Wingleader Magazine - Issue 4

INGLEADER

MAGAZINE

DIGITAL ISSUE FOUR

1 The exciting new historic aviation magazine from Wingleader

DIGITAL ISSUE FOUR

JAMES DIETZ INTERVIEW

49 SQUADRON RAF

FORGING THE ARROW

COVER STORY - BATTLE OF BRITAIN HURRICANE EXCAVATION

IN THIS ISSUE Managing Director: Simon Parry (Co-Founder) Editor and Design Director: Mark Postlethwaite (Co-Founder) Technical Director: Wesley Cornell (Co-Founder) Contributors to this issue: James Dietz Andrew Thomas John Hemingway James Hatch Simon Parry Arvo Vercamer

Phil Marter Jeff Carless Chris Sandham-Bailey

Editorial Submissions: If you have any editorial content (news, comment, articles etc.) that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the next edition of Wingleader Magazine, please email us at editorial@wingleadermagazine.co.uk

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by Wing Leader Ltd (08559824), registered in England and Wales. Registered office: 12 Jordan Street, Liverpool, L1 0BP, United Kingdom. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Wingleader Magazine cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information.

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W

elcome to the Digital Issue 4 of Wingleader Magazine. This month I had the great pleasure of interviewing one of my art heroes, Jim Dietz whose work I have admired for as long as I can remember. Art is all about telling a story and Jim’s work certainly does that better than most. What I didn’t realise is that Jim himself is also an accomplished story teller and our interview lasted for nearly two hours! I hope you enjoy the highlights that we have put together here.

Also this month we have the full story of the recent excavation of Hurricane P3966. This dig had been in development for over 12 months with Simon Parry and I both involved in the project so I’m delighted that we can report on it just days after the big day, that’s another one of the benefits of digital magazines.

Thanks to James and Andy for the other two articles, remember if you have any ideas for articles yourself we’d be delighted to hear from you.

Mark Postlethwaite. April 2019

Wingleader Magazine - Download your copy FREE at wingleadermagazine.co.uk

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JAMES DIETZ

PADDY’S HURRICANE

FORGING THE ARROW

49 SQUADRON RAF

AN INTERVIEW WITH

JAMES DIETZ

THE AVIATION ARTIST THAT DOESN’T (JUST) PAINT AIRCRAFT

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AVIATION ART

According to his Wikipedia entry, Jim Dietz is an ‘Aviation painter who doesn’t paint airplanes’. Once you see his work, you realise that this isn’t quite as daft as it sounds! Editor Mark Postlethwaite fired up the Skype and chatted with Jim over morning coffee in his Seattle home about his life, career and his quite outstanding ability to paint figures better than pretty much any other aviation artist on the planet.

MP First of all Jim, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed for our magazine, my first question, bearing in mind that your work first appeared in the 1960s is how is it that you don’t look a day over 50?!

JD Ha, thanks Mark, the simple answer to that is I stopped releasing photos of myself in 1984…

MP Now there’s an idea…! OK, let’s start at the beginning, what were your early inspirations?

SHOOTING STAR 4

JD Well Initially when I was at High School an artist called Merv Corning did a series of WWI paintings that showed up in aviation magazines of the day in the form of prints that you could purchase for practically nothing. He did one a month, I don’t know how many he eventually did, maybe 50 or so, but I saw these as a kid and remember one advert describing them as ‘more accurate than photos’ alongside his painting of an SE-5a. Well he had a really neat technique and I always thought that if this guy can make a living from it, like Jack Leynnwood the Revell box artist & other

AVIATION ART

illustrators doing historical art for models & books , like J.D. Carrick in England, then that was for me!

I was young and naive and just naturally assumed that they made a great living from this sort of thing, seeing how famous they were, but those prints along with model box & book cover art gave me the inspiration to go to art school and follow that career path. The irony is that to this day I’ve never done box art.

In spite of my parents’ doubts, they more or less decided to let me give Art School a try after two years of university. There were times when I very much felt their doubts were being confirmed.

MP So you left San Francisco and went to Art College in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, which on the scale of cool is pretty much in the 11s! Was it as glamorous as it sounds?

JD No, definitely not, first of all, our Art College was the art equivalent of West Point (or Sandhurst for our UK readers)! It was however a thriving time and nobody knew it then but it was nearing the end of traditional illustration as we knew it. We were under no grand illusions, about being “fine artists” we were all there to learn how to earn money from art, no finer calling. There were some awfully good people in my class and many of them went on to have very successful careers.

After leaving college and just before I starved to death, I managed to get a studio job in LA where I did a lot of black and white illustrations, many of which were automobiles.

These really helped fill out my bank account quite handsomely and by the mid 70s I was making around $25,000 a year which was pretty good in those days.

MP

Did you enjoy that type of work?

JD Well I got married in 74 and by then I was right at the stage of throwing in the towel because I was so tired of doing black and white cars. We honeymooned in Europe in a tent in camp-grounds, (during the wettest winter in years), and during our travels we visited the RAF Museum at Hendon where the WWI aircraft and art really inspired me. We arrived back in New York on Thanksgiving Day in 1974 and we had to wait around for the arrival of a BMW 2002 car that my father had shipped over from Antwerp. (We were going to drive it home to the East Coast).

Some examples of the black and white car illustrations that kept Jim busy in the early 1970s.

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AVIATION ART Whilst waiting for car to arrive, my friend said why don’t you go and check out the artist rep scene in NY. I had my portfolio with me as I’d had a maybe foolish idea of working in Munich or even London. I was persuaded to take a big risk & try “ The Big Apple.”

Eventually by skin of my teeth, I got one of the top 10 NY reps to represent me on the proviso that I redid my portfolio and accepted that I might not make as much money. This was balanced by the fact that I could live wherever I wanted, as long as Fed Ex or a similar next day shipper could deliver my art the next day.

I got back to LA redid my portfolio and slowly got book covers in full colour, which was a welcome change to the black & whites I had

been doing previously. They weren’t as well paid as the black and whites but they set me on the direction I had always want to go since leaving art school. This built eventually to doing three or four book covers every month for nearly 15 years.

MP Living in LA must have been quite an adventure, why did you move to Seattle?

Seattle and I knew that if we decided to move we couldn’t afford to live in San Francisco, my home town. I also knew that Seattle would be grey and terrible enough to allow me to work nearly all the time. Indeed, I’ve worked really hard whilst we’ve been here and in the last 15 years or so I’ve been able to set my own painting schedule so I guess it worked out pretty well.

JD

We actually bought a small house in LA, but I could never shake the feeling that I was working 24/7 doing book covers whilst outside there were girls in bikinis on the beach. It just drove me nuts not being able to enjoy any aspect of the LA lifestyle! My wife was from

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A selection of Jim’s commissioned colour book cover illustrations which started to steer his work towards the combat scenes that he is now so well known for.

AVIATION ART

MP So where did your iconic WWI paintings come from?

JD As the book cover work increased, the style changed from montages to more single illustrations. Always looking for inspiration I switched back to looking at US and British illustrations from the 1930s anything from Norman Rockwell, Dean Cornwell, or J.C. Leyendecker, who produced really beautiful

doing an aircraft against a sky was totally lost on me, I saw many who could do it well, some exceptionally well, but for me, without some sort of human story, they got to be just a clichĂŠ. I also knew how to pose and light models from my art school days and as WWI aircraft were so small and the fields so bucolic and costumes so interesting, bringing figures to the fore seemed the natural way to go. I had a dream that the modern day F-15

work for Saturday Evening post, all long gone by that time of course. There were other artists blazing a trail from commercial illustration to the growing field of Western Art - artists like Tom Lovell, Mort Kunstler, Frank McCarthy & many others now in the Cowboy Artists Association.

Following their style for these new illustrations, it got me thinking about WWI paintings again. I knew that the idea of just

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Above: A classic James Dietz WWI painting COLOUR GUARD depicting a typically busy airfield scene with the colourful Albatros DVs of Jasta 5 in residence.

AVIATION ART A selection of Jim’s World War One work. Above: HELL OR HIGH WATER. Right: FINAL ANALYSIS Below: GALLANT GENTLEMEN. All three paintings show very clearly the artist’s desire to make the airmen his main subject, even with an air to air scene like the one above.

or 747 pilots would find this history of theirs interesting and it would end up a bit like the hugely lucrative Western Art market here in the States, it couldn’t fail!

