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Spitfire Beer Transport Tank Inscription


Steve in Ottawa

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This photo appeared on Facebook and the last line of the inscription is giving me fits trying to figure out what it says:

 

36241495751_217228cfd5_b.jpg

 

127. WING.
WING COMMANDER FLYING
Please Advise the Wing
of the "Arrival of this Bxxxxx… "?
of the "Delivery of this xxxxxx … "?

of the "Officer of Unit Canteen… "?

 

127 Wing was an RCAF Spitfire Wing. I figure it would have to a very straightforward message to the groundcrew loading or unloading the tank, to show who owned the cargo and who was to be contacted upon arrival..., or delivery..., or something else. Does anybody have a better quality image of this shot, and/or do you know what this last line says?

 

 

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I have the second line as 'Place Order(s) so Wing'........Third line is illegible.

SWMBO thinks the long word on the third line might be 'replenish' but I can't see that at all. It wouldn't be the first time we've seen the same thing in completely different ways :)

Cheers

Steve

Edited by Stonar
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It's bugging me now. I've tried to enhance the photo but the quality of the original is too poor.

a2549c9a-32fc-40a3-b591-29563ca6850a.png

 

I'm not convinced the first word of the third line is 'Please' 

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Good comments, thanks.  Now I'm less convinced of my initial theory of the wording. So now I'm back to this level of reasonable certainty:

 

127. WING.
WING COMMANDER FLYING
xxxxx xxxxx xxWing
of the Xxxxxx of xxxx xxxxx
 

Based on the enhanced photo, it may be that the characters preceding 'Wing' were a number, like '52' or '92' but a Google search doesn't support that as being possible.

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The very end of bottom line looks it could be GrBritain, so possiblly of the Airman of GrBritain

Still not sure about it because the middle of that line it looks it could be an 'x' instead of 'n' .

 

regards,

Jack

 

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Hey Graham, I think that inviting the handlers to evaluate the quality of the contents enroute would be ill-advised, especially if the Flt Sgt was out of sight.  <_< So I would lean away from that being a possibility.

 

Aside from the poor quality of the image, I think what complicates this a little bit more is that the first two lines look like they were done by somebody with sign-painting experience with that style of lettering. The script lettering in the last two lines shows some variation (note the 'g' in Wing, for example), so some of the letters in the words may not be consistently applied.

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I don't think that there's any suggestion that the writing was directed at the handlers, but the recipients.  The more I look, the more convinced I am about "quality", to the u following the Q, the dot on the i and the tail of the y.

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If I zoom the enhanced photos in and out I want to think I see:

 

127. WING.
WING COMMANDER FLYING

'Please Advise the Wing

of the Delivery of this xxxxxxxx'

 

(Wild A** Guess mode ON) Could that maybe be something like:

 

127. WING.
WING COMMANDER FLYING

'Please Advise the Wing

of the Delivery or the Return'

 

I think it would likely be a simple 'standard procedure' message to whoever was handling the tank. No matter what state it was in, it was to get back into the hands of 127 Wing, where RCAF personnel would be trained and ready to deal with the tank's contents.

Edited by Steve in Ottawa
slopppy typing
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I think you have your answer Steve. None of us can tell what it says, so do what you want and no one would be any the wiser. :wink:

If you come across a better quality photo, then I'd happily have another stab at enhancing it.

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It was Malcolm Laird who posted the photo on Facebook, and he indicated to me that it was also published in one of their 'Classic Warbirds' series of books. I haven't taken a dig in the personal library yet to see if I have the printed photo in the book, but Malcolm had indicated that this was the best quality image he had in his hands. Malcolm also indicated that the photo came from the collection of Johnny Checketts.

 

Thanks to everybody for weighing in on this question. Good input and discussion, as always!

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  • 1 month later...

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