Chris Thomas

Excellent. Great gap filler, long overdue.

I'm away from my records at present but do recall writing about the white Meteor deployment in 2nd TAF Vol 3. The deployment was not operational, it was to introduce the type to Allied forces before the planned arrival of the full 616 Sqn on the Continent. Nothing to do with winter camouflage or the Me262. The Meteors were early Mk.IIIs, which had the same engine as the Mk.I, and its inferior performance.

I have a photo of Carey's Tempest in front of me now and I reckon the one featured in the first link is more accurate. However I am slightly biased as I painted the original nearly 40 years ago. All done with gouache, airbrush, hairy stick and a touch of pastel - not a pixel in sight.

Sounds good to me.

Yes. It was longer without the stripes than with them.

JN766 flew with 486 Sqn between 4 April 1944 and 10 June 1944. It had been delivered with factory-applied identity stripes as described above but these were over-painted in MSG following instructions dated 20 April 1944 (applicable to all Tempests). It would have had D-Day stripes too, painted on c.4 June. So you have a choice ...

Hi Pete Apart from concrete practice rounds, the only ones I have seen on double RP are the usual 60 lb HE/SAP most commonly employed on Typhoons. The two Rockets were assembled with 'Duplex saddles' and and a post war 2nd TAF report recorded that just over 500 had been used on operations. They were developed in response to a 2nd TAF request for the ability to deliver more explosive on the target. 16 RP proved too difficult to handle under operational conditions so use was restricted to 12, with double rockets on each inner pair of rails and singles on the outer pairs. The squadron records are not forthcoming on types of RP used on specific ops. The only unit that I know to have used them was 609 Squadron. CT

Sorry boys but this is one of the exceptions. SN330 had a de Havilland prop/spinner when it was J5-H. Some clues on how to spot it ... the Rotol spinner backplate was thicker than the DeH and the front half was on two sections - in close ups a vertical line can be seen just forward of the blades. If the prop is stopped, Rotol blades can be seen to carry their distinctive light-coloured disc at their base.

The two serials you quote were, I believe, Series 2. JN serialled Tempests, started as series 1.but drifted into series 2 midway through the contract. More on that when I return in about 10 days.

Hi Wes, I'm away from home and records at present but I can say none of the Series 1 Tempests were upgraded. The survivors were returned to Hawker for refurbishment but were not upgraded - they would have required new wings and major work on the fuselage. They were reissued To 278 Sqn, an AA cooperation unit and continued in use into 1946. I do not recall any being converted to TT5. the spinners in the kit are to represent the DeH and Rotol prop/spinners. Most Tempest Vs, including all the series 1s had DeH; the Rotols appeared c March 45 and were mostly fitted to the SN serialled aircraft.

As Geoffrey states above, the first Typhoon RP attack took place on 25 October 1943 - referred to as "Black Monday" in 181 Sqn's records. The six Typhoons were JP435 EL-V, JP513 EL-F, JP578 EL-O, JP590 EL-C, JP737 EL-(not known), JP965 EL-S. They were all 'car-door' Typhoons but the first three listed had the aerial mast in the cockpit but the last three were the later model with the mast replaced by a 'whip' aerial on the fuselage. The first Typhoon RP operation had actually taken place two days earlier on 23 October - an anti-shipping patrol but no targets were found and the RP were brought home. You will find an account of Black Monday in '2nd TAF Volume 1' with photos of EL-F and EL-C, together with a profile of the latter. I had interviewed two of the surviving pilots and corresponded with a third. Exercise Spartan in March 1943 lasted 12 days and trialled (for the RAF) the proposed organisation of mobile forces during an invasion of Europe. There were two Typhoon squadrons on each side - Southland (182 and 247) wore standard markings but Eastland (181 and 183) were the 'baddies' and carried special markings. The profile above is correct with the white nose stripe but the spinner and the underside of the port wing (only) were distempered black. More detail in the above-mentioned volume. The Typhoons detailed above had been built without RP fittings and had been specially modified. A few more were modified in this way enabling 174, 198 and 609 Sqns to try the new weapon but it was not until spring 1944 that its use became widespread. CT

