107 squadron Blenheim, April 1941

[stevehnz]

I was interested to see the newly announced Airfix Blenheim Mk IV had markings in it for a 107 sqn machine. For reasons described in this thread I started some years back on Rafcommnds,  I've long been interested in in one of this Squadrons aircraft. OM-M Z5795. The night undersides came as a surprise & I'm wondering if it is reasonable to assume the finish on OM-J would be applicable to OM-M? Either ways, I'll be up for a kit of this. 

Steve.

Edited December 21, 2017 by stevehnz

[Graham Boak]

I have the same problem with a 105 Sq Blenheim.  The aircraft were involved in night operations, certainly from the anti-barge raids is the Battle of Britain.  The RAF did have a Night distemper for rapid change of camouflage, so you could well be safe with OM-M in either scheme.  However, the alternative is that the squadrons kept some aircraft permanently in Night.

 

My memory of a photo in Stuart Scott's 105 Sq book is that the aircraft shown had a high demarcation, including the fin in Night.  If that's right, this presumably depended upon when the high demarcation came into use for Bomber Command.  A bit more digging is required.

[Chuck1945]

I had asked a somewhat related question below. In the book Graham mentioned (Battleaxe Blenheims), mention is made that when 2 Group was assigned anti-shipping duties the aircraft were repainted what was probably the TSS. However, while there are at least two photos of 105 Sqd machines with light colored undersides during this period, there are also some that are ambiguous (shadow or paint?) and a couple that definitely look like having dark undersides

[brewerjerry]

Hi

    from memory either in bowyers bombing colours, or it was a file at the NA/PRO,

    that squadrons were required to have a percentage of aircraft with 'black' undersurfaces

  cant find my copy of bombing colours at the moment, so i cant check it. 

    cheers

      jerry

    

[stevehnz]

Thanks all for the replies, my refs on Blenheims are limited to the net so I was hoping that someone had a book which might have covered this. Its my understanding, 107 (& 105?) were on attachment to Coastal command at the time & I've long wondered if maybe TSS might have been applied for this, but Airfix's scheme from the same period would seem to suggest that TLS was retained, where do they get that info from? I'm thinking that aircraft flying standing patrols in daylight hours would have been likely to retain Sky undersides, a 6pm departure in late April in those latitudes would be mainly in daylight? A mission a few days previously in which a U-boat was attacked in poor weather would seem to suggest daylight operations. The mention of blister guns in that item had me puzzled too? It sounds as though TLS with sky undersides may be applicable here, or not) 

Steve.

Edited December 21, 2017 by stevehnz

[Seahawk]

2 hours ago, brewerjerry said:

Hi

    from memory either in bowyers bombing colours, or it was a file at the NA/PRO,

    that squadrons were required to have a percentage of aircraft with 'black' undersurfaces

  cant find my copy of bombing colours at the moment, so i cant check it. 

    cheers

      jerry

    

I've certainly read that in Paul Lucas' Britain Alone book re RAF colours around the BoB period but I remember it as being in the context of Coastal Command, specifically Beauforts.  That's not to say it wasn't more widely applicable.

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by Seahawk

[Graham Boak]

Had the units been transferred to Coastal Command then there'd be little question of their camouflage being TSS - although the matter of Night undersides would still be open.  However, the units were not transferred but remained in 2 Group Bomber Command, which was allocated the role of Channel Stop.  I'm not sure whether it was called that then but the mission was that of attacking coastal traffic.  Similarly when the mission was handed over to the Hurribombers of Fighter Command, they remained as part of Fighter Command rather than being transferred to Coastal.  This was not the Blenheim squadrons' only mission, and penetration raids into the Continent continued.

 

I cannot answer for Airfix, but they are not the only source to show 2 Group Blenheims of this period in TLS.  Both the profile and the MPM kit (presumably obtained from the former) show aircraft like this.  I suspect that this is because it is not widely realised that at least some aircraft were repainted into TSS, if not all.  I would expect all to be repainted, but such assumptions are not always safe. 

 

Whether this was truly TSS, or some other combination of grey and green, is a separate argument.  I used to think it was simply a matter of painting Dark Sea Grey on top of the Dark Earth, but have no idea what grounding that thought has in reality.  TSS appears likelier.  (At the moment, to me.) 

 

PS  I suspect that the reference to blister guns is to the undernose turret.  The early single transparent mounting has been referred to as a blister gun, so the name may have carried over to the later twin gun mounting.

 

PPS depending on the aircraft's allocation to the squadron (before or after the adoption of TSS) you could be right to show it in TLS with Sky or Night underside, or equally with TSS and Sky or Night underside.  Only a definitive photo can show (and not all do show things definitively) which scheme was carried, and then only for the date of the photo - if known.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Graham Boak

[Rabbit Leader]

Steve,

FWIW it appears that Airfix 'may' have based their OM:J scheme on a photograph that appears on page 150 of Moyes' 1976 edition of "Bomber Squadrons of the RAF".

It's a grainy old photo and to my eye you can make out the high riding black undersides and toned down white of the national insignia and fin flash. Upper surface colours are a guess, but I'd favour the standard Dark Earth & Dark Green. There is also a hint that the rear fuselage high black demarkation line is angled differently to how Airfix suggest, however I would need to see a much clearer photograph to confirm this.

 

It's not much to go on, however there is photographic evidence for a 107 Squadron aircraft coded OM:J - the serial cannot be determined.

