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No. 2(AC) At Shanghai, 1927


Old Man

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Bi-plane-From-HMS-Hermes-Flying-Over-Sha

 

I have literally for years been looking to find a picture of a 2(AC) Sqdn Bristol at Shanghai in the summer of 1927. Late last night I came upon this, on a site that monitors memorabilia auctions. It is captioned 'aeroplane from HMS Hermes flying over Shanghai Aug 1927'. (HMS Hermes was present, with Fairey IIID and I believe also Flycatchers; No. 2(AC) came with HMS Argus.)* The serial number of the Bristol in the picture is J7652, which is among the four serials Mr. Bruce gives in the Windsock Bristol vol 2 as being the machines 2(AC) assembled and flew from the racecourse at Shanghai. The rooftops agree with some other low angle aerial photographs I have seen on a 'Virtual Shanghai' site dated to the twenties and thirties. I am not certain the photograph is not a composite, with a picture of the Bristol put into a picture of Shanghai rooftops for sale, but the serial number argues for authenticity of the central element of the image; that is not information I would expect a casual artiste to have, and odds are strongly against a random draw of a picture of even a 2(AC) Bristol pulling one of the right pictures.

 

If anyone has any more information about this deployment of 2(AC), particularly any photographs, I would be most grateful.

 

* Teach me to type without checking sources. HMS Argus brought 441 Flight to Shanghai; No 2(AC) did come on HMS Hermes.

Edited by Old Man
correction
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It never rains but it pours, as they say....

 

Found this picture last night, or more precisely, wife found it:

 

shanghaibristol_zpsgeh9zcli.jpg

 

It is captioned "One day, in 1927, a British Royal Air Force (RAF) biplane flew over Nanjing Road"

 

I had found this picture in a Google book:

 

Shanghai1927_zps3l7potmc.jpg

 

I could only get a screen-cap of it, and that not the full picture. Wife put that in an image search and it came up with links to three Chinese blogs, all of which contained the same series of pictures, which included the Bristol at the head of the post. This one is captioned 'Biplanes of the RAF on the racecourse in 1927". The nearest machines, anyway, are Fairey IIID types, from 441 Flight FAA, also present at Shanghai that summer.

 

Here is picture of one of them:

 

faireyIIId_441_Shanghai_zps0rzdixoi.jpg

 

This came from another auction-monitoring site, and the item for sale was inscribed on the back in pencil "441 Flight, machine outside matshed hanger, racecourse, Shanghai, April 1927"

 

The Nanking Road picture showing a Bristol in flight has a provenance; it appeared in public in 2014 a part of an exhibit of pictures of old Shanghai put on by the current municipal authorities, drawn from their archives. It does, of course, continue the long and deep conspiracy among photographers to frustrate modelers, as the lower wing obscures any identity markings, whether serial or fin badge. But I strongly suspect it is the same machine as appears in the profile picture at the start of this thread, and that both were taken during the same flight.

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Here are a couple of more pictures I have had for a while. They come from an article in The Naval Review, July, 1963, titled Wings Over Shanghai, by J. A. MacDonald. Its focus is on the FAA operation, of course, though it does give some information regarding No 2 Sqdn.

 

Screenshot%2084_zpsbvrwlujh.png

 

Screenshot%2085_zpsgxqvqoxb.png

 

Here is good aerial picture of the racecourse, from North China Daily News, which will put in perspective the decision to treat it as an aerodrome....

 

airshanghaircourse_zpsng4i9oz5.jpg

 

 

 

 

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Congratulations both on some very resourceful researching!

 

I too am finding that very useful material can be found in unusual places. My interest is interwar racers, of which the regular sources often yield the same photos over & again. But like you two I've found new and often very useful images in memorabilia auctions including photos; newspaper clippings; old manufacturers marketing material; postcards are often good ...

 

Try too the national or state libraries that are digitising their images & newspapers for access online.

 

I've also found newsreels are a great resource - British Pathe & the like.  The list goes on.  Fascinating what's out there to be found!

 

Good luck with it all!

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22 hours ago, greggles.w said:

Congratulations both on some very resourceful researching!

 

I too am finding that very useful material can be found in unusual places. My interest is interwar racers, of which the regular sources often yield the same photos over & again. But like you two I've found new and often very useful images in memorabilia auctions including photos; newspaper clippings; old manufacturers marketing material; postcards are often good ...

 

Try too the national or state libraries that are digitising their images & newspapers for access online.

 

I've also found newsreels are a great resource - British Pathe & the like.  The list goes on.  Fascinating what's out there to be found!

 

Good luck with it all!

 

Good tips indeed.

 

Something else I hav found is it can pay to search on more general terms. If you are willing to wade through the results for many pages, 'RAF China', for example, can get you stuff 'Bristol Fighter 2 Squadron Shanghai' may not....

 

At the risk of hijacking my own thread, here is an image archive you, and some others, may enjoy and find useful. It has a good mix of military and civil machines from the interwar period, almost all U.S., and among them are what appear to be a goodly number of racing machines.

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eaamuseum/albums/72157626936550255/page1

Edited by Old Man
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Glad you guys liked the collection. I was happy to come across it myself because it had many pictures of 17th Pursuit Curtiss P-6E Hawks which were in standard finish, not the Air Race 'Snow Owl' scheme. To get this back onto track, here a couple of links.

 

The first is to 2(AC) operations reports for several months in 1927:

 

http://www.rafjever.org/2squadchronology.htm

 

It is a shame these cut out in July, because in August there was an incident I believe concerned a No. 2 Bristol: an English machine had to force land, did so near Nationalist troops, and things escalated from there. Here is a link to a contemporary newspaper report of the matter, which is the most coherent and comprehensive of such that I have found on line:

 

https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10450-62424239/the-week-brisbane-qld?trp=&trn=organic_google&trl=

 

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