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RAF 81 Squadron 1942-45


Kallisti

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This weekend I visited my brother and we went through an old suitcase that had some of my Dad's effects. He was an aircraft fitter in the RAF in WWII.

First thing was my Dad's medals:

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which comprise the War Medal 1939–1945, 1939-45 Campaign Star, Africa Star, Burma Star and Italy Star.

Next was a Christmas meal menu from 1943 which identified him as being part of 81 Squadron. Looking at the history of 81 Squadron puts them in Alipore, India at Christmas 1943

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(not a bad menu - better than the folks back home I bet!)

At this time, the squadron would have been equipped with Spitfire VIIIs. Prior to that the Squadron was in North Africa (Algiers) in 1942, then took part in the Invasion of Sicily in early 1943 and was then shipped out to India in December and took part in the Burma campaign until the end of the war.

So my research has come up with the facts that they flew Spitfire V in North Africa and Italy, although there seems to be some evidence of IXs as well, Spitfire VIII in India & Burma. Squadron codes used are FL. The only image I've been able to find so afar is in the Osprey Spitfire Aces of Burma and the Pacific book, which shows FL-J JF698 in Burma March 1943 in SEAC marking with an "Ace of Spaces" emblem on the cowling.

So do any of you wonderful Spitfire experts have any more details about other 81 Squadron planes? I don't think my Dad was involved in the 1941 Murmansk expedition with Hurricanes as he never mentioned anything about going to Russia, so its the African/Italian/Buma period of the squadron I'm interested in.

Thanks in advance...

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I did a series of articles in the old MAM a few years ago along with my friend Steve Nichol entitled `Spitfires against the Japanese' and one of my models was an 81 Sqn Spit VIII. During my research I found that being an experienced unit from the Italian and N African campaigns they retained the red spinner theatre marking from these campaigns on their Spitfires even though the local regulations in India banned red from aircraft. It appears that 81 Sqn was regarded as being quite brash by the local units upon their arrival in India and regarded the theatre a bit of a back water compared to what they regarded as the `real' war which they had been taking part in, and to commemorate their part in this they had the `Pik A' insignia of JG 53 painted on their aircraft! There was of course a bit of jealosy from the units that had been fighting in Burma because 81 was the first to bring the latest Spitfire VIII to India whilst they still flew Spitfire Mk.V`s or Hurricanes.

Aa the fighting in India/Burma grew in intensity all of the units knuckled down and got on with things and more Spitfire VIII`s arrived but it seems that there was still a bit of a `them and us' feeling between 81 Sqn and the other fighter squadrons during their Spitfire era in SEAC as 81 continued to regard themselves as an `elite' and a famous photo shows an 81 Sqn Spit that had been vandalised using chalk to put arms and legs onto the `Pik A' badge on the cowling to show it running away from a large 152 Sqn `Leaping Panther' which was chalked under the cockpit!

Please don`t get me wrong, as an ex Paratrooper I should know that there is nothing wrong with a bit of elitism and it is good for morale!

Here is a photo of my 81 Sqn Spit

81SqnSpit.jpg

The original batch of Spits had their desert colours replaced by Green and Brown upon arriving in India and according to some squadron members "the Brown was darker than the usual colour (Dark Earth?) and more of a chocolate brown colour!" They also had the long `high altitude' wingtips but these were soon replaced by the normal style after combat experience against the nimble Jap `Oscars' when rivets in the centre section popped. The aircraft replicated by my model was one of those detached to the `Piccadily' landing site used to insert and resupply the Chindits during theur second expedition.

Hope this is of some use,

Cheers

Tony

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You might want to try & get a copy of "The Air Battle of Imphal" by Norman Franks. I've just read it & it mentions 81 sq a fair bit. I'm just about to embark on his "Air War for Burma" which I imagine also will cover it. I'm not sure if it involves 81 sq but Alan Pearts memoir "From North Afrika to the Arakan" would cover similar ground.

Steve.

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The next batch of Sword 1/72 Spitfire Mk Vc's will have an option for one such ace of 81 Sqn. The markings information was supplied by correspondence (some years ago) with Larry Cronin, an Australian who served with 81 in North Africa and in the East.

http://www.hyperscale.com/2011/reviews/kit...previewbg_6.htm

There are profiles of his Spitfire VIII here, but, beware, they both may well be incorrect. This Spitfire may have remained in desert camouflage for some time.

http://www.thescale.info/news/publish/larr...onin-raaf.shtml

Edited by Ed Russell
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Just found this photo in the Osprey Fighter Aces book depicting what you've just decribed!

