A flash of clean light hope (1/72 J F Edwards Kittyhawk I)

[Procopius]

“[T]he Kittyhawk Mk.I was not an easy aircraft to fly properly and, as a result, we lost a good number of pilots while training. Some Hurricane pilots just flatly refused to fly it, preferring to go back to the Hurricane squadrons. In the first few months after conversion to Kittyhawks, all the squadrons lost heavily to the 109s."

 

-- Wing Commander J F Edwards DFC* DFM

 

 

"The air war in Africa favoured the "experts" to a high degree. The wing men, "Kaczmeraks"*, and No. 2s had only a small chance to gain any victories. The majority of the victories of the German fighters were the result of surprise attacks, during which in most cases only the formation leader was  able to fire. Such quick, sparrowlike attacks were seldom followed by a dogfight."

 

-- Major Rudolph Sinner, JG27 (latterly JG54 and JG7)

 

 

You say "sink or swim"
what a cruel, cruel phrase
I'd rather fly

 

-- Sleater-Kinney, "The End of You"

 

 

On 17 June 1942, as the British and Commonwealth forces in North Africa faced the shipwreck of their hopes, eleven Hurricane IIcs of 274 Squadron were detailed to escort Boston light bombers on a ground attack sortie. 

 

A few days before, the HARPOON convoy from Gibraltar to Malta had lost four of its six merchant ships, and two escorts: the big Tribal-class destroyer HMS Bedouin, and the smaller Hunt-class Free Polish ORP Kujawiak. VIGOROUS, from Alexandria to Malta, had failed even to arrive, being forced to turn back in an effort to avoid annihilation. The meager tonnage of supplies delivered meant that Malta could no longer function offensively: it would now be forced to serve the war effort in the Mediterranean by absorbing as much Axis firepower as possible, and the fuel remaining on the island was reserved for the defending fighters.

 

Coterminate with these disasters, Rommel was in the process of winning his greatest victory in the desert, the Battle of Gazala. The day before the shattered remnants of HARPOON made landfall, Auchinleck ordered the Eighth Army, battered after its piecemeal attacks had lead to a comprehensive defeat in detail and the loss of almost all of its splendid new American tanks, brought at such great risk across a vast ocean, to begin a retreat that would quickly become a disastrous rout.

 

Not for the first time in the war, but almost for the last, it fell to the Royal Air Force to buy the time the Army needed to escape, to recover, and to hopefully fight again. 

 

The Hurricanes of 274 made contact with the Bostons late and struggled to keep up with the bombers. Initially they were bounced by Macchi 202s of 10 Gruppo (who claimed four P-40s and a Hurricane, to two MC.202s for the RAF -- neither side lost any aircraft), and then by a more dangerous foe: four Bf109F-4s of Stab. II./JG27, lead by the 50-claim "experte" Oberleutnant Otto "Ein-Zwei-Drei Otto" Schulz, aged 31, a long-service Luftwaffe veteran who'd joined in 1934 and served as a flying instructor pre-war. Schulz was notable not only for his extensive experience, probably as great as any man flying fighters in the Luftwaffe in 1942, but for his habit of strafing aircraft he'd downed to make sure of his victories. 

 

Canadian Flight Lieutenant W A G "Wally" Conrad spotted the 109s coming in to the attack and attempted a climbing turn to meet them, only to realize too late that his radio was unserviceable, and his warnings to his squadronmates had gone unheeded. The four 109s ignored the remainder of 274 Squadron, which passed on along with their charges, blissfully unaware of the life-and-death struggle receding astern.** 

 

Conrad, now alone against four 109s, threw his aircraft into a series of tight descending turns, hoping to make for the deck and run for home. He was a skilled pilot with three confirmed victories, and for a time, it worked, but fifty feet off the ground, the 109s herded him in front of Schulz's guns at last, and a cannon shell entered the cockpit and exploded directly under the throttle quadrant, wounding Conrad in his left hand, wrist, and both legs. Dropping his flaps, the Canadian rode his wounded aircraft down. As he clambered out of his shattered Hurricane, Conrad looked up to see a 109F coming back towards him, firing as it went. With nowhere to run in the featureless desert, the Flight Lieutenant crouched helplessly behind his aircraft's engine, hoping the Merlin could perform one final service and absorb the worst of the incoming fire. 

 

Schulz's Messerschmitt came around for another pass. 

