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Wellington mk II Z8370 PH-Y


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"On the night of January 20th, 1942, Wellington bomber PH-Y bearing its crew of six was returning from a bombing raid on Emden when a burst of cannon and machine gun fire from a German night-fighter ripped through its tail turret, killing the gunner Sgt. Rutherford. A second burst struck the forward gun turret and astrodome, wounding F/Sgt. Groves in the legs and feet and killing the second pilot, Sgt. Fowler. As related by George Groves: "Our pilot, Flight-lieutenant Thallon, told us to bale out, that, although he had engines, he couldn't control the aircraft. I crawled from my position in the front gun turret up to the pilot's cockpit. There I opened the hatch and looked down to see nothing but the ominous blackness of the North Sea. True, I was badly shot up, but I was only twenty-years-old and not quite ready for a death by drowning. "Can you make it over that island just ahead," I asked the pilot? Somehow Thallon was able to manoeuvre the crippled Wimpy over the landfall and I, along with Pilot Officer Ross our observer and our other Wireless Air Gunner F/Sgt. Walker 'hit the silk'. Flight-lieutenant Thallon could not follow for he had thought he saw the second pilot move. Believing Sgt. Fowler to be still alive he could not abandon him. I landed somewhere near a village in the centre of the island and was soon arrested by the Germans. The others who had jumped were also picked up by the enemy. The pilot, I learned much later, successfully crash-landed what was left of Wellington PH-Y on a gravel beach on the north shore of Terschelling Island.

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Following his capture, George was placed in the care of an Austrian doctor who was able to have him flown to a Luftwaffe hospital in Amsterdam. Here he would remain for several weeks before being transferred to a convalescent home in Bavaria. From the convalescent home, he was sent to a prison camp in Germany. He would remain there until the war ended in 1945" (http://www.missing-airmen.info/pageTerschelling.html).

Terschelling was and still is one of my favourite destinations in The Netherlands. About 15 years ago I first saw the photo above of Wellington Z8370. Since then I've dabbled with the idea of building Z8370 and now I'm finally getting round to it.

Also some years ago I was in touch with a museum on the island. They shared some more photos of the crashed aircraft with me.

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The last photo is from the missing airmen Website.

These photos are interesting reference material to determine the exact configuration of the aircraft. First and foremost, it's clear that the Wellington is a mk II. There are of course some variations in this mark, most notably the window in the rear fuselage which is more typical of the mk III than the mk I.

It also appears that the inside of the flaps are black. The turrets however appear to be silver on the inside.

The wing leading edges seem to have the mustard yellow deicing paste applied.

Something strange is going on at the tail section; the serial number in particular. It seems to me that the area where the serial number is placed is lighter than the black around it. Perhaps it has been masked when previous (lower) camouflage was painted over black. But why does the area extend so much further? Thoughts anyone?

Finally, the only confirmation I have of the individual code letter Y is the "missing airmen" Website; Bomber Command Losses doesn't list an individual code letter. From the pictures it would seem that the code letter is either X or Y (maybe K?) but since the information on that website is apparently based on an interview by one of the crew members I think that PH-Y was the actual code.

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This is a photo of Ludwig Becker, the night fighter pilot who shot down Z8370. This photo was taken hours after shooting down that aircraft. According to the caption he shot down 3 aircraft that night, which included the Gruppe's 100th kill. Another officer is drawing a piece of paper with "100" to commemorate this. The photo is from a book by Ab Jansen.

Edited by elger
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For this project I'm using the Trumpeter 1c kit with the Alley Cat mk II conversion set. I'll also be adding the Eduard Big Ed set, as well as the CMK set ("yo dawg, I heard you liked detail, so we've added an aftermarket set to your aftermarket set so you can detail while you detail). Not just "because I can", but also because CMK offers the older type of radio which a mk II in early 1942 probably would have used.

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Dryfitting the main components illustrate how I'm using most of the sources.

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Converting the mk 1c to mk II standards means cutting out the windows in the fuselage. I also deleted the attachment points for the turret and the ammunition boxes. The former wasn't installed on Wellingtons after the mk 1 I believe and the latter is only applicable to mk IIIs (so should also be removed if you're building a mk 1c oob.

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The result:

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I'm also adding detail to the turrets. I started by replacing the barrels

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I added detail to the turrets with stretched sprue, copper wire, and bits from Eduard.

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Most of the parts painted & ready to be fitted

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Comments and feedback are most welcome! :) Thanks for looking!

Edited by elger
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Thanks for all the responses!

I'm planning to add the specific bomb load to the model which the aircraft was carrying on the night it was lost. I was in touch with someone from the Midland Aircraft Recovery Group who looked up the aircraft's bomb load in the squadron's operations book in the National Archives.