 

Cheers.. Dave

[brewerjerry]

4 hours ago, Seahawk said:

I've certainly read that in Paul Lucas' Britain Alone book re RAF colours around the BoB period but I remember it as being in the context of Coastal Command, specifically Beauforts.  That's not to say it wasn't more widely applicable.

 

Hi

    I have a memory of a photo of a boston in 'black' undersides, but cant recall which book, or maybe it was in a old airfix mag ? 

  i remember the photo, as it was a ' potential build' for me 

    cheers

       jerry

 

[stevehnz]

Thanks all for this input. It is starting to sound like an "I can't be proved wrong" situation. The kit is not out yet so nothing is going to happen any time soon, it has been good to extend my horizons on something that has sat around in my thoughts for a fair while. Interestingly, I've found out that Sgt A J Hannah RNZAF was (I believe) the grandson of the man who founded the Hannah's shoe store chain here in New Zealand. Nothing to do with our family .

Steve.

[Seahawk]

6 minutes ago, stevehnz said:

. The kit is not out yet so nothing is going to happen any time soon, 

Saw my first in a shop yesterday.  May take a while to reach NZ though

[stevehnz]

Not in time for boxing day sales anyway, though they do turn up sooner than once upon a time, probably Februaryish.

Steve.

[Rabbit Leader]

Here's that photograph I was referring to Steve - http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205126882

This is much clearer than the one in my book, and clearly shows the high rear fuselage demarcation line as Airfix suggest.

Therefore - I take back my earlier comment about this being angled the wrong way.

 

Cheers.. Dave  

[Seahawk]

Returning to the TSS debate, I'm currently reading Clean Sweep, Tony Spooner's biography of Ivor Broom.  As described by Spooner, when Broom arrived with 114 Sq, 2 Group Blenheims were engaged in 3 types of operations: CIRCUSes, attacks on coastal shipping along the German and Dutch coasts and "spectaculars", daring and frequently costly daylight raids like that on Bremen 4 July 41 and the Knapsack/Quadrath power station raid 12 Aug 41.    As an example, Broom's first two operational sorties were anti-submarine patrols from Leuchars to West Raynham and back (no precise dates), followed by a CIRCUS on Le Trait (no date), his first shipping strike on 2 August and his first "spectacular", the Knapsack raid, on 12 Aug.  With aircraft switching so regularly and swiftly between missions, I would doubt whether repaints to TSS were necessary or desirable.  This is in the specific context of 2 Group Blenheims in 1941, without prejudice to other squadrons and aircraft more formally detached to Coastal Command at other times.

 

PS 107 Sq involved in the Knapsack raid.

[woody37]

I’m not convinced of that high demarcation line in the photo, it looks like it could be a fresh coat of green under or around the codes that joins the original paint above the wing trailing edge.

[Graham Boak]

On 22/12/2017 at 1:06 PM, Seahawk said:

With aircraft switching so regularly and swiftly between missions, I would doubt whether repaints to TSS were necessary or desirable.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this.  If you meant they would not often repaint the aircraft back and forth, then I agree entirely, other perhaps than distemper black on the underside.    However, if you doubt the existence of any other than TLS, then there is good evidence otherwise.  The only two colour pictures of WW2 Blenheims (according to Graham Warner, who had better reason to know than most)  both show 21 Sq Blenheim(s) in green and grey, in this period. These pics are published in Roger Freeman's The Royal Air Force of WW2 in Colour, and in Graham Warner's Blenheim epic.  Michael JF Bowyer, in his Bombing Colours,  described three schemes : TLS over Sky, TLS over black, and "Dark Green and a dark shade of grey with Sky undersides".  The last was carried "certainly....by some 105 Sq aircraft and adopted by some aircraft of other squadrons engaged on the shipping raids."  He goes on to discuss "most" of the Blenheims on Circus raids as having TLS over Sky, although some had black undersides.   He does not specifically say whether or not any Circus raiders had the green/grey.

 

I would suggest that one of the photos appears to Show Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey, whereas the other appears to show a different green and a strongly blue-tinted colour, suggesting to me faded Extra Dark Sea Grey.  Yet these are supposedly the same aircraft - so much for colour photos providing exact answers, if anyone here still believed that.

 

It would indeed seem that at least a number of squadrons operated a mix of colour schemes, and without further evidence it is impossible to be too definitive - or too doubting.  From Freeman, we have it that V6436 YH-L was in the green/grey scheme.  Evidence of which others would be most interesting.  Bowyer also talks of some Blenheims having the high demarcation along the fuselage with it and the tail in black: I think that there is a picture in Battleaxe Blenheims showing one like this and it makes perhaps a interesting alternative to a TLS scheme.  The example Bowyer quotes is T1828 UX-V, from February 1941.  He also writes of OCU Blenheims with yellow undersides carrying black serials, but sadly the only example he quotes had Sky.

 

PS As the kit has an Rxxxx serial, this makes it fairly early and so probably too early for the TSS scheme anyway, particularly if based in the north of Scotland..  Though sight of an official document with dates would be more than helpful.  Santa?

Edited December 23, 2017 by Graham Boak

[Seahawk]

Can't argue with the evidence, Graham: thank you.  As regards Roger Freeman's RAF of WW2 In Colour  I remember that, when this book came out, there was a degree of serious teeth-sucking over the fidelity of the colour reproduction in it.  I'm away from my references at the moment so can't do a comparison but would be inclined to give heavier weight to the photo in the Warner book - whichever scheme that shows!