 

Flight Lieutenant James "Eddie" Edwards (the nickname by which he is better-known, "Stocky", was not used in the western desert) had been flying an escort mission with 260 Squadron for another group of Bostons when they were bounced by 109s of III./JG53. 260 Squadron had apparently not yet adopted the modern finger-four formation, and was still flying in line astern with a "weaver", despite their CO, "Pedro" Hanbury being a very experienced Battle of Britain veteran who ought to have known better. Edwards lost contact with the rest of the squadron in the ensuing melee, shooting down the 109 of Leutnant Wolf Schaller*** before finding himself alone and at low level, a dangerous place to be with Messerschmitts out and about on frie jagds. 

 

At this juncture, he spotted a single 109 at low level in mid-turn, with two or three circling above it. 

 

Edwards was running his Kittyhawk's engine flat-out, flying at over 300 MPH on the deck, close to if not at its maximum speed for such a low altitude. He did not see Conrad's downed Hurricane, which with its desert camouflage must have been almost invisible at that speed. Ahead, he saw the 109 coming out of the turn, and banking slightly, he opened fire at sixty degrees deflection, on the border between a three-quarters and a full deflection shot, very difficult for even experienced pilots. Edwards had flown his first operational sortie less than three months before, on 23 March 1942. 

 

The burst caught the 109 along the flank, passing from the engine back along the side of the cockpit. Wth Schulz dead or dying already, the Messerschmitt heeled over and smashed itself to pieces against the ground. Before the three circling 109s above could react, Edwards sped onwards for home unmolested. As he passed overhead, Conrad -- who would later become a squadron leader with the famous Canadian Spitfire Wing, a successful evader, and an ace in his own right-- took note of the aircraft markings of his saviour.

 

"Pedro" Hanbury was extremely strict about victory claims, dismissing an intelligence officer whom he didn't trust, and threatening to bring up pilots on charges if he thought they were lying about shooting down enemy aircraft****. Edwards didn't file a claim for the aircraft, and it would only come to light and be confirmed in the late 1970s, when Michael Lavigne was doing research for the book Kittyhawk Pilot, which he co-authored with Edwards and which was published in 1983. Notably, Edwards's victory claims have almost entirely been corroborated by postwar research.

 

Conrad would go on to a brilliant wartime career as a Squadron Leader in "Johnnie" Johnson's Canadian Spitfire wing, surviving a midair collision and successfully evading. He died comparatively young, in 1987, in his late sixties; James Edwards had given him the gift of forty-five more years. Edwards, who at some point picked up the nickname "Stocky", died a few weeks ago, on 14 May, aged 100. In his later years, he leant his name to wetlands conservation efforts around his home of Comox, B.C. He wasn't Canada's highest scoring ace, ranking only seventh out of the Second World War, but he stands now and forever as one of the greatest  Canadian aviators to have ever lived.

 

Here's a short video of him from just a few years ago:

 

 

 

James Edwards has always held a special place in my heart since I first learned of him: every Allied pilot who brought down -- and let's not be delicate, killed -- an experte saved the lives of countless others and made a material contribution to the final victory. I was very fortunate, a few years ago, to have found a copy of Michael Lavigne and Edwards's later book, Kittyhawks over the Sands, to give to Cookenbacher as a host gift when he very kindly endured my company for several doubtless excruciating days in 2016.

 

I had sworn off building Kittyhawks after doing eight(!) at once for a GB in 2015, the images for which are now (probably mercifully) lost. Kit technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the past seven years, and thank god for it, because I'm pretty sure I would kill if someone tried to make me build a Sword or Legato P-40 again. I'll be using Special Hobby's Kittyhawk Ia kit and DK Decals's WDAF Kittyhawks sheet to build J F Edwards's Kittyhawk I HS-P/AK670, which is not the aircraft he flew when he shot down Shulz, which was HS-S, but which dates to the same month and year.  

 

The Kittyhawk I differs from the Ia most notably in not having weird little testicular bulges around the 50-calibre guns in the wings, a bridge we'll cross and then burn when we come to it, to discourage pursuit. There are probably other differences, AND IF YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM YOU SHOULD TELL ME NOW, RATHER THAN AFTER I'VE DONE SOMETHING IRREVERSIBLE, BECAUSE THAT HELPS NO ONE AND WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL HAVE TO LISTEN TO COLDPLAY ENDLESSLY IN HELL. And not even the halfway listenable stuff, just "Yellow". Over. And over.

 

 

I also got the Eduard PE set, not only the Zoom bits, but photoetch wheel wells and radiator flaps. Will we use all of that? Time will tell. 