Unfortunately I read the market badly as those F-15 and 747 pilots were more like engineers and people who really liked my work only flew Piper Cubs, so the budget was lower than I thought. Now don’t get me wrong, I sold almost all my WWI paintings in the 1990s as I had really hit a peak around then but it didn’t catch the market wave anything like I imagined it would.

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MP Was there a point where you went from being an illustrator and became a full time historical artist?

JD Not a certain point, as it was more to do with illustration work tailing off from New York . What happened over here was that some bright young men decided to group artists’ work together and market existing artwork to art directors instead of commissioned work.

Much cheaper all round. At the same time, style was changing, becoming less illustrative and more graphic and indeed photographic.

AVIATION ART BOTTOM OF THE FIRST

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AVIATION ART This ripped the heart out of illustration as the art directors could now get stock art for as little as $50. The old art directors who had worked with illustrators were dying off, and the new kids were scared to commission art as it was a one shot deal, whereas with photography they had 500 images to choose from. At some point it pretty much all went from art to photos.

were driving back from LA to Seattle (about a 2 day trip), I swear I could almost see this magic change in the landscape. I could see this was a good decision, like falling in love or seeing your first born for the first time. I thought I’d put my money on this new career and went for it in what must have been around 1996. So I’d been an illustrator for about 26-27 years.

Luckily, at that time I was rapidly becoming an aviation / military artist that didn’t depend on commercial art, but there wasn’t a specific day or even month when I made the change.

I do remember the moment when I saw this opportunity though. I was coming back from the First Automotive Art show at Pebble Beach to which I’d been invited. I sold nearly every painting I had there and as Patti and I

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SITTING PRETTY is a typical Dietz composition with the figures and action hiding most of the aircraft!

It depicts B-17 Flying Fortresses of the 91st Bomb Group returning to England after a mission over Germany.

AVIATION ART TO THE VICTOR

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AVIATION ART

MP Unlike most of us who can clearly be defined as either aviation artists or automotive artists or maritime artists etc, you’re harder to pin down, would historical artist be a fair title?

JD Yes that’s a really nice term but I think more precisely I’m a golden era artist. I love old films from the 1930s and the style of the period which appears not only in the films but also in the advertising and illustrations of the day. That’s the era I would happily paint if I had the market.

MP OK, so given free rein to paint whatever you want, what would be next up on your easel?

JD The painting I always have in mind is a WWI scene. Think Lawrence of Arabia, and the Turkish army retreating through a valley gorge whilst being harried by Australian Brisfits and Rolls-Royce armoured cars. So a bit like the Charge of the Light Brigade with horses, armoured cars and Brisfits all in a blood and thunder charge on a very big and credible canvas. It would require me to learn how to paint horses but that’s one I’d go back to it as would combine my love of WWI art.

MP Apart from the Golden Era work, I notice you do a lot of work for the US Armed Forces, how did that come about?

Two ‘Golden Era’ paintings to which Jim’s style is particularly suited; Top Left: BUGATTI FANTASTIQUE Left: AT THE GATE

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AVIATION ART ABOVE AND BEYOND

JD It was a pretty slow process at first, In 1989 I had a call from a gallery in Gettysburg saying that the 82nd Airborne Division wanted a painting of the invasion of Sicily. All the other artists were doing Civil War art, which never really appealed to me at all, so I accepted the commission and thought that this could be a good way out of the rut of illustration work.

But then nothing happened for a year until another commission arrived for the 1st Division, then again nothing for another two

painting which worked out really well, then one of Merrill’s Marauders and the third was a modern scene of the Rangers in Panama at that time. All three print editions sold out quickly. I was able to use real Rangers for figure studies which is the ideal way to create these paintings.

Also at that time I was contacted by Ted Shuey who owns American Arts & Antiques to do a painting showing the 29th Division in Normandy. He said, ‘Jim what would you think

years until 1992 when I got call from a colonel who had just come back from a training course with the SAS and loved all the Regimental English stuff. He commanded the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning,on the East Coast and had seen all the British Army messes full of paintings by the talented English artists of their day, like Cuneo, Lady Butler etc, and he loved them.

He asked me if I’d consider doing three paintings, the first was an Omaha Beach

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of doing a series of National Guard Division paintings, maybe about 12?’

So we were off to the races doing these along with further anniversary paintings for other Divisions. Then of course we got involved in Iran, Iraq etc and the 82nd and other units were being deployed and they wanted new paintings. From then on I’ve been to Iraq twice, Afghanistan once and done a lot of work in the field. In the end it has worked out to be steady work of around six

AVIATION ART to seven paintings a year. I have a son who is a paratrooper and I really enjoy working with the Army, they’re great people.

MP I’ve seen a lot of your Army paintings and they’re all very large and incredibly complex compositions. How long do they take?

JD

Yes they are usually big canvases, around 30” x 56”, I think 32” x 72” is about as big as I can go in my studio. They normally take between five to six weeks to complete.

MP The outstanding thing about your paintings is of course your figure work which in my opinion is second to none. For those of us who break out in cold sweats at the prospect of painting any sort of human form, can you give us any insights?

totally incompetent at industrial design so I transferred to illustration. For a while our Art Centre was well known for industrial automotive design, and I was in with a bunch of guys who just wanted to paint automobiles.

It was kinda cool because I wanted to paint cars too.

At one point there was a class including illustrators, car designers and industrial designers and we had to go out and paint something that involved figures. The illustrators did an OK job, but the others

JD I’ll tell you a short story; When I went to school I started in industrial design, I was so stupid I thought I would be painting Me109s when actually I was designing tape dispensers! After a short while I found myself 14

Above: NO PLACE TO HIDE, one of Jim’s many paintings for the United States armed forces.

produced horrible figures and they used all the old tricks like hiding the feet, placing the hands behind the back and having the figures looking away from the viewer. Our teacher was quite bright, so he said; ‘Alright, hands up everyone who can paint a 1956 Cadillac in cream yellow?’

AVIATION ART

All the hands went up. So the teacher said, ‘Lets examine it, what do those fenders look like? Look at the bodywork, the overlap on the headlights like a claw, beautifully done; and all in a creamy yellow so you know the shadow will go to some shade of violet’ everybody agreed, ‘What I want you to think about is that all those forms you can also find on the human figure , If you can divorce yourself from the idea you can’t do it, to maybe I can because I can do the other stuff, then you may be surprised.’

That lesson was never lost on me, if you can paint - let me think of the most complex aircraft - it might be British , it’s probably French(!), if you can do that then you can paint figures…

MP Hmmm, I think I’d still prefer to paint a Reid and Sigrist Snargasher than a human face!

JD Let me tell you a thing about painting faces. To paint a really good face that head needs to be at least an inch and a half to two inches across. That means that the figure needs to be around 12-14 inches high on the canvas. And to do a really good portrait you need a minimum of five inches for the face.

The smaller you go the more precise you have to be. If you’re fractionally out with the upper lip on a 3” face it’s no big deal but if you make the same mistake on a ½ inch face it looks terrible.

Of course, its easy for me to give this advice: i had four years at a demanding art school to get a lot of practice in!

My wife often asks me why I’m painting on such large canvases and why don’t I do them smaller, maybe 15” x 20”. My answer is always that it would take me just as long to do it on a 15” x 20” badly as it would to do it on a 30” x 40” well!

MP

part, but it is truly distressing and depressing that in almost every painting I reach a point where I think I’ve lost the ability to do this and don’t know what I’ll do next. Nobody believes me, even my wife!

That’s very useful advice for many of us as, because of our lack of confidence with figures, we tend to make them as small as possible, thus creating a rod for our own backs.

JD That’s true, but always remember that art is a 10,000 hour project. Every painting I do I worry about failing, I have enough confidence to work through the ‘pushing a rock up a hill’

MP It’s nice to hear that even the very best suffer those moments of doubt that all artists go through, I think the trick is simply 15

MOVING THE HERD to have the confidence to change, remove or rework parts of the painting quickly before it goes beyond the point where it can be salvaged.

JD Sure, just hoping something will work is never a good strategy!

AVIATION ART MP In my last interview with Nick Trudgian we talked about the future and the growth of digital aviation art, what’s your view of it all?

JD

I saw a digital painting recently of a Typhoon low over a column of tanks and just thought my day had come as it was spectacular in every way. I certainly think the digital artists have a big advantage over us when it comes to prints as they can produce very specific subjects very quickly and are not then saddled with trying to sell a huge original that they’ve slaved over for weeks. Also the digital artist can explore hundreds of angles and compositions that I would never have thought of, simply at the click of a mouse.

