Mystery Meteor

Just to confirm what’s been said above, went to Hendon yesterday, and their Meteor F.8 is displayed with the trolly acc plugged in to the socket/port mentioned by Warhawk.

Geoff.

The writer of the 131 sqdn ORB in 1944 was either using a knckered typewriter ribbon, or carbon paper, as the microfilm is almost unreadable. Had to get the original photocopied, and that’s just as bad. Still, it being wartime losts of things were used well after the time they would have normally been thrown away – office supplies & aircraft!!!

Geoff.

“It’s a sad fact that the guys responsible for compiling these records (myself especially) had little sense of history being more preoccupied with beer and birds. The F540 was one of those much resented ‘secondary duties’ and its importance was not appreciated”

Not so when Frank Ziegler took over the F540 of 609 (West Riding) Squadron! Ex-freelance journalist, and scribe of immense talent. If any of you get a chance, check it out at the PRO.

An exerpt from 1943, picked at random:

Jan 15th. Hangovers for F/Lt Atkinson and F/O Ziegler. The aerodrome is still pretty U/S, and day ‘operations’ are limited to two air firing sorties by the CO. Despite a discouraging Met report for the opening of the moonlight season, night weather in fact turns out perfect, and both the CO and F/O Wells make Intruder sorties. The former, taking off at 2137 for the Bethune / Lille area, attacks a goods train SSW of Hazebrouck. After two attacks it is still in motion. This infuriates the CO, and on his third attack he holds fire and presses it home so low that he nearly hits the thing, being dazzled by the flashing explosions of his cannon shells. However the train now gives in and stops, and on his 4th and 5th attacks he rakes it from end to end. He next attacks a passenger train E of St Omer, and after seeing many strikes on the coaches, the train slows down and shuts off steam, and S/L Beamont comes to the end of his ammo. He is airborne 54 minutes – exactly as estimated. F/O Wells, setting off at 2304, patrols railways between Abbeville, Amiens and Abancourt, and eventually finds a train going N at Gamaches. Having been warned of Flak in that area, he waits till it is clear, then attacks it in a valley not far off Le Treport, his aim being assisted by the furnace doors being left obligingly open – perhaps deliberately by an anti-Axis stoker. The train stops, regurgitating steam, after his first attack, but he gives it another for luck. In return he gets light and inaccurate Flak from the village nearby. All this despite 3/10 cloud.
Enemy Casualties: 2 locos Cat B (S/L Beamont DFC and F/O Wells)
Rolling Stock of 2 trains damaged (S/L Beamont)
Our ” Nil.
Big shock to the squadron (and to himself) occurs today when the posting of F/O Tidswell (Adj) to 605 sqdn (Boston’s) is announced – to absorb his promotion to F/Lt on the principle of 2 engines = 2 rings. He is not however to depart for a few days.

Thank you all for educating this ignorant yank.:D

I was responsible for the Form 540 on 44(R) Sqn for a while at the end of the 70s. UK training sorties were not recorded though rangers and anything unusual were. It’s a sad fact that the guys responsible for compiling these records (myself especially) had little sense of history being more preoccupied with beer and birds. The F540 was one of those much resented ‘secondary duties’ and its importance was not appreciated. Far more information might be obtained from the Squadron’s authorisation sheets – wherever they are!

The 24V socket would be for a trolleyac – trolley accumulator. The Derwent’s starter was electrical so the trolleyac was probably used for the first start of the day.

Mark12,

Thanks for the info. These tie-ups are always useful, narrowing things down by elimination. Just wish I could get to the PRO & look up the 500 sqdn ORB, though I’m not sure if they would list the sorties flown by the squadron. 41 sqdn certainly didn’t in their ORB in 1956. Would be nice if they mentioned the naming of the aircraft, and which a/c carried what name- bet they don’t though.

Geoff.

For what it is worth John Rawlings lists WK655 as M.

I think you will find that stencil reads ’24 VOLTS’ in full.

Mark

Flood,

Your Meteor book must have been where I got the info about WK655 as being ‘M’ of 500 sqdn. Thanks for the info.

I should mention that the photo of ‘CHATHAM GILLINGHAM’ shows that this a/c was also in camouflage.

I noted a photo of a 500 sqdn F.8 formation in natural metal, dated Feb 1954, in ‘Twenty One Squadrons, the history of the RauxAF, 1925-1957’ by Leslie Hunt. Wonder if this could be the same formation photo you mention? I don’t have a copy of the photo, or book, so we can’t compare them sadly.

Was there a move towards or away from camouflage around 1954/55? Perhaps the formation photo and the ‘BEXLEY’ & ‘CHATHAM GILLINGHAM’ ones were taken either side of the change over?

Geoff.

I’m no expert on jets of any shape or form, but I would have assumed the electrical ports for the engines (if there were any) would be on the engines themselves?

Could be wrong, of course!

All right then, that make sense. The hole must be a port for an external power source, like a slave recepticle.

Would that be where power was delivered for engine start up?

Think your screen might be better than mine, but could the first three characters be ’24V’ leading to the assumption it is some kind of electrical input?

Moggy

Excuse my ignorance, as I’m not very farmiliar with this type of aircraft, but I was sitting here looking at the picture and am curious about something. First off it’s a nice close in shot and as I was admiring it I noticed something stenciled on the nose.
Below the lowest gun port in the lightest colored area just above a circular port (looks like a dark circle in the photo) there is a combination of numbers and letters. I was just wondering what they mean.

It starts with what could be a Z or a 2
Then a definite 4
Possibly an M
Then two more characters that I can’t really make out all that well.

As I said when I started, please excuse my ignorance, but it just caught my eye. Thanks in advance.:)

Gloster Meteor – Postwar Military Aircraft: 2 by Chaz Bowyer, published by Ian Allan, 1985, has WK655 as ‘M’ of 500 Sqn but no dates. It does not mention any but VZ508 with 151 Sqn, though.
Picked the book up for £1.49 in a bargain bookshop several years ago. Don’t know how accurate the information contained inside is (I used to worry that series’ of books like this were just brought out just to sit on coffee tables or fill the more inaccessible corners of the bookshelf, perpetuating misinformation on performance put out to fool the Russians in the 1950s etc!) but this type of book has served its purpose – with me – a few times now, if you can live with only approximate or vague data. Interesting to note that the only pic of 500 Sqn in the book has a formation of 9 F8s all in natural metal, so maybe this helps with the identification of the camouflaged ‘Bexley’.
Red Dwarf anyone?

Flood.