SEAC white bands.

As for the camo TLS vs. TSS: as said, the caption to the same photo in some old issue of “Scale Aircraft Modelling” does suggest the Temperate Sea Scheme. However, the serials on the RD770 or RD 758 SNAKE (I also have the photos of them) reported to be painted in TSS are located under the horizontal tail, while an alternative location could suggest repainting.

The only hope could still be some unpublished photos or other material. Otherwise, the only alternative for the wartime late TF X is the Coastal Extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky without any other decoration. Too bad as I really like the SEAC roundels and white bands...