MP Well Jim it’s been a pleasure and an honour to chat with you today, Thanks for the tips, I’m off to practice my figure painting!

The same is true of so many others who have given me a hand up just when I needed it ... friends, art directors, other illustrators and the many people who have commissioned or purchased my artwork over the years.

Nobody achieves anything without a lot of help from others in this life. Over the years in my own way I have tried to do the same for other artists who just needed a little push or encouragement in furthering their own careers. So much of progress or success depends on being at the right time and the right place with just a little help from the right person and the sense to know it & follow it... not just in art , but perhaps in life as well.

JD

No problem Mark, it’s nice to talk to a fellow traveller in this business. May I say one more thing: I’ve been married for a good long time after that wet honeymoon in Europe ,and my wife Patti, has been an invaluable help in all aspects of our lives together. It wouldn’t be too big a stretch to say i wouldn’t have achieved anything like what I’ve managed to do without her help & support . ( No,she’s not looking over my shoulder just now…)

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THE BOMBER BOYS

For more information about Jim and his work please visit his website

jamesdietz.com The Bomber Boys (above) is now available as a limited edition print from

militarygallery.com aces-high.com

and many other military and aviation art dealers

FINDING PADDY’S HURRICANE

THE EXCAVATION OF P3966 A painting by Mark Postlethwaite of P3966 being shot down on 26 August 1940.

More information at www.posart.com

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ARCHAEOLOGY

On 26 August 1940 Hurricane P3966 plummeted vertically into the Fobbing Marshes after being shot down over the Thames Estuary. The pilot Paddy Hemingway must have presumed that would be the last he saw of his aircraft as he parachuted to earth nearby. Now 79 years later, with Paddy watching live on TV from Ireland, his old P3966 was brought to the surface from a very, very deep hole. Simon Parry the team historian for the dig takes up the story.

I

t was the height of the Battle of Britain, 26th August 1940 and the Luftwaffe was sending large formations of bombers and fighters to knock out Fighter Command airfields. A huge raid in the morning had resulted in over a dozen RAF fighters being shot down with five fatalities and several pilots badly injured. Now, around 14.45hrs another huge raid started to build, stretching RAF Fighter Command and its pilots to their limits.

Three formations were plotted of 60+, 20+ and 12+ making their way along the north Kent coast towards the Thames Estuary.

Four squadrons were scrambled: 65 Squadron with 11 Spitfires up from Rochford to intercept a raid north of Manston.

615 Squadron with 12 Hurricanes up from Kenley also to intercept a raid north of Manston.

1 (RCAF) Squadron with 11 Hurricanes up from North Weald to patrol base.

85 Squadron with 12 Hurricanes up from Croydon to patrol base, then to head for Maidstone.

The recovered tailwheel assembly from P3966 that had lain underground for 79 years.

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The 11 Group Controller requested assistance from 12 Group and six more squadrons were scrambled: 111 Squadron, 9 Hurricanes up from Martlesham Heath to patrol Chelmsford.

56 Squadron, 11 Hurricanes up from North Weald to patrol Colchester.

19 Squadron, 10 Spitfires up from Duxford to patrol Debden.

310 Squadron, 12 Hurricanes up from Duxford to patrol North Weald.

54 Squadron, 12 Spitfires up from Hornchurch to patrol Manston.

501 Squadron, 10 Hurricanes up from Gravesend to patrol Hawkinge.

As these squadrons scrambled, 615 Squadron engaged the enemy over Whitstable when its pilots took on the Me109s of I/JG52 and I(J)/LG2 sweeping ahead of the bombers.

85 Squadron then attacked the formation of 15 Do17 and 30+ Me109s that had approached over Hythe as it passed north of the Isle of Sheppey over the Thames Estuary. Some bombers got through to Hornchurch.

65 Squadron went for the main, centre group, of 30+ Do17s and 30+ Me110s as it approached the Blackwater Estuary and succeeded in separating the Me110s from the bombers. 1 (RCAF) and 56 Squadrons tried to defend North Weald and lastly 111 Squadron tried to prevent the northern most enemy formation bombing Debden. 19 Squadron, who had been scrambled to patrol Debden, arrived too late and did not see combat. 310 Squadron was also sent to Debden and again arrived too late, but its pilots chased the raid as it retired.

Debden was bombed at 15.19 hrs. About 100 bombs fell on the airfield, the NAAFI and a variety of buildings were damaged, one hangar got a direct hit and another was damaged, but the operations were not affected. One Hurricane from 257 Squadron was burnt out on the ground. No bombs fell on Hornchurch airfield, but the town was hit.

The combats had spread over a huge area stretching from Suffolk to the Kent coast and several aircraft from both sides had been shot down in the space of less than an hour.

ARCHAEOLOGY

The situation worsened quickly and just 15 minutes later, at 15.00 hrs, the plotting table showed two formations over Thanet, two more over the sea north of Thanet and a fifth over Hythe. Groups of Me109s from I/JG52 and I(J)/LG2 had swept across Kent before the main raids that were holding a steady course north-west, which would take them to Essex and, presumably, the airfields there.

The bombers were from KG2 and had indeed been ordered to attack 11 Group airfields in Essex. Twelve Do17s of I/KG2 were to attack Hornchurch escorted by Me109s from II and III/JG3 along with II and III/JG54. 21 Do17s of II/KG2 were heading for Debden with their Me110 escort from II and III/ZG26.

As RAF fighters returned to base to refuel and rearm, yet another huge raid started to build with an incredible 328 enemy aircraft forming up over France. Luckily for the hard pressed squadrons around London, this raid headed much further west for the Solent and it was the more westerly based RAF units that were sent to intercept.

This pattern would continue on and off for the next week or so as RAF Fighter Command was pushed to the brink of destruction, the last week of August being RAF Fighter Command’s darkest hour of the Battle.

Right: A map showing the aircraft involved and crash locations resulting from the huge air battle on the early afternoon of 26 August 1940.

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ARCHAEOLOGY

85 SQUADRON’S CONTRIBUTION

“

The Squadron executed a head-on attack on the Dorniers. The engagement became general and three Do215s were definitely destroyed by the squadron as a whole, and are not claimed as victories by individual pilots, who nearly all contributed.

”

85 Squadron intelligence report

“

After several attacks on the Dorniers, P/O Hemingway (Blue 2) broke away and climbed up to engage Me109s. While climbing P/O Hemingway was hit behind the cockpit and in the engine on the starboard side. The engine became red hot and thinking that the aircraft was on fire P/O Hemingway baled out, delaying his drop until he was in clouds before pulling rip cord. He landed in Pitsea Marshes at 15.30 and went to Pitsea Police Station, reporting to Intelligence Officers at Croydon and Hornchurch. He reported back to unit at 10.30 the same night.

85 Squadron combat report

COMBAT REPORT:

S/Ldr P W Townsend - Commanding Officer 85 Squadron Squadron ordered to patrol at 14.50. At 15.20 large number of E/A (unidentified) sighted 20-25 miles off coast. At 15.30 18 Do215s flying in 6 sections in vic slightly stepped up astern of each other. Escorted by 30/40 Me109s in irregular formation about 20,000’ – 25,000’. First attack on Dorniers executed from starboard low on lowest and leading section. After first headon attack leading section of Dorniers broke away. (All Dorniers had blue undersides except one which was black). Engagement became general, but three of four pilots with me concentrated on Dorniers which were separated. Meanwhile main formation was returning in a south east direction.

A series of attacks astern-quarter executed. First on a Dornier which went down in controlled low dive. This was followed

by P/O Allard and P/O Worrall and seen to pancake at Rochford. It was attacked before landing by Spitfires but definitely claimed for 85 Sqn. Remaining two Do’s closed formation. Finally after repeated attacks left-hand one broke away. Followed him through clouds. It made out to sea on port motor only, thought better of it and with bits falling off it pancaked 1 – 2 miles due east of Eastchurch. AA fire from the ground had no effect. This Do215 claimed for 85 Sqn. Third Dornier last seen losing height. This one seen to crash in sea 15 miles east of Foulness by Sgt Howes.

During attacks of Dorniers I noticed no attempt by Me109s to molest us, although one or two pilots report being attacked in a half-hearted way be Me109s, one of which F/O Weaver claims probable.

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”

Background photo: 85 Squadron’s VY coded Hurricanes on patrol during the later stages of the Battle of Britain.