Don't worry Mike. I've passed the peak and I'm on the way down. As far as I remember. Thanks for the compliment! Chris

The Typhoon clip is misplaced in the Fritzlar film. The RAF officer showing the US officer over the Typhoon is Sqn Ldr Robin McNair , CO of 247 Sqn, and it must have been shot at B.6 Coulombs in Normandy, July or August 1944. The Typhoon featured is ZY-W MM963 which had arrived with the unit on 7 July 1944. My father joined 247 Sqn at the beginning of October 1944 and on 11 October he flew MM963 on an RP attack on a German strongpoint in a factory at St Agatha. Two days later it was hit by flak and F/O Osborne force landed on the Allied side of the lines the aircraft was recovered and transported back to theUK for repair at Marshalls of Cambridge. The repair was completed in August 1945 but MM963 was scrapped in November 1946. So I was more than a bit excited when this film was first publicly aired a few years ago. I even knew Robin McNair well - he was the first Typhoon pilot I found when I started serious research in the late seventies.

The grill visible in the photo of JN803 is a 'debris guard'. It was not a factory-fitted item but was introduced in the spring of 1944, on Typhoons and Tempests, which were operating with increasing frequency from hastily constructed ALGs. I have not found any documentary evidence concerning their use but have deduced the following from study of photos. As far as Tempests are concerned, the guard is evident on some but not all the Tempests on the Newchurch wing in the summer of 44; it is also evident on a photo of a 3 Sqn Tempest at Eindhoven around the same time as the EJ705/W2-X photo. Others at that time show no guard fitted. The guard disappeared from Typhoons at the end of June 1944 as the dust-filters required in Normandy meant the guard could not be fitted. The dust filters eventually appeared on Tempests too, apparently in early spring 45 (and reappeared on Typhoons too - having not been required during the winter). A bit later - possibly shortly before the end of war, a new debris guard with a circular aperture tailored around the dust filter appeared and is often visible on Tempests in BAFO post war. I have a high res scan of the EJ705 and have delved into the heavily shadowed intake using Photoshop but can see no trace of the debris guard. However, as you will have deduced, both the debris guard and the dust filter were items fitted as and when required, so unless you have a photo which reveals the fitting at a specific time ... anything goes. CT

DN305 would have looked very similar to DN406 which was in service with 609 about the same time. Note repainting of the nose to cover the white nose previously in use. The underside of the radiator fairing was left white - apparently unique to 609. The rear half of the spinner was more likel in one of the camouflage colours rather than the red (or blue) usually illustrated.

Hi Stefan. You are quite correct, the only known photo of MN819 MR-?shows a plain spinner with a shadow of a propeller blade. At one time I thought it may show some asymmetric marking but have since seem similarly lit photos which clearly show it was shadow. I was looking for such a marking as one of the squadron pilots (who had a proven accurate recall of those times) told me that Sqn Ldr Collins had a spiral marking of some sort on his spinner. this is not so wild as it sounds as Wg Cdr Brooker had such a marking on his Typhoon at this time, and 439 Sqn had eccentric markings on their Typhoon spinners at that time and just a few miles down the road at Hurn. but alas, no photos have surfaced ... yet. CT

Same canopy but different windscreen.

Hi cger. MW835 did not have the 'cooling gills' (which were actuallyy intake louvres for the tropical air cleaner) nor did it have a pitot under the wing - it was (as on all production Mk IIs) on the port wing tip, protruding from the LE. CT

There is a photo of SF-K, incorrectly identified in 'Fighter Squadrons' as MN680. Better prints of this photo show it was actually MN660 (confirmed by the ORB), probably red spinner. SF-X was photographed on the same day and can be clearly seen as MN995. Both large tailplane/4-bladers. DN429 and JR261 were both small tailplane/3-bladers but MN421, MN533, MN584, and MN627 were all large tailplane. The latter had a 4-blader, the other 3 could have been 3 or 4-bladers. The large tailplane was introduced on MN307 but only a few of the subsequent Typhoons had 4-bladers due problems with the oil seal; 4-bladers became the norm after MN600.