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Thats the Spit that I was describing and of interest it appears to retain its desert camouflage of Middle Stone and Dark Earth! Some of the squadrons Spits are known to have retained this as the Maintenance Unit that was re painting them in India worked on peacetime hours and it was taking so long to get the paintwork done that the unit departed for the front line with some Spits still in their original colours!

All of the above mentioned books will provide good reading about 81 Sqn and I should add the Ventura book `Spitfire the ANZACS' or the very similar Ventura Classic Warbirds `ANZACS' which both have stories about 81 Sqn and are very good reading with excellent photos.

All the best

Tony O

Edited by tonyot
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  • 1 year later...

Hello Gents, May I pick up the thread of your conversation (7th November 2011). My Granfather ( in law) has pointed out to me today that his name or signature "D.S.Hawkings" is written on the xmas menu in your post. He has just past 90yrs and is fit and healthy I can report to you all. In fact I have just last week taken him and his wife to RAF Coninsby to see the Spits - He loved it! He trained on Blenheims & Hurricanes in the UK (1941 training). After 6 mths he travelled (sailed vis cape horn) to Algiers and worked with Spits on Sqd 81 from Mk1v to mk10,s in North Afrika, Malta,Sicily,Italy,India/Burma (imphal) with Thunderbolts for a period in India (imphal). He also worked breifly with Sdq 145 (Polish) in N.Afrika. I would very much like to continue dialog and I have in boxed you all to this effect for any more info you may have and any info we have in return. I can tell you a story about Spit "FL D" He asked the pilot if he could put his then girlfriends name Doreen next to the cockpit to which the pilot agreed as the "D" is for his Doreen..they are both still together after 60yrs of marriage and of course they got married just after his return to the UK.

PS...I have learnt as much about sqd 81 on this modelling forum as I have searching the internet in total....I think I will start to model all the aircraft he served on as part of our family heritage. It is a shame their is no desert Spits still flying, especially is they are in "FL" insignia..!

Best regards Ian

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Hi Ian & thanks for the PM. Sorry, but my interest in this squadron was not thru family involvement but rather the areas they fought through & campaigns they were involved in. I find it interesting to read of operations in some of the more out of the way places in the world rather than the more common & more thoroughly covered such as the UK & Europe. The books I mentioned about are all worth a read especially The Air War for Burma by Christopher Shores which I wrongly attributed to Norman Franks. A very thorough coverage of the Campign in that area. Shores has also witten books that cover North Africa & would be good resources for you to read up on 81 sqn in this area as does the Alan Peart book. Good luck with your endeavours, its always very satisfying to model that which you can relate to.

Steve.

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Steve, Many thanks for your prompt reply from N.Z. I will make a note of the books you mentioned. I also find it interesting that they could operate in these hidden away areas in the middle and far east with the basics to keep the aircraft "tip top". Quite often they were releived when they had a spare aircraft to "savage" unquote! and sometimes it was beneficial to not tell the pilots what was happening under the bonnet! as often it was make do and mend. All the lifting was by hand (wing lift and jack for wheelchanges), patching grass runways with rubble and soil, sitting on wings and tail wings for human balast before takeoff,s. listening in to the the spare spits radio headset to get a running compentary of base radar to pilots locating emeny. He respected the polish tenacity (sqd 145) with the Spits and feared theJapaneseZero,s comming in at car height!!, he said they where underated pilots n ground attack roles. Nice sharing some memories from him to you...

regards Ian

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Franks had three books on the subject: Hurricanes over the Arakan which covered 1941/42 (basically), Spitfires over the Arakan which covered the arrival of the Mk.Vs, and Spitfires over Imphal. The story I remember about 81Sq is that their Spit VIIIs retained the high-altitude tips. They were sent forward to the Broadway airfield where they found themselves faced with dogfighting Oscars (not Zeros) at low-level. Some Spitfires were lost, but the others were excessively strained and had to be returned to be replaced by new ones with standard tips. Which suggests that any desert-painted ones didn't last long in the front line.

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Thanks for getting in touch Ian, I've responded to your PM and look forward to talking more!

