Jump to content

Spitfire Mk. Vc, Central Gunnery School, RAAF, December 1944


Recommended Posts

spacer.png

 

      One early morning shortly before Christmas, 1944, Flight Lieutenant John Sims Archer. an instructor at the Royal Australian Air Force Central Gunnery School at Cressy in Victoria,  went aloft from the school field for a gun camera exercise flying a 'tropicalized' Mk.Vc Spitfire. A hoary veteran at twenty-four, 'Jack' Archer was distinguished as the one pilot of a Wirraway emergency fighter to have ever engaged with good result a Japanese 'Zero'. That had been a little more than two years before, over Buna. In the interim F/Lt J. S. Archer had survived one mid-air collision, and flown a P-40N  fighter-bomber over New Guinea with 75 Squadron, RAAF.

 

spacer.png


      The Spitfire Mk.Vc F/Lt Archer was flying, A58-173, had also seen extensive service. In England, it had been delivered  in December 1942 to the RAF serialed JG740. By then the Mk.V Spitfire had been rendered obsolescent over France by the Focke-Wulf FW190, but the type was considered more than adequate still for overseas duties. JG740 was 'tropicalized' with a Volkes filter under its cowling, painted Dark Earth and Middle Stone and Azure Blue, then turned over to the Royal Australian Air Force. Shipped off on the S.S. Austral Star, it arrived at Melbourne in mid March, 1943, and was taken into the RAAF as A58-173.  When the machine went on strength of the freshly formed No. 79 Squadron, RAAF, in May, it became the favored mount of the Squadron CO, A. C. Rawlinson, who was credited with eight confirmed victories in North Africa, where he had flown with 3 Sqdn RAAF under English command.

 

spacer.png


      With its Volkes filter stripped off its chin, and the Middle Stone of its 'desert' scheme overpainted with Foliage Green, A58-173 (still bearing its RAF JG740 serial) was coded UP*U (in deliberate invocation of 'up yours'). S/Ldr Rawlinson flew this Spitfire Mk.Vc throughout the antipodian winter of 1943. No. 79 Sqdn operated over New Guinea and the Solomon Sea, based first at Goodenough Island, and then on Kiriwani, charged with giving high cover to RAAF P-40 fighter-bombers of 76 and 77 Sqdns, and  with interception of any Japanese raiders which might be launched from Rabaul. 79 Squadron saw very little combat during this time, but A58-173 UP*U was the aircraft from which the squadron's first victory was achieved, at the end of October. It was flown on that occasion not by Rawlinson, who was being promoted to command of 73rd Wing, but by Flight Sergeant I.H. Callister, who surprised a Japanese Army Ki-61 'Swallow' fighter, and shot it down.

 

spacer.png


.      In March of 1944, No. 79 Sqdn was committed to the Admiralty Islands campaign. From airstrips on newly-captured Los Negros Island, the squadron provided close support to troops on the main island of Manus, and escorted shipping in the Bismark Sea. No. 79's aging Spitfires proved difficult to maintain on an advanced base, and by May the unit was reduced to a skeleton, with only two operational machines, and a dozen needing repair. A58-173 was among the latter, and in mid June it arrived at 1st Aircraft Depot near Melbourne for a thorough overhaul. A58-173 emerged from the workshops in early September, with its Volkes filter restored and stripped of all camouflage paint, and was assigned to the Central Gunnery School at Cressy.

 

spacer.png

 

      Flight Lieutentant 'Jack' Archer's gun camera exercise on December 21, 1944, was to be the final flight of A58-173. The coolant system for the the Merlin motor sprang a leak, and the engine seized up. F/Lt Archer was forced to land, which he managed with little damage to the machine, near South East Meredith Railway Station. A recovery party was dispatched from the airfield at Cressy, and the aeroplane was got onto a trailer. Motoring back to the airfield, this was rear-ended by a civilian vehicle. Great damage was done to the tail of the machine, and A58-173 was written off as past repair owing to a traffic accident. Probably not a completely unique occurance, but certainly not one encountered often in the records....