Lawyer, I am not too sure what is driving your choice here. 137 sqn had Sky spinners up to September 44, then red until early Jan 45 when they were black (plus Sky bands painted out, last of the D-Day stripes removed and Type C1 roundels in all positions). In the last 3 months of 1944 when they had red spinners the spinner backplates and the spinner tips were white. Some aircraft retained the individual codes on the tip of the fin (they had been painted there when full stripes were on in summer 44). Pick your colour period and I can supply code/serials for 3 or 4-bladers - both were used. CT

Hi Peter I located 15 different serials for 1 Nov 44 in 183's ORB. There were a few more but they were typos. By comparing the individual flights with various pilots logs over the years I have these codes. R8926 F DN248 K EK497 E EK498 N JP682 O JP969 S JR141 M JR263 Z JR390 U MN419 G MN698 W MN868 H MN886 X MN923 P PD500 T The first 9 were all 3-bladers with small tailplanes, MN419 had a large tailplane but could have had a 3 or a 4-blader, the last 5 all had large tailplanes and 4-bladers. PD500 had a tropical filter under the fuselage behind the radiator fairing. The first 8 had all been built as 'car-door jobs' and subsequently modified with canopy, RP etc mods. Chris

There seems little doubt from the account in the squadron ORB that F/O Ackers was shot down by flak. This was at the time the jaws of the Falaise gap were closing and the trapped German forces were both desperate and well-armed with an ever increasing concentration of Flak. It was the day on which most Typhoons, 17 in all, were lost to enemy action - most attributed to flak - and the unknown causes may well also have been flak. There were no German claims for Typhoons that day. R.T.Bickers seems to have compiled his Typhoon listings directly from the Air-Britain serial registers (when people copy mistakes it is a give-away!), which incorporated information from my Air-Britain Typhoon File, both of which had MN595 shot down by Bf109s. I checked backed to my working notes for the latter and I had MN595 as shot down by flak! So it seems there was a typo in production, which may well have come about through the fact that 183 Sqn had lost 4 Typhoons to Bf109s the previous day. Incidentally, JP431 (quoted in the ORB as Acker's aircraft) was in fact the replacement HF-D. A very common type of error in the ORBs in general.

Sorry Pat but Flg Off Ackers was indeed shot down in MN595 HF-D as confirmed in MoD casualty records. JR128, although it had (famously) been HF-L, was lost on the same day, 18 August 1944, but by that time was flying with 181 sqn (code EL-). Whatever, it will be a terrific model.

Troy, many thanks for posting this. I was really pleased to see this photo emerge as I have been looking for a long time for a shot of one of the Hurricanes my father flew at 16 OTU. This unit was a Wellington OTU and operated Martinets and Hurricane IIc aircraft as a fighter affiliation flight at Barford St John. He flew the Hurricanes between April and September 1944 and they included PG478 S. The OTU was disbanded and reborn as a Mosquito OTU on 1 Jan 45 and this may have been when PG478 was transferred to 1690 BDTF. Put me down in the 'black under-sides' camp. I can't see any trace of a lighter colour. I've also noted that roundel blue often appears darker than 'black' in photos. I know that the 16 OTU aircraft were flown on Fighter Affiliation sorties at night - which could account for the repaint. The underwing roundels are a bit of a mystery.

Hi Erwin 1) Yes the cuckoo door filters came off in the winter of 44/45 and, purely on photo-evidence, I would say the majority had the concentric rings replaced. 2) In spring 1944 the 2nd TAF's 18 Typhoon squadrons specialised in RP or bombs for reasons outlined above by Graham. Most kept that specialisation until they disbanded after the war but a few (183 and 266) had periods with one or the other. 247 used RP throughout that period. I look forward to seeing the completed model (Excreta Thermo, as 'Stapme' called it). Chris