Franks had three books on the subject: Hurricanes over the Arakan which covered 1941/42 (basically), Spitfires over the Arakan which covered the arrival of the Mk.Vs, and Spitfires over Imphal. The story I remember about 81Sq is that their Spit VIIIs retained the high-altitude tips. They were sent forward to the Broadway airfield where they found themselves faced with dogfighting Oscars (not Zeros) at low-level. Some Spitfires were lost, but the others were excessively strained and had to be returned to be replaced by new ones with standard tips. Which suggests that any desert-painted ones didn't last long in the front line.

I will make a note of the attacking aircraft "Oscars" not "Zeros" that Dennis mentioned, I think he mentioned a night attack (or early twilight) as they discovered a Spit with a broken back after a shell burst, again I need to clarify with him. I visit him next week and I think he took a photo of it (with a broken back) I will try and post next week after a scan. I am more certain now that he was indeed posted to Broadway, again, i,ll mention it next week. I,ll also mention the desert camo turnaround replacements. regards Ian

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Thanks for getting in touch Ian, I've responded to your PM and look forward to talking more!

Likewise, keep in touch, Dennis and his wife are treating my wife and I to a brunch soon which is testiment to his health. Hope I have a good health at that age (90yrs young). He is getting rid of his car (wise move) so they dont have to worry about driving. I have mentioned my wife and have voluntered to do their weekly washing and shop so we will be getting weekly updates on Spits, living in tents, Burma and so on.... best Ian

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Franks' books are worth getting hold of, for they do include fairly significant chunks of comment by groundcrew - the ones I remember are from 607 ground crew at Imphal, where they had Japanese snipers to worry about as well - but there is a fair bit of text about the arrival of 81 Sq and their somewhat rough awakening to the realities of air warfare in the Far East. There are a number of other suitable biographies from other units - I'll try to dig some of them out for you.

Although off to the side, you might enjoy John Masters' biography as a Chindit oficer who was involved in the planning of Broadway and flew in one of the first gliders. If you're not already familiar, it is a bit of an eye-opener to the politics/generalship of the war.

Everything Japanese were initially known as "Zeros" - though by 1944 at least the pilots were better informed. We do know a lot more about such things now than the average soldier/sailor/airman ever could then.

Edited by Graham Boak
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This is a record of the Japanese air attacks in March against 'Broadway' which the Japanese called 'Mohnyin':-

13 March - 55 (Ki-43) fighters from 50th, 64th and 204th Sentai, 3 (Ki-48) bombers from 8th Sentai

16 March - 20 fighters from 50th Sentai and 6 bombers from 8th Sentai

17 March - 15 fighters from 204th Sentai

18 March - 54 fighters from 50th, 64th and 204th Sentai, 12 (Ki-21) bombers from the 12th and 6 (Ki-21) bombers from the 62nd Sentai attacked Broadway and Chowringhee (which they called 'Katha').

On 30 March 2 bombers of the 8th Sentai dropped ammunition supplies to the Wakiyama buntai which was the land force attacking Broadway. The fighter units were conducting limited night interdiction attacks at this time with some Ki-43 equipped with rear fuselage racks to drop small anti-personnel bombs and small supply containers. At the same time as Broadway they were attempting to support the offensive against Imphal and Kohima.

The 64th were a 'crack' Ki-43 unit with very strict rules for claiming. The 50th were another 'crack' unit but their rules for claiming were more lax and they had a reputation for exaggerated over-claiming and a rather controversial 'ace'. The 204th were a Ki-43 operational training unit that had just been elevated to fully operational status a couple of months before the Broadway fighting and which was later badly mauled in the Philippines, losing 17 pilots in barely a month.

'Viv' Jacobs of 136 Sqn managed to fly a Cat 3 81 Sqn Spit VIII out of Broadway after it had been patched up by No 1 Servicing Party. There were bullet holes in the engine bulkhead, top petrol tank, starboard rear bottom bearer strut, port mainplane in vicinity of aileron quadrant, etc. The petrol gauge was u/s, no radio, no IFF and no flying helmet. He stuffed Vaseline and cotton wool in his ears and used an abandoned American parachute of dubious provenance.

