The Czech Defector - Arma 1/72 Hurricane - UPDATE

[Acklington]

This is an update to my original thread on this model. I have now finished writing up a history of the Czech Defector, and to do so I searched various Czech websites, using 'google translate' to try and confuse me further! There is plenty of information, but it appears that no one has ever tried plotting his flight path on 'google earth' and measuring the distances. RAF Ouston to the village of Ortho, Belgium = 450 miles. Still air range of a Hurricane 1 with Rotol propellor = 425 miles, and that is without him starting off with a training exercise with a Polish pilot. Result, it just didn't add up, and there was a strong smell of rats!

More digging, and I'm now claiming to have revealed a very carefully planned defection, designed to protect his UK (RAF?) handler, combined with a second flight that same day so the Gestapo could frighten civilians into not helping Allied airmen. 

My stab at this story can be found here sites.google.com/view/raf-ouston-research/the-czech-defector
It still needs a bit of tidying up, but hopefully it will be of interest, and it just shows where a plastic aeroplane kit will lead you!

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Just finished, another limited run kit from Poland. Beautifully detailed and accurate, but what a b**** to persuade to go together! I think that the trouble with these CAD models is that there is no built-in tolerance between the parts, they might fit perfectly on the computer, but not in real life. Anyway, a very interesting story to this Hurricane;

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (2) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (5) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (10) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (16) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (21) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (24) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (26) w by Philip Pain, on Flickr

W9147, 55 OTU, RAF Ouston, 18 Sept 1941 (12) bw by Philip Pain, on Flickr

It is a Gloster built Hawker Hurricane Mk.1 (with Rotol propellor), serial W9147 of 55 OTU based at RAF Usworth, Sunderland in 1941. It was the 'personal' aircraft of 55 OTU's commander, Wing Commander K.W. Gough AFC and carries his pennant below the cockpit. 55 OTU was a very large outfit and as a result they made much use of nearby RAF Ouston, Northumberland, as a satellite airfield. It was at Ouston on 18th September 1941 that W9147 was being flown by one of 55 OTU's Instructors, Sergeant Pilot Augustin Precuil, a Czech. He took off with a Polish pilot pupil for a training flight, and later the Pole returned alone, to report that he had last seen W9147 diving down to the sea where he lost sight of it. The RAF inquiry concluded engine failure as the likely cause and Precuil was listed as missing.

No doubt Wng Cmdr Gough would have been annoyed at the loss of his aircraft, but probably even more so when it subsequently turned up on public display in the Reich Aviation Museum in Berlin!
55 OTU W9147_in_Berlin_Museum by Philip Pain, on Flickr

Precuil was working for the Gestapo, and after defecting in W9147 he landed in Belgium near the Ardennes, damaging the propellor and probably shock-loading the engine. He was hid by Belgian farmers that first night, and in the morning he revealed himself to the Germans and betrayed the Belgians. One report says that two were immediately executed, another that the family was imprisoned. Precuil collected a reward and was put to work infiltrating prison camps and openly assisting in the interrogation of allied airmen. At the War's end he was arrested, tried, and hanged for Treason in April 1947. W9147 didn't last as long, an RAF raid on Berlin in November 1943 destroyed much of the Reich Aviation Museum.

There are some unexplained aspects to the story. Precuil apparently got married to a British girl some three months before he defected. Maybe he made a bad choice, but then she was a Sunderland girl (I'm from Newcastle, which has a better football team). Also, why defect when he did? The Hurricane was of no intelligence value to the Germans, and neither was Precuil currently in a security sensitive post, nor had he been. Perhaps he got spooked that his game was almost up, and the opportunity of being at RAF Ouston, where any odd behaviour was less likely to be noticed, plus having the WingCo's aircraft, and a rookie pilot in tow, all became too good an opportunity to miss? Finally, it seems that the British security service files on the incident are still sealed.

