A couple of Questions - The Hawker Hunter - Images of War by Martin W. Bowman

[Tiger331]

 

Hi Folks,

 

I recently purchased a copy of the Images of War - The Hawker Hunter by Martin W. Bowman. The book is sub titled 'Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives' which is, in some ways a bit of a misnomer unless the reader assumes the 'Cold War' is classified as a real War. The book is, nevertheless, a treasure trove of photographs although I was a little disappointed to discover that apart from the covers, all of the photographs in the book are in B&W.

 

I have only completed a cursory look through the book but two queries immediately come to the fore. There is a photo on Page 24 which is captioned as a Mk.6 XG164/H operated by 74(F) Squadron and clearly shows the unit markings on the nose. The aircraft also clearly sports the first iteration of the roundels applied to Royal Rhodesian Air Force Hunters, with the single assegai (spear) superimposed over the standard RAF roundels but there is no reference to this in the caption, which purports to suggest that the aircraft ended its days with the FAA from 1976 (backed up by the information in Francis K.Mason's book 'Hawker Hunter'. So why were RRAF roundels applied to this aircraft ?. 

 

The second query relates to the page layout. Chapter 5 'Overseas Customers' starts on Page 77 and there are a nice collection of photos through to Page 119 and then 12 totally blank pages !. A quick glance back through the preceding pages suggests that some of the overseas operators have been omitted although the photos are not actually laid out in alphabetical order which makes referencing difficult. So, the question is, have I received a dud book with a series of missing photographs ?

 

Grateful if anyone can shed light on either of these mysteries ?

 

Thanks