COMBAT REPORT:

P/O G Allard - Yellow 1, A Flight, 85 Squadron I led Yellow Section in a squadron formation attack carried out from ahead. Three Do215s detached themselves from the large formation and immediately I carried out a quarter attack from above and behind.

I then climbed ahead and slightly above and carried out a head-on attack (during this time other Hurricanes carried out attacks) and the starboard e/a broke away.

I climbed up into the sun and came down on a quarter attack, breaking away to the left. Once again I climbed in front and ahead and carried out another head-on attack – both motors were now stopped and feathered and the e/a glided slowly through the clouds. I turned quickly and carried out a line astern attack on the last remaining e/a as he went through the clouds. I then carried on through the clouds and saw the leader crash into the sea 5 – 10 miles off Foulness. Immediately I turned and saw the third Do215 come through the clouds so I carried another line-astern attack – both engines were stopped as I broke away.

COMBAT REPORT:

P/O P A Worrall – Green 3, B Flight, 85 Squadron I took off with the squadron as No.3 in Green Section. I made a head-on attack on the No.3 on left of formation, I then did beam attacks on same a/c from left and above. E/A section broke away beneath and I attacked with P/O Allard until ammunition ran out and e/a fire stopped. I followed e/a in a series of left hand turns with starboard engine smoking. When beneath clouds Spitfires from 65 Squadron attacked e/a while he was trying to find a field to land in. E/A pancaked at Rochford. Captain of e/a was informing me that his compass was u/s and starboard engine u/s when above cloud. The intelligence officer after further interrogating him in German stated that F/Lt Saunders 65 Squadron had finished it off and claimed ½ the e/a. Pilots of 65 Squadron confirmed that starboard engine was u/s before they attacked.

The e/a appeared to be making a forced landing at Rochford aerodrome when a Spitfire squadron noticed him and I saw two of them carry out an attack at about 500 feet as he was going down. This e/a landed on the aerodrome and as I was about to return to my base I saw a Spitfire land beside him. The attacks by the Spitfires seemed to have very little effect on him because he did a perfect approach and landing. All my bursts were approximately 3 seconds and I had approximately 1,000 rounds left.

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ARCHAEOLOGY

85 SQUADRON’S CONTRIBUTION

ARCHAEOLOGY

85 SQUADRON’S VICTORIES

85 Squadron’s pilots were very clear about where their Dorniers came down as two of them landed on or next to RAF airfields.

Above: This one U5+GK force landed near RAF Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey.

Left: This is the Dornier that force landed on Rochford aerodrome, U5+LK. It was also claimed by 65 Squadron and pilots from both squadrons took the chance to land alongside and talk to the German crew, trying to confirm no doubt that it was their bullets that had forced them down!

Right: Although not an 85 Squadron victim, this remarkable footage was taken by Flying Officer Tom Little of 1 (RCAF) Squadron as he attacked one of the Dorniers during this combat.

Despite two other Hurricanes attacking it, the Dornier escaped into cloud but was claimed as destroyed, shared with F/O ‘Dal’ Russel.

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Thames Estuary. He fell into the sea and was rescued 12 miles east of Clacton.

The 26th August was therefore the second time in just over a week that he had been shot down over the Thames Estuary, this time it was Hurricane P3966 that he was forced to bale out of.

Despite this, he was back in action just two days later and on 31st August damaged an Me109.

At the end of the Battle, 85 Squadron took on the role of night fighters and in February

Above: ‘Paddy’ Hemingway photographed in 1941 with a black painted 85 Squadron Hurricane.

Below: ‘Paddy’, second from right scrambling to his Hurricane during the Battle of Britain.

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1941 re-equipped with Douglas Havocs. During the nights of 3rd/4th May and 5th/6th May Hemingway damaged He111’s.

He was awarded the DFC in July 1941 and went on to fly Turbinlite Havocs with 1452 Flight.

On 23rd April 1945 he was forced to bale out for a third time after his 43 Squadron Spitfire was struck by ground fire over Italy Hemingway went on to have a long and distinguished career in the RAF, retiring as a Group Captain in September 1969.

ARCHAEOLOGY

P/O ‘PADDY’ HEMINGWAY

John Allman Hemingway was born in Dublin, Ireland on 17th July 1919 and joined the RAF in 1938. After training he was posted to 85 Squadron in France in early 1940 and on 10th May claimed a He111 destroyed. The next day he shared in the destruction of a Do17 although his Hurricane L1979 was hit by flak over Maastricht and he had to make a forced-landing. He rejoined the Squadron at Lille-Seclin on the 15th and flew back to England in an Ensign on the 17th.

Hemingway was posted briefly to 253 Squadron at Kirton-in-Lindsey in early June 1940 but rejoined 85 on the 15th.

On 18th August Hemingway was forced to bale out of his Hurricane V7249 after it was damaged by return fire from a Ju88 over the

ARCHAEOLOGY

FINDING P3699 There was a time in the UK when the excavation of war-time aircraft wrecks was commonplace. Locals remembered where fighters and bombers crashed a mere 30-or-so years earlier and the Ministry of Defence had little or no interest in the bits of old ’plane. Farmers treated these embryo ‘Aviation Archaeologists’ who came knocking at their door asking to dig up a Hurricane or Messerschmitt as harmless, eccentric hobbyists and more often than not let them have a go at finding a few bits.

Among the earliest of the many aircraft recovery groups was the Essex Historical Aircraft Society, formed in the mid-1970’s by Roger Pickett and Robin Hill and their friends.

Identifying a crash site was mostly a matter of

The all important data plate from P3966 note the date – 10.8.1940 – only 16 days before it was lost.

Although the serial looks like P3968, that aircraft never existed and closer examination shows the last digit to be a 6.

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serendipity, as very few sources of information were available at that time. The publication of ‘The Battle of Britain – Then and Now’ in 1980 changed that situation and a ‘catalogue’ of potential crash sites became available.

In 1987 Roger and chums set out to locate Hurricane P3966 that had crashed on ‘Pitsea Marshes’ on 26th August 1940. ‘The Book’ said that its pilot, Pilot Officer J A Hemingway of 85 Squadron had baled out after being shot down by Me109s. The ritual of ‘door knocking’ and asking the bewildered householder if they remembered a plane crashing - 47 years Below: A photo of the first recovery attempted in the 1980s with very basic equipment. Fobbing Creek is on the right of the photo in this view looking north.

January is not a good time to be on Fobbing Marshes. A cold and penetrating easterly wind blows off the North Sea, chilling you to the bone, but the Essex team were keen and arranged for a tracked Hymac to excavate their Hurricane. Over the course of two days two Brownings emerged from the mud, with the undercarriage legs and an assortment of pieces, but the main wreckage remained tantalisingly out of reach. A bigger, heavier, machine was clearly needed, but on the next attempt the machine became bogged down in the marsh and itself had to be rescued.

Hurricane P3966 would have to remain a legend, too difficult and costly to recover and the land owner losing patience.

ARCHAEOLOGY

ago - began. Eventually a door was opened by someone who did remember it! As a sevenyear-old boy he had walked a mile-and-a-half across the marsh to where a fighter had crashed near a Pill-Box on the edge of Fobbing Creek. There was little to be seen other than a deep hole and few bits and pieces scattered around, one of which he managed to make off with as a souvenir.

Metal detector in hand, Roger led his men to the Pill-Box on the sea wall, just as the eyewitness had said, and began to search. The soft-sticky mud of the tidal marsh sucked their wellington boots off and tin cans and other rubbish made detecting almost impossible.

On a hunch, Roger got down on his knees and looked across the marsh for a slight depression that might mark the original impact crater. His hunch proved correct and as he had done on sites before, he found the spot.

Right: A map showing the crash location just north of the Thames Estuary.

Below: A view of the crash site looking south with Fobbing Creek drained by the tide. The all important landmark pill box is visible to the right.

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ARCHAEOLOGY

Fast Forward 30 Years The mud on Fobbing Marshes has not changed, but the world has moved on. Aircraft wrecks are no longer just a curiosity and the protection surrounding them and the environment has strengthened. No longer can you set off hopefully with a metal detector without incurring a lot of paperwork.

The process of excavation has moved on too. Far fewer digs now take place and, when the do, they attract a lot of media attention. Steve Vizard of the UK based company Airframe Assemblies now specialises in rebuilding Spitfires and other wartime aircraft to flying condition, but his roots lay in finding wrecks from the Battle of Britain. In

search of another project he suggested P3966 in Fobbing Marshes as a challenge to dig organiser Gareth Jones. Steve, Gareth and a small team from the UK and France specialise in difficult aircraft recoveries, most of which have featured in television documentaries.