 

Some comments on the colour scheme for W9147. Another modeller on the web has done it in grey/green/medium sea grey with sky codes, and this is presumably because those new colours were introduced in August 1941, a month before Precuil defected. However, the grainy photo from the Berlin museum appears to show W9147 still in pre-August colours with grey code letters. There is no contrast between the sky rear fuselage band, and the underside sky colour. The present day Berlin Museum also has an impressive 1/72 diorama showing the original Reich collection of aircraft, and included is a brown/green Hurricane. However, what may be possible is that by 18th September 1941 W9147 may have acquired yellow leading edge strips, which were mandated from 14th August 1941 as a new recognition feature. If so, my model is correct for pre-August 1941.

Thanks for looking, and I will be writing up the full story of Augustin Precuil on my "RAF Ouston Research" website which can be found here sites.google.com/view/raf-ouston-research/home

Edited August 8, 2019 by Acklington
New information

[Spitfire31]

A great looking Hurricane and a captivating story  what more can one wish for?

 

Excellent modelling and ditto research!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

[tonyot]

You`ve done a lovely job on this scumbag`s aircraft! I read that he was also responsible for the death of fellow Czech`s after he returned back to the German`s too. I wasn`t aware that he had married a Mackem though!! 

Cheers

         Tony

 

PS,....Ignore the stupid headline and the fact that it is from the Guardian,..... this article includes a few more details;

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jun/15/paulharris.theobserver

Edited August 2, 2019 by tonyot

[Mark Harmsworth]

I've just built this, and maybe I was lucky, but I don't seem to have experienced the problems you've suggested. I'd say that it doesn't really deserve the 'limited run' label which may be a bit misleading and might put people off. Plenty of locating pins, lovely detail and lots of options. 

Mark

 

Have a look if you're interested:

 

[Hairtrigger]

Great piece of work and backstory ...   How do this compare with the later Airfix Hurricane?   Question to anyone who has built them both.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Bravo on the Hurricane ! 

[Procopius]

15 hours ago, MarkH206 said:

I've just built this, and maybe I was lucky, but I don't seem to have experienced the problems you've suggested. I'd say that it doesn't really deserve the 'limited run' label which may be a bit misleading and might put people off. Plenty of locating pins, lovely detail and lots of options. 

I was going to say, I consider myself pretty ham-fisted, and I didn't encounter many problems with the three I built a while back.

 

Lovely result, in any case.

[lasermonkey]

I also had some fit issues with mine. Some of the cockpit parts really didn't want to fit and I ended up abandoning the triangular cross member part, as it was considerably wider than the space it was supposed to locate into (and that's after making sure the side framework parts were a good, flush fit) and couldn't really be seen anyway. I also found that the two parts which fit lengthways across the outer section of the undercarriage bays were too long by about 2mm and that, initially, the wing assembly would not locate properly into the fuselage. It was only once I'd worked out where it was fouling (the thin channel on the outside edge of the "cockpit floor" section of the upper wing) and given it a few scrapes with a micro chisel that it slipped perfectly into place. In fact, after the adjustment, the wing/fuselage joint ended up being probably the best I've seen, like, ever. The remainder of the kit went together very nicely.

 

It is interesting that some of us have had fit issues while others haven't, especially in areas where it doesn't look like it could be "operator error". I've seen this on other kits too. For example, when I built my first four newer tool Airfix Spitfire Mk Is (simultaneously), on two of them the cockpit parts fitted perfectly, while the other two needed fettling.

 

Anyway, I digress. Despite having had a few issues, it hasn't put me off the kit and I am of the opinion that it looks considerably more like a Hurricane than any other kit in the Gentleman's Scale.

[kapam]

Very nice job indeed, and an interesting account of the plane's rather "different" life story.

 

[Acklington]

Many thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated.

