Sky dancer Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 (edited) Hello everybody, With the recent, and sad, passing away of Wing Commander Tim Elkington I was reminded of a thread of his on the "Flypast" forum. It concerned an entry in his log book for the 9th September 1943 (I think he was on 1 Squadron at the time) in which he had hand-drawn a diagram of the upper wing surfaces of his Typhoon showing the black outer wings and white stripes associated with the Starkey markings. There was also a drawing of the underside wing markings, which showed that when combined with the standard Typhoon stripes, the Starkey markings made the Typhoon underside look like a zebra crossing!!! Two questions:- 1. Have any photographs of a Typhoon with Operation Starkey markings ever come to light? 2. Can anyone provide the serial and code letters of the Typhoon he was flying that day? (unfortunately the photo of his logbook didn't show these...) Chris - can you help??? Thanking you all in advance, SD Edited February 9, 2019 by Sky dancer spelling!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 (edited) Oh my, never thought about a Tiffie in those markings- that would be flashy! It's 197 Squadron. "Naval escort patrols- in support of the large scale amphibious exercise- began this morning at 0630 hours. These provoked no enemy reaction and were quite uneventful. Great disappointment was ____ at the Hun's lack of enterprise. Ground crews of the Squadron had worked like 'Trojans' [to get?] all the a/c all ready for the 'Big' Show and a handful of 190's destroyed would have been fitting recompense for the ground crews efforts and for the Pilots' keenness." On 9 Sept '43: JP502 (He was posted overseas just a few days later.) He'd flown the same a/c on 4th and 7th, but other pilots were using it too. There was a comment in the Summary along the lines of "3 times as many pilots as aircraft". Edited February 5, 2019 by gingerbob 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 Thank you Gingerbob!!! Any idea of the code letter? Here is a link to the thread on Flypast, the late Wing Commander Elkington's user name was Cotteswold - his drawing of the Starkey markings can be seen when you click on the first photo to enlarge it:- https://forum.keypublishing.com/forum/historic-aviation/125771-9-september-1943 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Thomas Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Flashy indeed Bob. JP502 was OV-B. Never been lucky enough to locate a Typhoon photo showing Starkey markings; they were only on for a day or two. I did an article for Airfix Mag (Sept 2016 issue) on the 'car-door' Typhoon and included small plan views of of Starkey markings based on the official instructions plus Tim's drawings. Can send a pdf if you think it would help. Chris 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I'd certainly like to see it, Chris! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 Hi Chris, Sorry for late reply. Yes, I would love to see the PDF - there is a part of Tim's drawing of the underside that I am not terribly clear about, it's the section between the outermost cannon and where the national markings would have been. I was hoping that a photo could have cleared it up, but in their absence your interpretation would be very much valued. SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Hi I am sure Chris knows My personal guess medium sea grey, old drawings in airfix mag and ducimus used to use dottings to indicate the colour in the ‘old pre colour’ drawing days cheers jerry 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 Hi Jerry, I didn't want to breach any copyright, so I've close cropped the relevant drawing for illustrative purposes - it's been enlarged to within an inch of its life. (Mods, please delete this photo if you wish) I think I'm over-analysing things - but Tim had drawn 10 small dotted lines in the area I've highlighted. Two of them, the one's I've marked with a red arrow, appear to be larger than the rest. This, in my opinion, suggests that these have been enlarged by Tim drawing on the dotted outline of the mostly painted over underwing roundel. If that is the case, a slim portion of the roundel was not covered by the innermost black band of the Sharkey stripes - this would mean that you are absolutely correct, this dotted area of the wing remained MSG. This would suggest that the Starkey stripes extended along the wing to an area in or around the landing light (I think?) The query I have is with the normal identification stripes. Tim has drawn a black stripe in situ at the inboard cannon, but there should be one outboard of the outermost cannon too, but it's not there. Maybe Tim's plane was like this, or maybe he was just concentrating on showing the Sharkey markings and not worrying about the identification stripes which everybody knew about and weren't concerned about? Or maybe I'm just over-analysing things.... I think you're right about the MSG, and I think Chris' drawings do hold the answer. If anyone else has any input, please join in - it's why I like this forum so much! All the best, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) On 2/5/2019 at 10:03 PM, Sky dancer said: Or maybe I'm just over-analysing things... Maybe... but you raise a very good point. So now it's my turn to over-analyse: As you can see, the innermost black stripe on Tim's (underside) drawing is rather too wide and a bit inboard, but that's assuming that he was actually worried about precision of reference points. At any rate, the outermost black stripe would be about where he has the band with the dotted lines (or just dots)- both black stripes fall outboard of the cannon. (Granted, there's probably some variation from airframe to airframe, but my extremely