This would certainly be a challenge and one of

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Below: With all permissions secured, team leader Gareth Jones hired this monster, the only one of its type in the UK to get down to the estimated 25 - 30ft required to find the main wreckage.

Note the extra wide tracks and wooden supports to stop it sinking into the mud.

The project was given added impetus when it was realised that ‘Paddy’ Hemingway was alive and well at the age of 99 – one of only five Battle of Britain pilots still with us at the time of the excavation. The ambition to bring the project to fruition so that ‘Paddy’ could see his aircraft recovered, a thing he dearly wanted to do, galvanised the various authorities into action and by early 2019 everything was in place.

Backing the project by this time was the film production company Warrior Film Promotions, headed by Jeff Clarke, who were to finance to recovery as part their documentary film about the restoration of Hurricane V7497 G-HRLI to airworthy condition.

The date of March 30th was set for the excavation, a risky move as the fickle British weather could jeopardise the entire operation, not least the planned flypast in salute of ‘Paddy’. However, the date was dictated by an exceptionally low tide that would take place at midday, allowing the creek to fully empty of water.

Finally, Gareth had to select a digger capable of traversing the marsh and large enough to reach the main wreckage that was predicted to be 25 to 30 feet below. There would be only one chance and a failure with so much riding on the dig was unthinkable. Specialist longreach excavator company WM Plant Hire was entrusted with the job with a Case CX130B-LR driven by Sean Hughes. WM Plant Hire had the only such machine, fitted with extra wide low ground pressure tracks, in England but it meant transporting the 11-feet 9-inch-wide machine 250 miles with a ‘Convoy Exceptional’ escort for the over-size load.

ARCHAEOLOGY

the last relatively intact Hurricane wrecks in the country. Roger and Robin from the 1980’s recovery attempts were recruited to the team and lead Gareth back to the site – but a huge amount of organising now lay ahead. With the assistance of land owners, Andrew and George Young, the required licence from the MoD under the terms of the 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act was secured. The site now falls within a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) protecting its flora and fauna and, although still an active farm, is overseen by the Essex Wildlife Trust. The area is also tidal, so a Dredging Licence was required from the Port of London Authority and permission from the Environment Agency to cross the flood defences.

In the days leading up to the great event three news organisations, Sky News, ITN and Forces News, requested permission to cover the story. The usually quiet village of Fobbing became busy with 4x4s transporting the dig team, Winchester University’s Archaeology team, a Porta-Loo, four film crews - and the catering - to the site.

The dig was carefully orchestrated so that the main wreck could be lifted to coincide with the tide, Hurricane flypast and TV news schedule! Worryingly, however, there was no sign of any aircraft wreckage as the digger’s bucket scooped out the soft mud, just drinks cans and plastic bags left behind from the 1988 excavation. Then at a depth of 8 feet some wooden planks emerged - and a Browning machine gun - but nothing else.

The digger pressed on with its arm plunging ever deeper into the marsh until the depth of the original dig had been passed, only then did some pieces of wreckage emerge. Then everything stopped for lunch!

Above: The hole gets deeper and deeper! The timing of the dig to coincide with a very low tide certainly paid dividends with very little water appearing in the hole even down to 36ft!

As the TV news reporters readied themselves the Sky News helicopter arrived overhead to film the Hurricane flypast from

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ARCHAEOLOGY

Above: One of the very last members of The Few, Group Captain John ‘Paddy’ Hemingway DFC watched the dig live on TV from his home in Ireland.

Above left: The spade grip with gun button still set to fire. Above right: Two Browning machine guns from the previous excavation sit alongside one found during the dig. Below: Paddy’s log book entry for the day.

the air. On the allotted hour of 2pm Hurricane G-HURRI, currently painted as P3700 RF-E, announced its arrival, scattering flocks of birds from the marshes.

When the excavation re-commenced the fabric covered tail section was found 20 feet down, then half of the shattered Merlin engine and the tailwheel. The marsh became ‘camera drone central’ as they constantly buzzed overhead and reporters got their interviews with the dig’s organisers. And ‘Paddy’ had been able to watch it all on TV in his home in Ireland.

The final item recovered was the propeller hub at a depth of approx 36 feet. As the media departed the dig team began the long and

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difficult task of going through the mud to find the many smaller components, all of which were loaded into one-ton bags to be taken away for cleaning. 31 years after they began, Roger, Robin and some of the original Essex group finally saw ‘their’ Hurricane dug up!

The full story of 26 August 1940 will be covered in Battle of Britain Combat Archive Volume 7, due out in May 2019 from Red Kite. More details at;

wingleader.co.uk

ARCHAEOLOGY

BEHIND THE SCENES

An aerial view of the dig site looking south showing the empty Fobbing Creek, drained by the tide and the ‘crowd’ of diggers, TV crews and other interested parties. As with all digs nowadays, the site needs to be surrounded by a fence, and hard hats and high-vis jackets are mandatory.

Catering and toilets were also arranged - a far cry from the more ‘informal’ way of digging back in the 80s!

DIGITAL EDITION BONUS PAGES

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DIGITAL EDITION BONUS PAGES

ARCHAEOLOGY

With the hole being too deep to safely enter, the excavation team set to work rummaging through the piles of mud being extracted from deep in the marsh. The mud has been irrigated by hundreds of years of pollution washed down the Thames from the big city, giving it quite a unique odour!

Here you can see the digger scooping mud from approx 30ft down and the team sifting through the spoil heap in the foreground. All finds were placed on the bank to the right. These finds were subsequently bagged up and taken away for cleaning and identification.

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ARCHAEOLOGY DIGITAL EDITION BONUS PAGES

A view looking east showing how essential it was to dig at low tide with the proximity of the creek. Note the four red right angles mounted on posts around the site. These were placed by the archaeologists from Winchester University to accurately record the location for official records. Each post is planted at specific GPS plotted locations so that when viewed and photographed from above, (inset), the location of the wreckage can be plotted to within a few feet.

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ARCHAEOLOGY DIGITAL EDITION BONUS PAGES

THE NEWS COVERAGE The team were kept busy throughout the day doing interviews with Sky News, ITV and Warrior Productions. The live Sky News broadcast can be watched here. (RIGHT) Other reports are below;

Below: Airframe expert Steve Vizard does a piece to camera as the dig gets underway.

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FORGING THE ARROW JAMES HATCH TACKLES HK MODELS’ MIGHTY 1/32 DORNIER 335 33

Wingleader Magazine - Download your copy FREE at wingleadermagazine.co.uk

MODELLING

The Dornier 335 Pfiel (Arrow) was one of the fastest piston engined fighters of WW2, a powerful twin engined aircraft with the agility and performance of a single engined fighter.

Luckily for the Allies, the 2000 production examples were due for delivery in March 1946...

James Hatch explores HK Models’ impressive 1/32 scale kit of this remarkable aircraft.

W

as there any aircraft as unorthodox and unconventional in appearance as the Dornier Do 335? Of course there was, but the Do 335 was to be a mass-produced fighter-bomber aircraft that would have entered regular service. What made this aircraft an interesting proposition was its configuration. This was indeed a two-engine design, but of course was of push-pull design. That in itself may make the aircraft sound like a non-starter, but the Do 335 was arguably one of, or THE fastest pistonengine aircraft that ever saw service as the layout eliminated the traditional drag element from a two –engine aircraft.

A most unusual machine, it was also highly versatile. Conceived from the outset as a multirole machine, this adaptable design could be used as a straight fighter aircraft, and also as a nightfighter, complete with a second, tandem crew position that gave the Do 335 its distinctive hump back appearance for this specific version. Bombs could be carried in an internal bay, and if you required a heavy-fighter, then this was possible by mounting two Rheinmetall-Borsig MK103 cannon in Left: The Dornier 335 V1 CP+UA on a test flight.

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MODELLING

pods protruding from the wing leading edge. To compensate for the removal of wing fuel tanks, an auxiliary tank could be fitted into the bomb bay. The possibilities seemed quite endless.

The Dornier Do 335 was also a robust and highly manoeuvrable machine, and one that could still cope with a rear engine failure. It was also one of the few aircraft with an ejection seat that saw service in World War Two. If this was to be activated, the rear propeller and upper vertical fin would be ejected by means of explosive bolts, followed by the canopy itself and, with any luck, the pilot!