 

I've now added a new "introduction" at the start of this thread. This is because when I came to fully write up the story of the Defection, new information came to light. It really does have all the makings of a classic double or triple-bluff spy thriller. The link the revised story can be found here https://sites.google.com/view/raf-ouston-research/the-czech-defector

[Latinbear]

Love the model and a fascinating story too. The first I've heard of a defection to the other side. 

[elger]

Very interesting story - thanks for sharing this!

[stevej60]

Another fine addition to the RAF Ouston story Acklington looks superb,I love these local(to me) aircraft and stories,now this one rang a bell

with me as local folklore states his ghost haunts one of the buildings at the present Usworth museum which is strange as he was shot

 after the war and the building is not original but it seems 55 OTU had a habit of having aircraft nicked this guy was called Gustav Pultiz.

On the subject of Usworth we had a Hurricane crash just up the hill from me in 1940 ,much as I'd love to model his aircraft all avenues

to finding the codes have failed.http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/Toogood.htm

Edited August 9, 2019 by stevej60

[stevehnz]

Really interesting Phil & a darn nice Hurricane model, this kit certainly looks the part. Thanks for sharing your research with us, new to me & fascinating in a macabre fashion.

Steve.

[mackem01]

Great job on the Hurricane, and excellent research. Choice of football team - meh! not so good!😉

[Graham Boak]

Picking up on the range point: the still air range quoted (I'll take your word for it) would have included a reserve, which could also include landing and a diversion.  So an extra 25 miles wouldn't be a problem, given that he forced landed - probably through lack of fuel?  A tailwind would also have helped.  So there's no need to suspect anything odd from that.

Edited August 10, 2019 by Graham Boak

[Acklington]

On 09/08/2019 at 12:26, stevej60 said:

Another fine addition to the RAF Ouston story Acklington looks superb,I love these local(to me) aircraft and stories,now this one rang a bell

with me as local folklore states his ghost haunts one of the buildings at the present Usworth museum which is strange as he was shot

 after the war and the building is not original but it seems 55 OTU had a habit of having aircraft nicked this guy was called Gustav Pultiz.

On the subject of Usworth we had a Hurricane crash just up the hill from me in 1940 ,much as I'd love to model his aircraft all avenues

to finding the codes have failed.http://www.bbm.org.uk/airmen/Toogood.htm

Many thanks for the comments everyone, they are much appreciated. And could I just add that the range of a Hurricane Mk.1 came from the Putman book "Hawker Aircraft since 1920" by Mason.

 

Regarding the 'stevej60' quote (above), I've just tried googling 'Gustav Pultiz' but nothing relevant came up. Do you have any further details steve? I'd be interested.

Also, I can appreciate your frustration re finding 55 OTU code letters, with three constituent 'squadrons' to choose from, 'UW';  'EH';  and 'PA'. The OTU did seem to specialise in Slav pilots (Czechs and Poles), so there might be surviving logbooks in those countries, if you google in the correct language? For example, I was getting nowhere trying to find photos of Ouston based Miles Masters, until, as a longshot and knowing that several went to France when 80 OTU closed, I tried googling in various schoolboy versions of the french language, and bingo! And the french hadn't even repainted them after delivery!

[Meatbox8]

A great looking Hurricane and a fascinating back-story.  Just goes to show it takes all sorts, especially considering the gallantry of the Czechs in the RAF,  Like others I'm surprised you had issues with the fit of the kit.  I have built one with another two pending and found it to be a superb kit of the highest standard.

[stevej60]

I think the Usworth story is well,just a story, I can't find anything relating to it other than a note on the Museum and Ghosthunt websites.probably based on the incident told so well in the introduction to this build.

[DaveyGair]

Another fine build of this kit, with a bit of a shocker of a story!

I have a couple of these to do (the basic versions) and I now see they have a third incarnation released, with RN markings, unfortunately not a IB with the catapult spools and arrestor hook, but here's hoping for the future.

 

 

Davey.

[Voodoo101B]

Please delete this. Posted in wrong topic/area

Thanks
Carl

 

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Voodoo101B
Posted in wrong topic/area