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Australians in the Battle of Britain -decals?


tonyp

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Hi All

Approximately 21 Australians took part in the Battle. Whilst I have been able to find a list of whom took part, it's harder to find what actual aircraft they participated in. I'm happy to keep researching but in the meantime does anyone know of any decals for Australians in the BoB? Any and all scales.

 

Thanks!

Tony

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Just started reading Kristen Alexander's book Australia's few and the Battle of Britain, the general concensus is that 31 or 32 Australians served in the BOB, a lot of them were trained in Aust. then dischrged from the RAAF, shipped to the UK and joined the RAF Even though some were born in Aust. their passports designated them British subjects and were listed as British on their service records. As for decals DK have some on their sheets if you can find them, try Red Roo. PD Decals had some years ago, Metro Hobbies, Box Hill had heaps not that long ago, and the Aeromaster BOB sheets would be easy enough to convert.

 

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I've done Hurricane Mk I UF-U R4218 of Australia born Howard Mayers (Osprey Hurrican aces 1939-40 p88).

resized_f3199543-3371-4d94-8190-dbf73a57

 

Then there is Spitfire I RN-J ofDesmond Sheen  (Probably X4034) which has a nice boomerang on a white disc. This is a subject on a Montex mask and decal product K72004.

 

Generally I have found a wealth of info on Australian pilots in the Osprey Aces series.

 

HTH

Finn 

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I recently undertook an analysis of 'Australian' aircrew in the Battle of Britain, primarily based on the work by Newton ('A Few of the Few') and came up with 32 'Australian' aircrew who flew in the Battle. This is based on excluding pilots born in other countries who had immigrated to Australia pre-war, as Australia didn't have citizenship in 1940 for immigrants - you were simply recorded as 'British'. A further confusion came about from the Royal Auxiliary Air Force which also has the acronym 'R.A.A.F.'.

 

These aircrew flew or flew in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Defiants and Blenheims during the BoB. As well as the above mentioned decals, I believe Almark have a 1/72 scale sheet for the Blenheim which has markings for 'Buskarlets Brig' which was flown by Fred Flood. The DK sheet for Spitfires will also let you do Pat Hughes plane, with a bit of cobbling for the 'Q' but recent info suggests the 234 Sqn emblem was not on a yellow disc - possibly light blue or grey.

 

Hobby HQ at Thomastown in Melbourne have some PD Decals too. Note, the PD sets are quite old now and will likely need some decal saver over them to prevent them breaking up.

 

Finn, would love to know what decals you used for Mayers' Hurricane. Scale?

 

PR

Edited by Peter Roberts
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15 minutes ago, Peter Roberts said:

...

 

Finn, would love to know what decals you used for Mayers' Hurricane. Scale?

 

...

It's the infamous Hasegawa 1/72 mk I. The roundels were from the spares box and the code letters from a generic sheet (the old Altmark?). Fin flash was painted. Serial from the older (?) Ventura. 

 

Now a days I print serials on blank decal printer paper using the RAF font, which is much easier than trying to align 2 x 5 individual characters.

 

HTH Finn

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A good topic and thread. Unfortunately I have nothing further to add, however am quite surprised that Osprey has not produced an ‘Australian and New Zealand Aces of WW2’ book as yet. Perhaps this is one still on the cards? 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

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17 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

A good topic and thread. Unfortunately I have nothing further to add, however am quite surprised that Osprey has not produced an ‘Australian and New Zealand Aces of WW2’ book as yet. Perhaps this is one still on the cards? 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

They were approached re 'Australian Aces' a number of years ago, and the answer was "insufficient interest"

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8 minutes ago, Magpie22 said:

They were approached re 'Australian Aces' a number of years ago, and the answer was "insufficient interest"

That’s a real shame, as the accompanying profiles would have featured many different aircraft types in the colours of many different theatres of operation. An odd answer considering some of the other nationalities Osprey have already published.

 

Cheers.. Dave 

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If you have names and Squadrons you can go and find the ‘Record of Operations’ and ‘Summary of Operations’ books in the National Archive.  I’m not sure if downloads are still free.  This will give you the detail of who flew what aircraft, when and usually claims.  You can then start building out your own information.

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I would have thought that a title like 'Commonwealth Aces in the RAF' would be a good one, and covers several countries, hence broadens the market.

 

Sad to hear that the consensus was 'insufficient interest'. :(  I'd be interested to know on what basis that was determined!

 

Fortunately there are several wonderful, talented and generous researchers out there who dig up info and are happy to share. 🙏 Thank you gentlemen.

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Paul Davies of the Battle of Britain Facebook Group has, this morning, posted the following - not sure if it helps or not..

 

30 Airmen from Australia who took part in the Battle of Britain

F/O I N BAYLES

P/O C C BENNETT

F/Lt. R W BUNGEY (Ace) Killed in WW2.