unscientific survey showed this to be pretty consistent.) He also places the roundel approximately right compared to the cannons- though perhaps the outer cannon should be a bit farther away from the inner one. Not counting the all-black wingtip, the bands of the Starkey marking are supposed to be 18" wide (there's a drawing of these in the FlyPast link above). That's the same width as the white stripes (or space between the black ones) on the Typhoon ID markings [EDIT: correction! the white ID stripes are 24"]. Incidentally, I tried to determine the "5 feet chord" definition of where the black wingtip ends, and on the Typhoon that's about at the outboard edge of the underside roundel, so it seems clear that this particular specification was not followed on the Typhoons. (Going by geometry and Tim's drawing.) Per a drawing in the Camouflage & Markings book, the black ID stripe is 12 inches wide, and there are 6 inches between the edge of the last one and the inboard edge of the roundel. Put those two together and you have 18 inches again- reflecting the uniform widths of Tim's drawing (and accepting that the most inboard black band he shows is erroneously wide). So, if the inboard edge of the Starkey marking was placed to just cover the roundel, that leaves a very narrow band of Medium Sea Grey [MSG] before we encounter the outer black edge of the ID markings. Filling that gap with black would make the Starkey marking not as intended. But they'd have to paint out the outermost ID black stripe to have that area be MSG. It would be simpler to use the temporary white that they've already got out for the Starkey markings, and overpaint the black stripe (with or without also painting out the narrow MSG bit), forming a broader white band. Heck, maybe they used "pre-shading philosophy" and applied a thin coat of white over the black, trying to end up with a resulting grey that was in keeping with the MSG! So what do the dots in the one stripe indicate? It could perhaps indicate the (narrower) overpainted black ID stripe, but if so the location is a bit off. That could be explained as "artistic license" to make clear that he was indicating an overpainted stripe there (as he does with the dotted outlines of the roundels). Or, as Jerry (?) proposed, it could indicate grey. That last does have the logic of giving a space between the (modified) ID stripes and the temporary Starkey marking. The obvious solution is to produce that nice shot of a Typhoon underside with the Starkey stripes on! bob Edited February 7, 2019 by gingerbob Updating to reflect a dimensional error. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Thomas Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Ohhh ... another can of worms! SD if you PM me with your email address I'll sent what I have and you can post (which is beyond me) any of it here as you wish. I plotted out the markings on a 1/48 Bentley's plan as per the original instructions and found the outer black ident stripe overlapped (or should that be underlapped) the inner black Starkey stripe, producing a slightly wider black stripe. I took the dotted bit of Tim's drawing to indicate where the stripes overlapped. I thought this was a likely result and did not consider the possibility that part of the ident stripes were painted out. They had a big enough job painting the Starkey stripes on a dozen or so aircraft at short notice and I can't think that a narrow strip or MSG between the two markings would reassure anyone. The Navy would be shooting at them whatever. as they found even when adorned with full D-Day stripes. However, I do accept that the MSG paint over the outer ident stripe is a reasonable option. So until Bob finds that photo he keeps banging on about ... its your call. Chris 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 Hey, I only mentioned it once that I know of! 😉 Much as I would enjoy scooping you with a Typhoon thing, Chris, I think it extremely unlikely. And even if I did, I'd probably show it to you first. bob 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 Hi Chris and Bob, Thank you so much for your input - glad to know that it's not just me having queries over the stripes! Chris - I've sent you a PM with my email address; if you are agreeable I will post your Starkey drawing here, in the hope that it may flush out more information and, hopefully, a photo - there is always hope! It comes across loud and clear from Tim's logbook, and the thread on Flypast, that he was never told the name of the Operation, or its exact purpose. We had a saying "If you have to ask, you do not need to know" - but when aircrew on the actual operation are told minimal details, is it any wonder that future generations have difficulty working it out. Thanks again for your help and input! Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Thomas Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 2 hours ago, gingerbob said: Hey, I only mentioned it once that I know of! 😉 Much as I would enjoy scooping you with a Typhoon thing, Chris, I think it extremely unlikely. And even if I did, I'd probably show it to you first. bob Well maybe I was exaggerating just a little. And thanks for the scoop thought. A Starkey Typhoon and a 287 Sqn Tempest would be good .... Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) Hi I think the glimmer of hope is Tims line in the entry https://forum.keypublishing.com/filedata/fetch?id=3723721 " press down with us" which makes me think maybe a photo is out there somewhere cheers jerry Edited February 6, 2019 by brewerjerry 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) Well, for fun, I checked the ORBs for all 18 Typhoon squadrons as of September 1943. All but one (195) participated in Starkey. Some made no mention at all of special markings, and some seemed to think that this was the real thing (for a while), while others seemed to know that it was a feint/exercise. Some squadrons were Bombphoons (and actively bombing). Here are some excerpts: [Note: While I wasn't meticulous about every detail, odd capitalization or lack of apostrophes, etc, are hopefully as found in the ORBs] 266 Sqn (flew from Exeter to Gravesend on 7th “Everybody expecting the balloon to go up at [xxxx] very shortly. 