 

The photoetch set comes with a teeny-tiny photoetch chair that you're supposed to fold like an origami crane to produce an allegedly more accurate and infinitely sexier seat. I don't think I've ever managed to do this in my entire life, but I gave it a go.

 

 

Oh my heavens! It worked!

 

You then have to do the same thing for the tubular framing that connects the seat to the bulkhead. Always a good idea to represent a series of cylinders with something that barely exists in three dimensions, but Eduard were on a roll, and they were dragging me along for the ride.

 

 

There's a weird little PE panel with three lightening holes(? maybe) in it that goes in the seat next. As I picked it up, it tensed itself like a panther about to pounce and then flung itself into another dimension, hitting poor old Rufus Sewell right in his reptilian noggin, no doubt. A frantic search then commenced, involving combing over the floor on my hands and knees, much sweeping, and not a few mighty utterances of a word than begins with "F" that is not an Italian car manufacturer. Eventually I gave up, and it was time to f...iat Future Me, the hapless victim of so many of my capers.

 

Out came the PE set reserved for another Kittyhawk kit.

 

 

You would not believe what a pain it was to coax it into this position:

 

 

Then it was time to paint some interior bits, so I could get them ready for PE, whereupon it turned out P-40s were painted something called "Curtiss Cockpit Green", which is apparently more yellowish than other interior greens, and of course does not, as far as I could ascertain, have an extant paint colour from one of my preferred suppliers (Colourcoats or Colourcoats, why settle for second best?). In any case, I learned my lesson with those damned Exito decals, have everything at the start of the build or face the annihilating power of Clausewitzian friction. So after much googling, it seems a recipe suggested was Tamiya green and yellow in a 5:1 ratio. I didn't have Tamiya green, but I did have their yellow, and found what I hoped was a passible substitute for green.

 

 

I mixed them with ten drops of green to two of yellow, though whether my cheap plastic droppers bought in a bag of 500 from Amazon deploy consistent amounts of paint with each drop is perhaps best not ruminated upon.

 

The resulting colour was indeed a slightly yellowish green:

 

 

It proved absolutely impossible to get a good photo of it on the parts and with the Interior Green lid from a Colourcoats tin next to it for comparison purposes, so just imagine I did and make appeciative noises.

 

 

I will probably die trying to do the wheel wells, what fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Kaczmerak is a Polish last name; the German stereotype of a "Kaczmerak" was friendly, loyal, and stupid. The nickname as applied to wingmen was of course ironic.

 

** This was typical of the Luftwaffe fighters in North Africa. The Desert Air Force had thirteen fighters shot down on 17 June, with five pilots killed, including two Squadron Leaders; the only bomber lost was a Boston that suffered a landing accident. 

 

*** Schaller was captured by Commonwealth forces in Tobruk, released when the port fell to the Axis on the 21st, and was then killed in action shortly thereafter. 

 

**** Something about the western desert seemed to bring out the worst impulses in pilots. 4./JG27 infamously had a cartel of pilots, the so-called "Experten-Schwarm", which included the staffelkapitan who worked together to falsify victory claims, submitting at least 58 before they were caught red-handed. One of the quartet appears to have committed suicide after being discovered, but he needn't have bothered, the other three went unpunished, and Oblt Karl-Heinz Bendert would subsequently receive the ritterkreuz and be placed in command of several other staffels in and outside of JG27. On the British side, the ace James "Hamish" Dodds DFM MBE, who claimed one confirmed and one probable on 16 June 1942, was alleged to have made numerous false claims as well by a former squadronmate writing to Christopher Shores -- Shores published this in A History of the Mediterranean Air War Volume 2 in 2012, and Dodds only died in 2014, so Shores presumably was reasonably confident of winning a libel action.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Ok got my seat and ready to go. 

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

15 minutes ago, Procopius said:

A few days before, the HARPOON convoy from Gibraltar to Malta had lost four of its six merchant ships, and two escorts: the big Tribal-class destroyer HMS Bedouin, and the smaller Hunt-class Free Polish ORP Kujawiak

My uncle was on that ship that day. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Stew Dapple]

5 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Ok got my seat and ready to go.

 

Me too, your intro's alone are worth the price of admission, and would be even if the price of admission wasn't free  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[stevehnz]

53 minutes ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

Me too, your intro's alone are worth the price of admission, and would be even if the price of admission wasn't free  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

Yup, wot Stew said. Very much a fan of Stocky Edwards, really enjoyed his biography, his is an awesome story, so I'll be hanging around a bit.