Another unusual feature of the Do 335 was the cruciform tail layout. A downward pointing fin was included which would hopefully negate any rear propeller damage that might result in an awkward take-off or landing.

First flown in 1943, the project itself wasn’t without its problems. Whilst the aircraft was inherently stable on both the ground and in the air due to the rear engine resting not too far behind the centre of gravity (with the prop being driven by a long, extended shaft), it did suffer from some technical problems which were never to be overcome. The rather substantial looking undercarriage was one Achilles Heel, with a weakness that was to cause numerous accidents. After test flights had been finalised, and the aircraft ordered into general production, no more than 37 of them were finished by the end of the war.

Destruction of factories was a serious factor in the lack of finished machines, and also Ernst Heinkel ignoring orders to produce the Do 335, by cancelling his own He 219. After the war, captured examples of the Pfeil were whisked away by the Allies, with the French actively using a number for themselves. Today, only one machine survives and is on display at the NASM, USA.

Above: The sleek lines of the Do335 are well illustrated in this view as is the cruciform tail.

Right: A close up of the tail of Do335A-12 Werke number 240112 a two seat trainer that was flight tested at the RAE Farnborough. The ventral tail fin provided protection for the rear propeller on take off, this was certainly one aircraft that you didn’t want to over-rotate! This aircraft crashed on a test flight on 18 January 1946, killing the C/O of Experimental Flying at the RAE Group Captain Alan Hards DSO.

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MODELLING

The HK Models 1:32 scale Dornier Do 335B-2 HK Models’ Do 335 is a superbly unfussy model to build, and having tackled three of these now, I can say it’s also a total joy to have on the workbench. Everything fits, and fits as it should do, with no redundancy in detail. HK Models has also seen fit to provide two shaped nose weights which fit in the forward engine

they can, but this has been done in such a way as to make this a very engaging project without any niggles. To supplement this, I opted to use a nice set of HGW fabric belts, as the PE ones are perhaps the weakest aspect of this kit. Everything else you see here is totally out of box. Check out the cockpit, bomb bay and nose gear wells to see just what to expect with this model kit.

and gun bay areas. I can say, without doubt, that this model will be no tail-sitter or need a strut to hold up the tail. It’s also a large, heavy and imposing model once built.

This particular kit comprises of fourteen plastic sprues and hundreds of parts. As it is the case with many of their releases, it does appear that HK Models have been sponsored to produce as many slide-moulded parts as

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Below: This is probably one of the busiest and nicely represented gear bays on any model I’ve built. Again, all is out of box, and nothing else added except for some fine and quirky painting on some of the finer areas. Weathering is with Tamiya pastels.

MODELLING

Right: I wanted to show how this model looked when built straight from the box, without a multitude of aftermarket parts. All I decided to use was a set of HGW seatbelts and some Airscale cockpit decals for placards and instruments. The only modification in this photo are the pilot seat arms which I repositioned so they were in use-mode and not folded back. Some lead wire has also been used behind the instrument panel as this area will still be seen when the model is closed up.

Below: The same level of detail also applies to the main bomb bay, with its valves, hydraulics, wiring and plumbing, plus the actuation arms for the bay doors. As with everything on this model, the fit is superb.

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MODELLING

Right: You have not one, but two engines to build and mount with the Do 335. Here you see the rear engine bay with the main fuel tank in front of it. The latter wouldn’t be seen on this build, so I left it unpainted.

Above: With the paint given a wash and then a matt varnish coat, a Prismacolor silver pencil is used to add some chips, plus scuffing around the area where the pilot would step out onto the wing. Subtleness is key here. Keep that pencil sharp.

Left: Some like pre-shading and some don’t. It’s always worked for me, but the secret is to make it look like it isn’t painted this way! The wings on this model will happily plug and unplug for transportation. Here you see all sections ready for the scheme being applied.

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THE FINISHED RESULT

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MODELLING

The completed model is large and very imposing.

I actually parked a 1:32 Spitfire underneath the wing of this model at one point, just to highlight its size. There’s no doubt that it would stand out if displayed at your local club.

MODELLING

Above: I posed one of the rear engine bay doors in an open position so the Daimler Benz DB603 engines could be seen. Before the exhaust stains were applied, the door was closed up so the staining would correspond properly. Despite the weight of details in this area, it has no bearing on the model’s ability to sit on its nose wheel.

Left: In this photo, we get to see the bomb bay, forward engine, main gear bays and the beautiful nose gear bay. As this was a ‘heavy fighter’, note that the bomb bay is taken over with a fuel tank. Originally, this fuel would have been stored in the wing leading edges, but the cannon installation changed that.

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MODELLING

There were a few differences with the Do 335B-2. Apart from the wing cannon installation, the forward gear strut was different to the fighter version, and the windscreen was armoured. The hood also had side blisters for extra pilot visibility. Note how the starboard nose engine panel was also natural metal. It’s likely that this was a replaced part that simply wasn’t painted due to wartime limitations. Unlike the A-0/A-1 series, the B series machines weren’t built in any quantity, or were only prototyped.

MODELLING

Main photo: An aircraft this size also had a relatively spacious cockpit, brimming with instrumentation. Access to the wing area was via a retractable ladder on the trailing edge of the wing.

Inset: A neat design feature of the Do 335 was the cruciform plan tail. The upper fin was fitted with explosive bolts that would fire this section away in the result of the pilot needing to eject from the aircraft.

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Clever engineering means that such things as the separate wing leading-edge inserts aren’t at all noticeable. Many of the parts in this kit are common to the remainder of the HKM Do 335 series.

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MODELLING

HK Models provide the kit with weighted wheels, and despite the weight of this model, the undercarriage holds up superbly, with no need to seek aftermarket alternatives.

MODELLING

Accessories used: • Airscale Placard decals • Airscale Luftwaffe Instrument decals • HGW Late War Luftwaffe Seatbelt (Green)

Paints and weathering products:

Tools and materials used: • Swann Morton Scalpel with blades 11 & 15 • Iwata HP-C Plus Airbrush • RB Productions Rivet-R • Masking tape • Micro Drill Set • Lindstrom Electronics Side Cutters • Tamiya Extra Thin Cement • Super Glue • Various sanding sticks and sponges

• Mr Metal Color 218 Aluminium, 219 Brass, 214 Dark Iron • Gunze H12 Flat Black, H343 Soot, H11 Flat White H20 Flat Clear, H417 RLM76, H421 RLM81, H422 RLM82, H65 RLM70

Again, we see the completed Do 335 from a different angle, highlighting both propulsion units and the sheer muscle of its appearance. If these machines had seen front line service earlier, and in greater numbers, they would indeed have caused some havoc amongst Allied positions in France.

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• Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black, XF-52 Flat Earth, XF-85 Rubber Black, X-19 Smoke, XF-8 Hull Red, Mr Levelling Thinner, Alclad Airframe Aluminium, Magnesium • Vallejo Black, Yellow, Red, Brown, Sky Grey • AK-Interactive Dark Brown Wash (AK045)

Conclusion

In my 40+ years of modelling, this model most certainly falls in my top five of all-time favourite projects. Its lines are clean and accurate, and the completed build commands attention with its size and brutish appearance.

I’ll most certainly be building another of these in the coming months.

49

SQUADRON ROYAL AIR FORCE

‘Beware of the dog’

49 Squadron was a bomber squadron through and through. It started off dropping bombs in France in 1917, continued with several other European countries during WWII, before turning its attention to the Mau Mau in Kenya in the 1950s. As a final flourish, 49 dropped an atomic bomb on Australia and a hydrogen bomb on Christmas Island! Andrew Thomas explores the history of this very dangerous dog.

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RAF SQUADRONS

Left: Martinsyde Elephant A3995 was used by 49 Squadron during its working up period at Dover in the summer of 1917. (E F Cheesman) Below Lt Alan Curtis’s DH4 A7694 outside hangars at Bellevue aerodrome near Doullens, the observer is 2nd Lt Phillips, February 1918. Note the dumb bell marking applied to the squadron’s aircraft during this period.