8th: In the evening the pilots were briefed for tomorrows job, a large convoy of invasion craft will be leaving Dungeness and heading for a point 9 miles off Bologne. 8 a/c of 266, with 8 of 193 and 8 of 257 Squadrons will patrol the convoy, and two other wings of Spitfires will continue this patrolling when we leave off, then we re-fuel fast and repeat the performance probably __ making 3 or 4 patrols. This is only a feint landing the object being to make the Hun attack in force and fight him on level terms over the Channel. All a/c taking part in the operation have their wings painted in black and white stripes. 609 Sqn (Lympne) 7th: C.O., Camp Commandant and S/L Zweiberghe of 1 sqdn are summoned to a conference at Biggin Hill- evidently important, for the C.O. is mysterious about its agenda on return. (8th: last minute takeoff to escort Whirlwinds, but fail to meet up... “so after orbiting for 20 minutes the Typhoons angrily return, to be greeted with the news that Italy has unconditionally surrendered.”) 9th: Following a night when the Blitz on Boulogne and other ports has been visible from the Mess there is a tense conviction, [borne?] out by the preliminary Form ‘D’, that today is ‘Der Tag’. There is a veil of secrecy and an undercurrent of excitement. 609’s Typhoons, after a night’s work by F/O Barnard and his men, appear in what is surely their invasion war-paint: black and white stripes not only beneath the wings, but on the outer third of the upper surface and leading edge as well. 257 Sqn (Gravesend) 8th: In the evening, all personnel were confined to camp, and dope and brushes were issued to all available personnel. __ black and white stripes were painted on the undersurfaces of the Typhoon wings. All pilots were called to the Watch Office for a special briefing. 9th: One pilot remarked that the air was so full of friendly aeroplanes that had a Hun put in an appearance we should have lost a number of our own aircraft in the rush to shoot it down! 3 Sqn (Manston): Aircraft were painted with zebra like stripes, black and white, in connection with an amphibious exercise in the Channel. 175 Sqn (121 Airfield (Lydd?)) “The black and white stripes on our wing tips will come off again. We are sad not to have seen any action, the Intelligence reports for the day should be interesting. Why did Jerry not bite?" Edited February 6, 2019 by gingerbob 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 6, 2019 Author Share Posted February 6, 2019 Me again, Jerry - I had overlooked that comment of Tim's - perhaps somewhere in the vaults of Pathe or Movietone, or some of the national papers, there are reams of photos of Op. Starkey Typhoons - all recorded with the aim of publicizing what they no doubt hoped would be a massive victory over the Luftwaffe, who decided not to take the bait. With the Operation becoming, in war terms, a non-story the photos were filed, never to see the light of day... Until such times as they do surface, here is artwork from Chris, who has kindly permitted me to share them here! Enjoy!!! We had debated a few possibilites re. the markings, but if these are good enough for Chris, they are good enough for me!!! Thanks Chris! Michael 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silberpferd Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) Hi all, not Typhoons pictures unfortunately, but in case they could be of any help from an old Air Classics magazine, spring 1975. Laurent Edited February 7, 2019 by silberpferd 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 1 hour ago, Sky dancer said: Me again, Jerry - I had overlooked that comment of Tim's - perhaps somewhere in the vaults of Pathe or Movietone, or some of the national papers, there are reams of photos of Op. Starkey Typhoons - all recorded with the aim of publicizing what they no doubt hoped would be a massive victory over the Luftwaffe, who decided not to take the bait. With the Operation becoming, in war terms, a non-story the photos were filed, never to see the light of day... Until such times as they do surface, here is artwork from Chris, who has kindly permitted me to share them here! Enjoy!!! We had debated a few possibilites re. the markings, but if these are good enough for Chris, they are good enough for me!!! Thanks Chris! Michael Hi Thanks for posting, however my 'gut instinct ' is saying the two inboard starkey stripes are two wide as they were supposed to be 1 foot and 6 inches wide same as the other stripe the only thicker 'stripe' was supposed to be at the wingtip end but i personally dont like it that my mind is disagreeing with a know expert's drawing sorry chris cheers jerry 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) Jerry, the Starkey stripes should have been the same width as the white stripes of the ID markings. I think that what you're seeing is the inboard Starkey stripe butting against the outermost black ID stripe, though I agree that it would end up being a "too wide" black band. Now that I see it rendered (thanks Chris and Michael) I can't make that agree with Tim's sketch. Notice, too, that Tim shows more of the upper surface roundel still visible inboard of the Starkey markings, suggesting that they didn't come quite as far inboard as Chris has rendered it. Which brings us back to that band with the dashed lines (or whatever) inside it... Hmm, I've