 

spacer.png


      This model of A58-173 was built from the old Heller 1/72 kit, in a very old Smer boxing. I made no effort to detail or 'improve' the kit, beyond replacing raised panel lines with scribed ones. I doubt many of these are still being built, but as can be expected from an old Heller offering, the kit is well designed, and fits well (with the exception of the optional Volkes filter under the nose). I did not like the three-piece canopy (hard to test-fit together), but they did all fit one another cleanly. The rearmost piece rides a hair high, and so does not quite properly 'blend' with the fuselage spine. The kit's wingtips are separate pieces, so it can be built with either full wingtips or 'clipped' ones. This would be no problem in a full wing model with a painted finish, but these seams did complicate foiling a bit, because burnishing down the foil  could easily crack them. I am of the 'nothing looks quite so like metal as metal' school, and so always use foil for a bare metal finish. I make my own from kitchen foil, boiled a while with eggshells, and tacked down with MicroScale foil adhesive.

 

spacer.png


      I decided to build this kit, which I'd had a long time, soon after doing an old-tool Airfix Mk. I Spitfire.

 

(  https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235077256-spitfire-mkia-609-squadron-september-1940/&tab=comments#comment-3766657  )

 

     When I went looking for Mk. V subjects, I was hoping to find something a bit unusual. An image of a natural metal Spitfire seemed just the thing, and led me to the ADF Serials site. They have something on just about every individual machine, and it caught my eye there was more text than usual in the entry the bare-metal A58-173 illustrated. I toyed with the idea of doing the machine in its New Guinea employment, where it was also well-photographed, but decided to stick with my original resolve to do a natural metal Spitfire. The fuselage roundels are leftovers from an Academy P40N kit, the rest are improvised with a smaller 'A' roundel (of the 'place yer own damn dot' sort) put down over a larger one, to match a 'B' roundel proportions. Some measuring was necessary, and so was some painting over unexpected tranluscence where the larger roundel had a a red center. Wife made the serial numbers and the identity letter from the school. It is rather an odd 'E', and it took some improvising to match the side-view photograph taken of A58-173 shortly after 'Jack' Archer's forced landing.

 

 

  • Like 18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent build and an interesting background story, with that ignoble surprise ending!

 

The HF radios went out of fashion in the fateful autumn of 1940 and with them the aerial wires. No Mk V:s had wire antennas; the VHF radios were quite happy with a short one integral to the previous antenna mast – notwithstanding that the rudder attachment post might still have been left in situ.

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work, there -

 

Love the metallic effect using foil which must have taken time to get on the model without crinkling up.

 

Regards

 

Dave

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you Gentlemen very much. It is a surprising tale, and I felt I'd uncovered a gem when I came across it.

 

It's a nice old kit. I am not any sort of Spitfire boffin, so I have no opinion on its accuracy, only on how it builds up. Besides the Volkes, landing gear was a bit tricky, but I do suspect that was me, not the kit.

 

11 hours ago, Spitfire31 said:

Excellent build and an interesting background story, with that ignoble surprise ending!

 

The HF radios went out of fashion in the fateful autumn of 1940 and with them the aerial wires. No Mk V:s had wire antennas; the VHF radios were quite happy with a short one integral to the previous antenna mast – notwithstanding that the rudder attachment post might still have been left in situ.

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

 

Thank you very much, Sir. I had no idea, I just assumed there was a wire if there was a mast. An easy correction to carry out.

 

9 hours ago, Epeeman said:

Great work, there -

 

Love the metallic effect using foil which must have taken time to get on the model without crinkling up.

 

Regards

 

Dave

 

      Thank you, Sir.

      Up close it's not one of my best foiling jobs, but I hadn't done any in a while. A tooth-pick at right angles to the ridge and moved along it, can often press wrinkles down. One of the advantages of making your own is that there's always more, so if something gets botched, just strip it off and try again. Wrapping around wing edges and tips are what gives me fits....

Edited by Old Man
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's an impressive rundown of A58-173's history and ignominious end.  I rather like old Heller kits; they're unsophisticated, but honest and really pretty well detailed for their day.

 

I've experimented with the boiling of foil with eggshells trick, it really lends the foil a heat-weathered appearance.

 

Thanks for sharing your model!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad you like it, Sir.

 

The egg-shell route does seem the way to go. I rough up the shiny side with steel wool and use that for the adhesive, so the surface that shows starts out a bit dull.

 

I've learned to watch out for a sort of filmy residue that sometimes appears, and wash each sheet carefully, both sides, as soon as it comes out of the boil. Also that water you've boiled egg-shells in works fine for giving foil the treatment. It's easier to handle without pieces of shell in with the foil.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...