(Wingleader archive)

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49

Squadron formed at Dover on 15 April 1916 under Maj Arthur Barratt MC, initially for training duties but in April 1917 it was equipped with the de Havilland DH 4. After working up in the day bombing role, on 12 November it moved to La Bellvue, near Doullens just in time for the Battle of Cambrai. 49 Sqn flew its first bombing mission on the 26th when eight aircraft bombed Rieux. No opposition was encountered but three days later it ran into the ‘Richthofen Circus’ and in a severe fight was lucky to lose only A7740 with 2/Lt Charles Campbell and 1AM William Samways being killed. This set the routine for the squadron that, from January 1918, also began counter battery photography for which three aircraft carried cameras with four escorts.

Lt Alan Curtis (right) recalled one raid on 7 June 1918: “We set out in an inverted V-formation of seven. We had just dropped our ‘eggs’, when the Germans sent up an audible and very close triangle of anti-aircraft fire. I was the rear right hand side of the formation at about 13,000 feet. My engine gave trouble since no motor likes a large lump of shrapnel through the radiator and it eventually seized solid. Everything else seemed to have been holed by Richthofen and his gang, Later, my controls went funny and we made a sort of landing, fortunately on our side. My Observer, Serg. A.W. Davies fired a bluff shot with his Very pistol which probably saved our lives for they all sheared off.”

Below: de Havilland DH 9 C6114 ’M’ seen here are Conteville aerodrome was the aircraft usually flown

by Lt Alan Curtis and the one in which he was badly shot up in June 1918. (Wingleader archive)

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49 SQUADRON

During the massive German offensive that opened in late March the squadron began low level bombing in desperate efforts to check the enemy advance that forced it to move no less than three times in a few days. It eventually settled at Petit Synthe near Dunkirk where on the 1st April it became part of the Royal Air Force. During April the squadron was reequipped with the DH 9, becoming operational on them on the 19th, though they proved unpopular due to its unreliable ‘Puma’ engine.

Raids continued with Turnhout, Ostend, Zeebrugge and Bruges all being attacked, often despite fierce opposition. In early May came a move to Conteville followed by one to Founeuil in June. From there in addition to long range bombing the squadron also flew a good number of low level attacks on ground targets, often against intense opposition.

RAF SQUADRONS

On 16 February 1918 Lt Alan Curtis was taking off in DH4 B7747 when he noticed that the aircraft had been rigged incorrectly. He immediately put the aircraft back down on the grass but then spotted a shell hole looming directly ahead. A burst of power got him back in the air again but by then he was running out of airfield and, without wheel brakes, he ended up in the sunken road. Both he and his observer 2nd Lt V Gordon escaped unharmed as can be seen in their souvenir photo!

Above: de Havilland DH 9 C6114 ’M’ as seen on the previous page. (profile by Arvo Vercamer)

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Supreme courage As the RAF expanded in the late 1930s 49 Sqn was reformed with Hawker Hind light bombers under Sqn Ldr Dipple at Bircham Newton on 10 February 1936. Part of Bomber Command, its crews trained in formation flying, gunnery and bombing and two years later came a move to Scampton as part of 5 Group where in September it became the first squadron to receive the Handley-Page Hampden. The first example, L4034, arrived on the 20th and by the end of October it was fully equipped, working hard to reach an operational state and to train the flood of new aircrew as war loomed.

49 SQUADRON

During that period seventeen enemy aircraft were claimed shot down. In July, 49 Sqn moved south to support the French front where it specialised in attacks on enemy communications before returning to the Somme area. During the counter offensive, the squadron initially flew low level attacks but soon returned to high level day bombing.

Opposition continued to be fierce and losses were heavy. In October 49 Sqn moved to Villiers en Cagnicourt and was there when the Armistice was declared the following month.

Altogether during almost a year of operations, 49 Sqn had dropped nearly 120 tons of bombs and shot down 56 enemy aircraft. It remained as part of the Occupation Forces at Bickendorf in Germany for a time but was eventually disbanded on the 18 July 1919.

Top right: Hinds K6644, K5382 and K5442 wearing the squadron number and badge on the fin, practice formation flying over Hampshire, early 1938. (P H T Green collection) Below: Wearing 49 Squadron’s rarely seen pre-war code letters XU, Hampden L4039/XU-D came down on the A17 road after overshooting a landing at Scampton on 2 August 1939. (Lincolnshire Echo)

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RAF SQUADRONS

The squadron mounted its first operation on the day war was declared, 3 September 1939 when nine Hampdens from 49 and 83 Sqns flew an uneventful search for German warships in the North Sea. The squadron’s pilots flew over Germany for the first time on 18 January 1940 when three aircraft dropped leaflets over Hanover, Bremen and Brunswick.

After a brief spell at Kinloss, on the night of 13/14 April 49 Sqn’s Hampdens pioneered the Bomber Command sea mining campaign when they dropped magnetic mines off Denmark.

Four days after the German offensive in the west began on 10 May, the squadron bombed

The tempo of operations increased throughout the summer and on the night of 12/13 August eleven crews from 49 and 83 Sqns specially trained in low flying at night attempted to breach, the Dortmund – Ems Canal. Five Hampdens provided a diversion whilst the remainder attacked the heavily defended aqueduct. Two of these were shot down and two more badly damaged before the fifth flown by Flt Lt ‘Babe’ Learoyd, delivered a devastating attack such that no

Germany for the first time when oil refineries at Mönchengladbach were attacked. Later in the month road and rail communications in western Germany were bombed. On 8 June, the Hampden flown by Plt Off Edward Parker crashed after take-off and burst into flames trapping the navigator. Despite the bombs still being aboard Parker dived into the flames to rescue his trapped colleague and for his selfless courage was awarded the EGM (later changed to George Cross).

barge traffic passed via the canal for ten days afterwards. For his courage during this raid Learoyd received the Victoria Cross.

Throughout the late summer, invasion ports became a priority though Hampdens of 49 Sqn also participated in Bomber Command’s first raid on Berlin on 25/26 August, though industrial targets predominated.

Below: Ground crew prepare the bomb load for Hampden P1333/EA-F at Scampton in June 1940. It was lost over Holland on the night of 16 August and its crew became PoWs. (Wingleader archive)

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VICTORIA CROSS CITATION On the night of 12th August, 1940, he was detailed to attack a special objective on the Dortmund Ems Canal. He had attacked this objective on a previous occasion and was well aware of the risks entailed. To achieve success, it was necessary to approach from a direction well known to the enemy, through a lane of especially disposed anti-aircraft defences, and in the face of the most intense point-blank fire from guns of all calibres.

The reception of the preceding aircraft might well have deterred the stoutest heart, all being hit and two lost. Flight Lieutenant Learoyd nevertheless made his attack at 150 feet, his aircraft being repeatedly hit and large pieces of the main plane torn away. He was almost blinded by the glare of many searchlights at close range, but pressed home this attack with the greatest resolution and skill. He subsequently brought his wrecked aircraft home and, as the landing flaps were inoperative and the undercarriage indicators out of action, waited for dawn in the vicinity of his aerodrome before landing, which he accomplished without causing injury to his crew or further damage to the aircraft.’

Right: With a ‘Pinocchio’ badge under the cockpit, Hampden P4453/EA-P was the usual mount of Flt Lt ‘Babe’ Learoyd including the night he won the Victoria Cross. (RAF Scampton)

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49 SQUADRON

RODERICK LEAROYD VC

RAF SQUADRONS

Right: Wing Commander Leonard Slee who led the daylight raid on Le Creusot on 17 October 1942. (ww2images.com)

Thousand bomber raids Early in January 1941 49’s Hampdens attacked the battleship Tirpitz at Wilhelmshaven, similarly, from April there were regular attacks on the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in Brest, though bad weather often prevented accurate attacks.

As the year progressed the squadron suffered increasing losses to the increasingly effective German defence system. As well as industrial targets on the Ruhr and elsewhere, transport targets and sea mining were also flown. A successful daylight attack on the Renault Works at Billancourt near Paris on 3 March 1942 was almost 49’s swansong with the Hampden as on 17 April the first Avro Manchester arrived.

This was not a popular aircraft due to its notoriously unreliable Vulture engines, but nonetheless 49 Sqn flew its first Manchester operation on the night of 2/3rd May. Then on 30 May the squadron flew on the first 1000 bomber raid on Cologne. Although losses were lighter than usual two of 49’s Manchesters were lost with just five survivors from the

Two 49 Squadron Manchesters L7453/EA-T and R5789/EA-K sit amongst Lancasters at Scampton before take off for the 1000 bomber raid against for Bremen on 25 June 1942. (Wingleader archive)

52

crews. The squadron also sent Manchesters on the 1000 bomber raid against Bremen on 25 June though this was its swansong as the first Lancasters had already arrived to re-equip the squadron and the last of the unloved Manchesters left in July.