Steve.

[perdu]

How could I not?

Well I couldn't so I am IN.

 

 

A brilliant, informative and intensely experten introduction to the build as is PC's wont.

 

I see the bar is already open and there is a small bowl of cheesy wotsits set out for our delectation.

 

 

 

Lead on PC, already a manfully handsome set of etchy side builds in motion.

 

The undercarriage bays will be fine, I get 15 on the 'crystal ballometer' when searching etchy uc bays versus PC.

[Hamden]

 

Room for one more?

Always enjoy a PC build and learn lots along the way!

 

    Stay safe        Roger

[Hook]

Pulled up chair - check! I have several SH P-40N/ E's in The Stash, I'm sure I will get many pointers here.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Brandy]

Another fascinating intro, and what promises to be another spectacular PC build.

When I was living in Crystal River, Florida, the local aviation club regularly invited guest speakers to their monthly meetings. One was an ex-Luftwaffe 109 pilot who fought in N Africa. To my great shame I forget his name, he was a lovely man. He told a story of when he was working back in Germany as a test pilot for Messerschmidt and looked out of his window one morning to see the dreaded black car pull up disgourging men in long leather coats. Apparently his wife had turned him in to the Gestapo for some reason!

Needless to say he came through it.

 

Carry on that man!

 

Ian

[Johnson]

9 hours ago, Procopius said:

AND WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL HAVE TO LISTEN TO COLDPLAY ENDLESSLY IN HELL

Well, as long as it's not OASIS.

 

Fantastic back story as usual Edward. Looking forward to this.

[Procopius]

On 5/28/2022 at 9:12 AM, Johnson said:

Well, as long as it's not OASIS.

 

 

Not such a wonderwall now, is it?

 

On 5/28/2022 at 8:53 AM, Brandy said:

Apparently his wife had turned him in to the Gestapo for some reason!

 

 

But were they still married when you met him?

 

On 5/28/2022 at 12:05 AM, Stew Dapple said:

 

Me too, your intro's alone are worth the price of admission, and would be even if the price of admission wasn't free  

Look, I already told you, I can't afford to keep paying you to read these things, Stew.

[John Laidlaw]

11 hours ago, Procopius said:

AND WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL HAVE TO LISTEN TO COLDPLAY ENDLESSLY IN HELL

Quite possibly the best threat ever.

[Vulcanicity]

I'm in! I do find the North Africa campaign fascinating, as I do Procopius builds, not that I can ever keep up!

[Brandy]

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

But were they still married when you met him?

No! Not for many, many years!

 

Ian

[Procopius]

1 minute ago, Brandy said:

No! Not for many, many years!

 

Ian

Huh, fancy that.

[Steve Coombs]

2 hours ago, Johnson said:

Well, as long as it's not OASIS.

You gotta roll with it.

[dogsbody]

Both butt-cheeks are firmly planted in my chair, to follow this build. 

 

How could I not, after such a great opening!

 

 

 

 

Chris

[jackroadkill]

16 hours ago, Procopius said:

WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL HAVE TO LISTEN TO COLDPLAY ENDLESSLY IN HELL

 

Blimey, PC, old chap. you don't mince your words, do you?  That's not a curse to be sneezed at.

 

Anyway, my own lack of building means that I have extra time to scrutinise and nit-pick other folks' threads, so just imagine I'm sat behind your left shoulder, sucking my teeth and making disparaging snorting noises at every critical stage.  You're welcome.

[lasermonkey]

7 hours ago, Johnson said:

Well, as long as it's not OASIS.

 

My wife asked me to stop singing Wonderwall.

I said maybe……

[Kitsticker]

As always the first entry is informative, captivating and with PC's special blend of wit and self deprecation

 

Sure you're not actually British, PC?

 

Following of course

 

Geoff

[Cookenbacher]

20 hours ago, Procopius said:

endured my company for several doubtless excruciating days in 2016

Of course, PC is wonderful company and we had a great time in 2016 seeing Phantoms.

 

20 hours ago, Procopius said:

the only bomber lost was a Boston that suffered a landing accident

This was a revelation to me upon reading some of these works (thanks PC!); the Germans basically ceded air superiority over the desert to the RAF by their very way of war. The 'experten' piled up their scores while the British bombers got through.

 

What a treat to wake up to this one to begin a long holiday weekend PC! I can't wait to see the results you get with the new Special Hobby Kittyhawk, and off to sweet start already.