P/O F W CALE

F/O J R COCK (Ace)

F/O A N CONSTANTINE

Sgt. V W J CROOK

P/O J D CROSSMAN

F/Lt. F W FLOOD

Sgt. D FOPP

F/O R L GLYDE

P/O A L HAMILTON

Sgt. K C HOLLAND

F/O P C HUGHES (Ace) Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. JC KENNEDY

S/Ldr. R B LEES

P/O B M McDONOUGH

P/O C A McGAW

F/O H C MAYERS (Ace)Fighter pilot-killed 

P/O W H MILLINGTON (Ace)

Sgt. P J MOORE

F/Lt. C G C OLIVE (Ace)

P/O J F PAIN

P/O V PARKER

F/Lt. R M POWER

F/Lt. C A PRITCHARD

F/Lt. R C REYNELL 9Test pilot/Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. D F B SHEEN (Ace)

F/Lt. S C WALCH (Ace) Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. L C WITHALL

#Note-Also  1 Formerly counted as Australian is now believed to be Irish, F/O W S MOORE

Note-Also 1 Also formerly thought to be Australian is now believed to be British, F/O H G HARDMAN

Not complete on details-others were also killed and others were aces too.

Paul Davies

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15 hours ago, Magpie22 said:

They were approached re 'Australian Aces' a number of years ago, and the answer was "insufficient interest"

Why is it then, that they mention Australian and other Commonwealth pilots so often in their books?

 

Perhaps the answer is just that they force me, and other interested, to buy several books in place of a single.

 

Still, as a matter of fact, I'm entertained and intellectually challenged trying to prize this information out of the text 🙂

 

/Finn

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12 hours ago, Grey Beema said:

Paul Davies of the Battle of Britain Facebook Group has, this morning, posted the following - not sure if it helps or not..

 

30 Airmen from Australia who took part in the Battle of Britain

F/O I N BAYLES

P/O C C BENNETT

F/Lt. R W BUNGEY (Ace) Killed in WW2.

P/O F W CALE

F/O J R COCK (Ace)

F/O A N CONSTANTINE

Sgt. V W J CROOK

P/O J D CROSSMAN

F/Lt. F W FLOOD

Sgt. D FOPP

F/O R L GLYDE

P/O A L HAMILTON

Sgt. K C HOLLAND

F/O P C HUGHES (Ace) Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. JC KENNEDY

S/Ldr. R B LEES

P/O B M McDONOUGH

P/O C A McGAW

F/O H C MAYERS (Ace)Fighter pilot-killed 

P/O W H MILLINGTON (Ace)

Sgt. P J MOORE

F/Lt. C G C OLIVE (Ace)

P/O J F PAIN

P/O V PARKER

F/Lt. R M POWER

F/Lt. C A PRITCHARD

F/Lt. R C REYNELL 9Test pilot/Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. D F B SHEEN (Ace)

F/Lt. S C WALCH (Ace) Fighter pilot-killed 1940

F/Lt. L C WITHALL

#Note-Also  1 Formerly counted as Australian is now believed to be Irish, F/O W S MOORE

Note-Also 1 Also formerly thought to be Australian is now believed to be British, F/O H G HARDMAN

Not complete on details-others were also killed and others were aces too.

Paul Davies

Thanks for posting this list. 

 

Dennis Newton has undertaken a lot of research on this subject (reference 'A Few of the Few'). His research suggests the following adds and subtracts to this list:

 

Subtracts:

Millington - born in England; Pain - born in Scotland; Parker - born in England

 

Adds:

S/Ldr David Walter Bayne, 257 Sqn; P/O John Curchin, 609 Sqn; P/O Richard Hope Hillary, 603 Sqn; F/O John Douglas Peterkin, 248 Sqn.

 

Newton has F/O William Storey Moore as born in Melbourne, 1916, and F/O Harry Gordon Hardman as born in Arncliffe, NSW, 1915, making both of them Australian.

 

Edited by Peter Roberts
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3 hours ago, FinnAndersen said:

 

 

Perhaps the answer is just that they force me, and other interested, to buy several books in place of a single.

 

 

:devil:   And also probably because the prospective author was from the antipodes and they had never heard of him.

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There is no Osprey

 

Australian Aces Aircraft

Canadian Aces Aircraft

New Zealand Aces Aircraft

South African Aces Aircraft

 

But they have wierd things such as Bulgarian and Slovak Aces. Makes you wonder where there priorities lie.

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There are two reasons I can see for this.  One is that many of the Commonwealth Aces are already covered by other works in the series, notably perhaps the Spitfire ones.  As opposed to this the Eastern European aces story is intimately tied to a history of their individual air forces, making a more interesting/compact package.  The other reason is that more modellers buy Bf109s than Spitfires.  Their priorities are sales:  however I do suspect that if some author was to come up and offer texts and information for these air forces then the books might well appear.

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To slightly deviate off topic but hopefully echoing Graham last point.  I, like many, bought the Osprey ‘Royal Navy Aces of World War II’.  Having devoured the book I decided to go back and fill in some of the detail on some of the pilots and aircraft found.  I then started collecting it together in a Word Document.  

 

I started with various key reading materials (suggested by people in the forum) then started looking for primary sources, mainly from the National Archive.  I also ask questions on this forum, glean information where I can and try to independently validate it.  I am not a researcher, I’m certainly not an author and only an average model maker but my model collection is my best effort at representing my research.

 

So I guess if Osprey don’t have the publication you want - collate your own information into your own files..  Who knows, maybe even get it published..

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