49’s first major success with the Lancaster came on 17 October when it led the 5 Group daylight low-level raid to attack the Schneider arms factory at Le Creusot after which Wg Cdr Leonard Slee and his navigator Plt Off Arthur Grant were both awarded the DSO. Later in the month both Genoa and Milan were successfully attacked. A move to Fiskerton came in January 1943 from where operations

Right: The 49 Squadron Ops board at Fiskerton on 18 November 1943. (author’s collection) Below: A 49 Squadron Lancaster EA-P sits in the North African sun at Blida during one of the ‘Shuttle Raids’ in June 1943. (ww2images.com)

Throughout the long winter of 1943/4 the squadron participated in the Battle of Berlin and also attacked many other targets. During Bomber Command’s costliest raid of the War against Nuremburg on 30 March 1944, 49 lost the crews of Fg Off Les Kellow in JB314/ EA-Q and Fg Off Bill Colhoun in JB466/EA-A to nightfighters. Thereafter the emphasis was on supporting the coming invasion that led to 49’s blackest night. A raid on Wesseling near Cologne on 21 June when six Lancasters – a third of the Squadron – including the CO Wg Cdr Malcolm Crocker, were lost and just five of the 42 men survived. It swiftly rebuilt and continued operations into 1945 and in late March attacks around Wesel were made in support of the Rhine crossing. The squadron’s last bombing raid was made on 25 April when ten Lancasters bombed SS barracks at Berchtesgaden.

49 Sqn flew throughout the bomber offensive and suffered grievous losses, in the course of which its crews were awarded one VC, one GC, seven DSO’s and six bars, 131 DFC’s and 105 DFM’s – an extraordinary catalogue of courage.

53

49 SQUADRON

resumed with a raid on Berlin on the 16th.

During the next few months a variety of targets were attacked ranging from the Italian Naval Base at La Spezia to Hamburg. The squadron played a full part in both the Battles of the Ruhr and Hamburg. In June 1943, 49 Sqn Lancasters attacked Friedrichshaven and flew on to North Africa, bombing La Spezia on return the next day. And so the long, bloody, bomber offensive continued, with 49 Sqn being no different in suffering dreadful losses of aircrew who continually returned to the night skies over Germany.

RAF SQUADRONS

Left: Lancaster III ND787/EA-F taxing at Fiskerton in mid 1944. It later went to a training unit and survived the war. (M Hodgeson)

Below: W/O Ron Brunt taxies Lancaster III JB362/EA-D into dispersal at Fiskerton after a raid on Berlin on 22 November 1943. Ron Brunt and his crew were lost on their next attack on Berlin on the 27th. (AHB)

54

Mau Mau action to support the campaign against the Mau Mau terrorists. The Lincolns conducted pattern bombing of terrorist bases in the Abadare Mountains and Mount Kenya achieving a high degree of accuracy. 49 was replaced in Kenya by 100 Sqn in January 1954 and although most of the squadron returned to the UK a small detachment had moved to Khormaksar, Aden.

From there the Lincolns flew punitive strikes against the Shamsi tribe in the Wadi Hatib area. A further detachment to Kenya came in late 1954 that returned to Upwood in mid 1955 where 49 was disbanded on 1 August.

Left: A white topped Lancaster B 1 (FE) of 49 Sqn breaks over the airfield at Habbaniya, Iraq during a training visit in the late 1940s. (M Goodman) Below: The Lincoln B 2s of 49 Squadron’s detachment at Eastleigh, Kenya in November 1953 when engaged on anti Mau Mau operations. (Wingleader archive)

55

49 SQUADRON

49 Sqn remained part of the peacetime Bomber Command heavy bomber force participating in exercises at home and overseas – at Shallufa in the Suez Canal Zone.

By 1949 the Lancasters were well worn and Lincoln B 2s began arriving in October with the routine continuing much as previously, including a period at Shaluffa in mid 1952, to hold readiness for operations against the Egyptians following a coup. By August 1953 49 Sqn was at Wittering and later in the year it sent a detachment of four Lincolns under the CO, Sqn Ldr Newitt, to Eastleigh, Nairobi

RAF SQUADRONS

Avro Lincoln RF349 of 49 Squadron over the Kenyan landscape during operations against the Mau Mau.

56

Nuclear tests

49 SQUADRON

49 Sqn was reformed at Wittering on 1 May 1956 under Wg Cdr Ken Hubbard with the jet powered Vickers Valiant, the first of which, WZ366, arrived on the 14th. The squadron was selected to conduct the trials and dropping of Britain’s atomic bomb at Maralinga, South Australia and Sqn Ldr Ted Flavel in WZ366 made the first drop on 11 October. 49 Sqn was also selected to undertake the dropping of Britain’s thermonuclear (‘H’) bomb for which it sent a detachment to Christmas Island in the Pacific in early March 1957. By May all was ready and on the 15th Wg Cdr Hubbard’s crew in XD818 dropped the first weapon off Malden Island.

The tests continued until November 1958 with 49’s Valiants dropping seven weapons after which it returned to resume its role as part of Bomber Command’s Main Force.

In June 1961 the squadron moved to Marham and from August 1962 the Valiant force changed to a low level role and concentrated on tactical bombing in support of NATO for which the aircraft gradually received tactical camouflage. However, low flying created unexpected stress on the aircraft and when cracks were discovered in the wing spars, the Valiant was grounded in late December 1964. Sadly, 49 Sqn that had established such a brilliant record as part of Bomber Command was finally disbanded on 1 May 1965.

Top right: With the squadron’s leaping dog badge on the fin, Valiant B1 XD857 is seen on its final approach to Luqa, Malta in 1963.

(R C B Ashworth) Right: Finished in brilliant white anti-flash colours, the Valiant B1s of 49 Squadron at Christmas Island during the H bomb tests in 1957.

(M Retallack)

57

RAF SQUADRONS

Airfields

Dates

Swingate Down, Dover

Apr 1916-Nov 1917

La Bellevue

Nov 1917-Mar 1918

Les Eauvis

Mar 1918

Boisdinghem

Mar 1918

Petite Synthe

Mar-Apr 1918

Conteville

May-Jun 1918

49

SQUADRON

ROYAL FLYING CORPS ROYAL AIR FORCE

Types Flown

Approximate Dates

Fourneuil

Jun 1918

Beauvois

Jun-Jul 1918

Royal Aircraft Factory BE 2c*

Rozay en Brie

Jul-Aug 1918

Avro 504K*

Apr 1916-Nov 1917

Beauvois

Aug-Oct 1918

Royal Aircraft Factory RE 7*

April 1916-Nov 1917

Oct-Nov 1918

Villers lès Cagnicourt Bavai Bickendorf

Apr 1916-Nov 1917

Martinsyde G 100 Elephant*

Apr 1917-Nov 1917

Nov 1918-May 1919

de Havilland DH 4

Apr 1917-Apr 1918

May-Jul 1919

de Havilland DH 9

Apr 1918-Jul 1919

Worthy Down

Aug 1936-Mar 1938

Hawker Hind

Feb 1936-Dec 1938

Scampton

Mar 1938-Jan 1943

Handley Page Hampden I

Sep 1938-Apr 1942

Fiskerton

Jan 1943-Oct 1944

Avro Manchester I, Ia

Apr 1942-Jun 1942

Fulbeck

Oct 1944-Apr 1945

Avro Lancaster I, III, B 1 (FE)

Jun 1942-Mar 1950

Syerston

Apr-Sep 1945

Mepal

Sep 1945-Jul 1946

Upwood

Jul 1946-Jun 1952

Waddington

Jun 1952-Aug 1953

Wittering

Aug 1953-Feb 1954

Wittering

May 1956-Jun 1961

Marham

Jun 1961-May 1965

Avro Lincoln B 2

Oct 1949-Jul 1955

Vickers Valiant B 1, B(PR) 1, B(K) 1

Jun 1956-Dec 1964

* = partial equipment Below: One of the first aircraft to be given tactical camouflage, Valiant WZ395 sits on dispersal during a visit to Luqa in 1964 (R C B Ashworth)

58

PRE-WAR CODE LETTERS

XU

WORLD WAR II CODE LETTERS

EA

49 Squadron’s badge is a leaping greyhound that was approved by HM King George VI in April 1937.

Its Latin motto is ‘Cave canem’ (Beware of the dog).

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