got an idea, might be back in a bit. Edit: Wait a tic! Are the ID white stripes actually supposed to be 24" wide? If so, I was thrown by the drawing in Camouflage & Markings, which labels them as 18". Oh dear, I'll have to recompute, and no time right now. Guess it'll have to wait for morning... Edited February 6, 2019 by gingerbob 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerbob Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Just for a visual comparison, I "painted" (crudely) the starboard wing of Chris' Typhoon (the other wing is as he did it) (I "overpainted" the outermost ID black stripe with white, as I speculated in one of my over-thinking posts.) To me that looks a bit more like Tim's sketch, and preserves the dimensions decreed for the Starkey markings. Either one fits the "zebra stripes" description in some ORBs. I find myself rather interested in dusting off my "ready for paint" car-door Typhoon... Comments? Criticism for daring to "argue" with Chris? Just remembered photos? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 6 hours ago, gingerbob said: Just for a visual comparison, I "painted" (crudely) the starboard wing of Chris' Typhoon (the other wing is as he did it) (I "overpainted" the outermost ID black stripe with white, as I speculated in one of my over-thinking posts.) To me that looks a bit more like Tim's sketch, and preserves the dimensions decreed for the Starkey markings. Either one fits the "zebra stripes" description in some ORBs. I find myself rather interested in dusting off my "ready for paint" car-door Typhoon... Comments? Criticism for daring to "argue" with Chris? Just remembered photos? Hi Well you have ' sold me' with that overpaint of the last typhoon i/d stripe it makes sense... Obey the last order ( the new i/d stripes ) and cover up the ' offending ' stripe the easiest/guickest way with white distemper ( better than my msg idea ) which presumaby might give a greyish colour band which would add up to the drawing tim did, showing a dotted band next to a white band hopefully chris takes our doubts of his drawing in the spirit they were intended and it was very kind of him to allow it to be shared here in the first place well that is how my typhoon will look when i do one cheers jerry 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBC Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 On 2/6/2019 at 1:31 PM, silberpferd said: Hi all, not Typhoons pictures unfortunately, but in case they could be of any help from an old Air Classics magazine, spring 1975. Laurent Laurent, Does the Air Classic mag identify the Mustang I and IA? There is an old article from Model Airplane International from October 2008 with several colour profiles of RAF/RCAF Mustang I, IA and II's. One of the colour profiles is of 268 Sqd Mustang IA FD-546, aircraft "G" in Operation Starkey markings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky dancer Posted February 8, 2019 Author Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) Laurent, I'd only ever seen a model of a Mustang 1a in Starkey markings - this is the first time I've seen the photos, so thank you! TBC Colin Ford made the model of the Mustang 1a I'm referring to, his username on here is ColFord - he is, or was, the official historian of 268 squadron and wrote their official history in "Adjidaumo – Tail-In-Air". Might be worth a PM! This is the link to his model, but the photos seen to have disappeared with the Photobucket issues... https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/47049-starkey-mustang-mkia/ He has also done a couple of pieces on-line - one of which states that in June 1944 the Mustang 1 marked "E" had the serial FD471 - but it might have been a different airframe for Starkey. Also on this forum, ben_m produced a lovely Mustang 1a in 1/72 - work-in-progress is here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/69151-academy-mustang-mkia-172/ and the ready for inspection is here:- https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/69857-academy-172-mustang-mkia-operation-starkey/ Bob & Jerry Bob - I had no idea that so many Typhoon squadrons were committed to Starkey, and wore the stripes. I suspect that there are going to be as many variations as there were with the AEAF stripes - the only problem is that there are no photos of any of them!! I think all our speculation is valid, without photos we'll never know for sure. What if Tim's drawing is correct - and there was no outermost black stripe on the "Typhoon" stripes on his plane? I'm sure I've seen a photo, somewhere, of a Tiffie with only an abbreviated black/white/black/white/black set of "Typhoon" stripes, which ended just outboard of the inner cannon - or is my memory playing tricks??? Official Op. Starkey distinctive markings instructions:- Edited February 8, 2019 by Sky dancer To include "official" markings instructions for Starkey 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 Hi Yep we all have to live in hope a photo turns up at least for a typhoon we have tim's sketch which we can try to interpret at least there are photos of spitfires, mustangs and whirlwinds now which nice decal manufacturer will take the plunge, do some research and produce a 'starkey theme set' of decals for all the aircraft cheers jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewerjerry Posted February 8, 2019 Share Posted February 8, 2019 On 2/6/2019 at 12:31 PM, silberpferd said: Hi all, not Typhoons pictures unfortunately, but in case they could be of any help from an old Air Classics magazine, spring 1975. Laurent Hi Laurent Do you have a full title & issue number for the magazine, so i can search for maybe an old copy cheers jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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