Asr Lysanders In The Bob

[Mike in Aotearoa]

Hi Guys

contemplating doing a Lysander on ASY duties during the BoB, and having no joy in finding any useful info on the 'net.

So... specific q's...

did they carry a life jettisonable liferaft, if so, how and where?

Where they from Coastal Comand or other services?

Colours schemes and markings? Standard or "special"?

More importantly, anyone have any pics of them or other "hard" data as to serials, codes etc?

Cheers from Aotearoa

Mike

[AnonymousFO98]

Hi Mike

will try and look for some info

need to dig it out so please bear with me.

Coincidentally they cropped up in the discussions regarding legitimate entries for the BoB GB later this year.

AFAIK they were not CC. Mish informed me that there was no ASR until after the BoB.

[brewerjerry]

Hi

True the ASR was not formed until jan 41

However, some airfield had a lysander for ASR duties, there were some ASR flights formed & 16Sqn had detachments at airfield for ASR duties.

Just googled this, they carried dinghys, photos maybe hard to find,but try googling,etc,16 Sqn or other army co-op lysander squadrons.

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:-jTAI...=clnk&gl=ca

During the summer and autumn of 1940 the rescue of fighter pilots

from the English Channel was a particularly difficult problem.

"During the last 21 days of July over 220 aircrew were killed or

missing, the majority over the sea."(7) In an attempted solution the

RAF Fighter Command borrowed Lysander planes from the Army Co-

operation Command and placed them under the operational control of

Fighter Command. These planes were given a fighter escort and sent

out after each air battle. Their chief rescue equipment was a rubber

dinghy carried in the bomb rack. Although with close cooperation

with the Royal Navy some success was achieved, it was felt that too

many airmen were still being lost.(8)

cheers

Jerry

[ColFord]

Mike,

If you check the following link to a part of the history of No.4 Squadron RAF, you will see that certainly upon their return from duties supporting the BEF in France in the first half of 1940, the Lysanders of Army Co-operation Squadrons were tasked with ASR duties. In the section of the linked history that starts "In the period 10 to 23 May 1940,...." you will find the start of the ASR commitment.

http://www.rafjever.org/4squadhistory3.htm

Most of the Army Co-operation Lysander Squadrons were tasked with ASR to some degree. Some had it more as regular activity they performed, whilst for others it was upon direction in specific circumstances eg. a pilot was known to be down in their area of responsibility, otherwise they did not conduct ASR patrols per see.

The only way to get specifics of aircraft used on ASR duties in 1940 would be to go to the Operational Record Books of the Squadrons involved and hope that the keeper of the ORBs at the time was conscientious enough to include aircraft serial numbers and or aircraft id codes in the sortie records. In that timeframe you are most likely looking at Lysander Mk.II aircraft, possibly carrying smoke floats or smoke markers on their stub wing stores carriers.

You might look in the Mushroom Models Publications book on the Lysander. It has a section which covers the use of Lysanders for ASR, which indicated that it was not until 1941 that they received the dinghy pack. So in 1940 it was a smoke float dropped near the pilot in the water to attract the attention of nearby shipping, then a dinghy, partly inflated thrown from the rear cockpit by the observor/gunner, keeping it clear of the tail planes in the process.

HTH

Regards,

[desmojen]

A specific ASR command type thing was not formed until 1941, that is true. The fast motor launches were operational during the BoB though, and I read somewhere that something like 16 Lysanders were loaned to Coastal Command to aid the launches in finding downed airmen. As such, the Lysander would be a perfectly legitimate BoB build. As for markings and colour schemes though, I have no clue, and would love to be enlightened.

Jen.