[Procopius]

On 5/28/2022 at 8:32 PM, Cookenbacher said:

Of course, PC is wonderful company and we had a great time in 2016 seeing Phantoms.

 

Indeed, a weekend spent with Cookie is something to be savoured. One of my very happiest memories. Mrs P, on hearing the two of us talk together before leaving for the UK, remarked with disgust, "oh god, there's two of you," but this is very unfair to Cookie who is much nicer, handsomer, and more talented. 

 

On 5/28/2022 at 8:32 PM, Cookenbacher said:

This was a revelation to me upon reading some of these works (thanks PC!); the Germans basically ceded air superiority over the desert to the RAF by their very way of war. The 'experten' piled up their scores while the British bombers got through.

It's really kind of unreal, they seemed almost not to have cared at all. But I guess if frie jags were so rewarding professionally, and until Spitfires showed up in the desert, so nearly entirely devoid of risk, why not? The RAF on the other hand reverted to what it had learned in the 1914-1918 war, accepting hideous losses of single-seaters to allow the tactical aircraft to accomplish their missions. 

 

Anyway! Long weekend, in every sense, including not one, not two, but three visits to my parents' house, which always age me a few years. We went yesterday for a belated birthday dinner for Mrs P which she neither requested nor wanted, then out of noblesse oblige, after folding all the laundry and watching Das Untergang, I went over again that same night to see a movie with my folks, The Adam Project, which could best be described as "What would happen if someone who'd watched far too many Marvel movies decided to spend one hundred and twenty-six million dollars to make the biggest, dumbest knock-off of it they could conceive of?" Then today we went over for much of the holiday afternoon, and I got to see Winston flail into my mother so hard that he drove a knitting needle two inches into her forearm, which ranks pretty high on the list of damndest things I've ever seen, and is just part of his continuing ability to (a) exhibit a strong entropic field, and (b) to inflict grievous bodily harm on my mom, whose occipital he fractured on a prior occasion with a headbutt and who once tripped over him and broke numerous bones. My mother is in astonishingly poor health, but even so, I didn't even think it was physically possible for a knitting needle to penetrate human skin unless shot from a railgun. 

 

That marvellousness aside, I did get a smidgeon of time to work in the Grotto, mainly wrestling with the Eduard photoetch, which is pretty gnarly.

 

I finally got the seat to this point only after accidentally pulling it apart and having to start over almost from scratch, a hideously frustrating experience that saw the foundations of the house sent aquiver by a steady stream of mighty oaths. 

 

 

The photoetch landing gear wells are especially stressful, because large amounts of material need to be removed from the wing inboard of both bays, which, I mean, ha ha, what could go wrong?

 

 

Using a pencil, a scalpel, and my trusty micro-chisel, I had to hew away quite a bit of stuff for very dubious gains, and I very much doubt I'd ever bother with this again. Mercifully, the fit of the kit parts is good, so all you need to do is hack away until you can get the PE bits in (without destroying the wing), with not a ton of other things to worry about. 

 

 

 

 

[AdrianMF]

Ow. The seat was looking nice in previous posts. And the wheel well scraping looks like a blast from the past too. Sorry to hear about your mother - was that a hospital trip or was it a “just a flesh wound” instance?

 

I was going to see “Top Gun” at my local with Mrs MF but changed my mind at the last minute to “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, which I think earned me seven zillion extra brownie points. Not sure I can be bothered to see TG now, especially as my local is screening “Once Upon a Time in the West” soon. I will go to that instead.

 

We don’t have a hol this weekend, but we do have the Platinum Jubilee Weekend coming up, which I’m sure will be fine if you happen to be a rampant royalist…

 

Regards,

Adrian

[Procopius]

2 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

which I’m sure will be fine if you happen to be a rampant royalist…

 

Oh boy do I have some good news for you.

[stevehnz]

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

The Adam Project, which could best be described as "What would happen if someone who'd watched far too many Marvel movies decided to spend one hundred and twenty-six million dollars to make the biggest, dumbest knock-off of it they could conceive of?"

I saw this recently with my 24 year old son, we both enjoyed it. He is a Marvel movie fan & didn't find anything especially cheap marvel movie about it. I've not ever watched a marvel movie so didn't have an appropriate yard rule, but I did take the precaution of parking my critical faculties at the door & re-awakening my 15 year old self, we both loved it.

Seat belts look good. 

Steve.