"Viv' Jacobs has this to say about 81 Sqn:

"Jimmy Elsdon had asked Gordon to come over to Wing HQ and give the pilots of these two 'new' units [81 & 152] (though combat experienced in their own theatre) the benefit of his operational knowledge of fighting the Jap; basically, you don't try to turn with them! But the reception he received was cool in the extreme. They didn't want to know. In their first engagement that week, they disobeyed the cardinal Oscar/Zero rule and came back shaken men. Seventeen of their Spitfires were ruined in that one day's engagement. Appalled at finding themselves out-turned (as they had been carefully warned) in combat, they had pulled so much 'g' in escaping that they overstressed their aircraft, causing the metal skin of the wings to wrinkle and the wings themselves to be lifted out of plane. All these Spitfire VIII's had to be flown back to India for refurbishing and replacement from a stock that was at a premium".

This action referred to was on 13th February, but was actually not 81's first combat. F/O A Mc Peart of 81 Sqn has a different recollection to 'Viv' Jacobs and I include it in its entirety for its interest in showing two very different views of the same event:

"My recollections of 13th February are quite sharp because we had discussed at length what tactics we needed to adopt against Japanese fighters with our Spitfire VIII's and were keen to try them out. The outcome of the combat was rather unexpected in that structural weaknesses were exposed in the VIII and hasty modifications had to be made.

"It was the first time we'd metJapanesefighters in force. Our tactics were to use height to dive and attack after which we were to disengage by climbing to a further attack position using our assumed superiority in speed and climb. This we did on the mixture of fighter types we encountered.

"After our first onslaught the Japanese flew in a large circle presumably intended to stop an astern attack on any one of the circling fighters. As I recall it, this circling tactic did not last very long so the number of Spitfires attacking and the evasive action by each Japanese fighter prevented any restoration of the circle once broken. In any event such placid circling would have made the Japanese easier targets than usual.

"Indeed the Japanese ceased their circling and became quite aggressive in trying to latch on to the tail of Spitfires as they dived and climbed. This might have made our pilots more severe in their pull-outs and disengagement manoeuvres than would have otherwise been the case. I know I myself pulled violently into a climb with some deliberately applied slipping and skidding when an Oscar I hadn't observed beforehand latched on my tail and commenced firing. He missed but after landing structural damage was found on my machine. The same occurred to others and we were concerned that we couldn't be as severe as might be necessary in a difficult combat. On the 13th we fired a lot of 20mm and .303 rounds for our claims of one destroyed, one probable and ten damaged. We heard afterwards that the Army reported quite a number of Japanese fighters crashed but I am unsure how true that was. Later discussion of our first encounter highlighted a Japanese willingness and ability to 'stick around' and an aggressiveness we thought applied only to us. However, after a few more encounters the Japanese commenced to break off engagements and head for home, an indication that losses were severe enough to affect morale".

Despite Peart's recollections, the RAF records only 11 claims for "damaged" by 81 Sqn on 13th Feb with no losses. 81 Sqn were in action again on the 15th Feb with claims of one destroyed (F/L R W Day), one probable (F/S W Hayes) and 7 damaged. Again, without losses. I am in the process of reconciling these claims against Japanese losses as Japanese pilots who were shot down and subsequently captured do not always appear in Japanese records.

I have a colour photo of an 81 Sqn Spit VIII with the extended pointed wingtips actually landing at Broadway which I'm happy to pass on to Kallisti and Ian if they care to pm me - also some other 81 Sqn photos and an official effectiveness report from 165 Wing on Spitfire operations in the Arakan (be warned it is a microfilm fiche negative - white letters on black - 7 pages).

Nick

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  • 3 months later...

Hi all, This Spitfire thing is truly thought provoking and always stirs the emotions like no other aircraft. I think I will release Dennis,s personal images from ww11 when I work out this photobucket thing! Britmodeller forum has been a great source of info for Dennis and myself. As a token of respect to members that have helped me and to others wanting some images of Spits in the desert, field and jungle watch this space in the near future...regards Ian c/o Dennis

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Cheers Ian,

I`ll certainly look forward to seeing the photos taken by Dennis as photos of 81 Sqn Spits are not exactly falling off tree`s and it is always nice to see photos taken from the blokes who `were there'. Please thank him on our behalf for agreeing to share them with us,

All the best

Tony O

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I second Tony O's sentiments. We've lost so many priceless records and photographs when veterans pass away - making personal records like these available to a wide audience helps us all remember and give thanks for the sacrifices paid on our behalf by those who served.

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