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According to the Operations book Z8370 was carrying 3x 500lb, 3x 250lb and 6x SBC. SBC stands for Small Bomb Carrier, but it doesn't say what type the other bombs are (SAP or GP). I'm going for GP I think. The Trumpeter kit comes with many options for the bomb load, but I'm pretty sure that the SBCs are not included. They look relatively simple to scratch build however.

A thing that came as a surprise is that this configuration isn't listed as an option in the wonderful 4+ book on the Wellington. Here's a scan from the book:

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My guess is that the SBCs were carried in the outer compartments (3 on each side) and that the 3x 500lb and 3x 250lb were carried in the middle compartment. I assume that the 3x 500lb bombs were loaded like the 4th option on the left row in the diagram because of their length, and that the 3x 250lbs were loaded where in that diagram the spaces are. But would that work?

Anyone any thoughts?

Edited by elger
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My guess is that the SBCs were carried in the outer compartments (3 on each side) and that the 3x 500lb and 3x 250lb were carried in the middle compartment. I assume that the 3x 500lb bombs were loaded like the 4th option on the left row in the diagram because of their length, and that the 3x 250lbs were loaded where in that diagram the spaces are. But would that work?

Anyone any thoughts?

I agree with that, looks like you'll have to double stack the 500lb and 250lb bombs, since the 2 outer bays have the 3 x SBCs (presumably with the 4lb sticks).

Surprising to the see the overlapping 500lbers. What about the 500lb with shortened tails, or were these only for Mosquitos?

It appears (on page 65) if the caption is correct, that they show the 500lbs with 1 up and 2 down, which differs from the diagram. This seems a better option in case the middle bomb hangs, it doesn't block the other two?

Nice to see a 12Sqn aircraft too.

Edited by hovering
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I like to see well researched posts like this, I'm especially interested in this one since I'll be building the Trumpeter Mk III Wellington fairly soon, so let us know it all Elger - the good and the bad. You've made an excellent start!

Max

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What books are you using for reference as thinking of doing a wellington my self but as a very early Costal Command aircraft, Particley with that loadout data table?

The 4+ book on the Wellington is one of the best references out there. This site has a preview of that book, as well as some others http://www.small-wonder.org/Books_Vickers_Wellington.htm

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Today I finished the interior and it's ready to be installed into the fuselage.

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I found some pictures of ww2 aerial maps and printed one out for the navigator's table.

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To get as close to a mk II instruments panel I combined bits from the mk 1c and mk III (Zoom) set. The mk 1c panel is above, the mk III panel below.

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A mk II's instruments panel is mostly like a mk 1c except for the outer right panel, which is more like that of a mk III. I simply swapped those panels.

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The final result:

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I gave all the surface panels a coat of clear flat, and then added some Future to the gauges.

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Finally, a picture of the SBCs from Belcher Bits which came in the mail yesterday :)

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Thanks for looking!

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That is one incredibly detailed interior. If the rest of your build continues at that standard we're in for a cracker.

Well done!!

Marh

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Nice work, one question though, did this particular a/c have the dual controls? From my understanding the dual controls could be added or removed as required but most seemed to have just the pilot's controls.

Jari

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Yes.. superb work. I have one to build too, so something to aspire to.

Finn, I notice Elgar mentions a 2nd pilot in the historical account, but that may mean he was a new pilot and on his 'familiarization' flight, which probably wouldn't have required a second set of controls as you've noted.

Greg

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Nice work, one question though, did this particular a/c have the dual controls? From my understanding the dual controls could be added or removed as required but most seemed to have just the pilot's controls.

Jari

I debated this issue for quite some time; it's difficult to find a clear answer as to whether or not Wellingtons were typically equipped with dual controls. I figured it depended on the composition of the crew. Early Wellingtons crews did include a "second pilot" which, as I understand it, is the same as a co-pilot, rather than an engineer. The crew of Wellington Z8370 also included a second pilot (one of the causalities) and it seems only logical to me that a second pilot would also have controls (why else would he be there?)

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Edited by elger
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Hey Elgar,

As my earlier post, it was common to take the pilot of a new crew along with an experienced crew when joining the squadron, often known as 2nd Dickie.

It was a familiarization flight, not one that required a second pilot.

If this was the case here, you could check the squadron ORB. They typically have a Summary for the month on January and would mention he and his crew joining the squadron. In the 'Details of work carried out" section which you show one page of, it's likely that is the pilots first flight with the squadron. In some cases an individual crew member may also fill in on other flights as well before the 'whole crew' begin operations.

Greg

Edited by hovering
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