HP Harrow – UK>Gibraltar

Hi
some info in this old thread
http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/11793.php
cheers
jerry

Graham,
Mni tks yr help – much appreciated. Will follow-up yr suggestions.
Rgds
Resmoroh

I can only find reference to one Harrow lost on this run (Air Britain’s K File has a history of each individual airframe), and had not previously encountered any reference to Harrows on such an exotic route. The Cobham suggestion is a red herring: all three are accounted for separately. The Harrow was a fairly sturdy airframe, in the best HP tradition, so is unlikely to have suffered catastrophic airframe failure short of the most extreme weather. Engine failure is always a possibility for the period.

I’m not sure that the Harrows would have stood out amongst the other aircraft heading that way – the Whitley was not great speed merchant, for example. Have you checked with any of the Luftwaffe boards for claims made by KG40 or any other unit on that date? For example http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/?

Graham,
Mni tks for coming back to me.
As I understand it there were two Harrows on the UK>Gib run that did not arrive at Gib?
The one I’m particularly interested in is K7011 on 19 Dec 42 (one of our Met RoH blokes was on board that night, on his (urgent?) way to Met Off Malta). I don’t know the other one. I’m also interested (on another Forum) at what height – climbing out of Perranporth – they would have been picked up by Luftwaffe radar(s) on the Brest Peninsular. My argument is that the Luftwaffe may have been keeping a beady eye on slow, lumbering (142kts TAS), transports from UK to Gib. Clearly these were not to be used for offensive purposes. So they must have contained high-value personnel/equipment/mail, etc, – else it would have gone by sea (with just the U-boat menace to deal with).
They, both, did not arrive at Gib because either (a) they’d fallen out of the sky due to some catastrophic airframe failure, or (b) the Luftwaffe had got them!
All I’m trying to do is get a handle on the problems of the time. There were plenty of aircraft types that could have done the run (more comfortably/faster) at the time – but could they have been spared from their operational tasks?
The answers are in the Nav/WoP logs – which are now at the bottom of the Atlantic!
Tks yr help
Resmoroh

The crow-flies distance from Penzance is 967 miles, which is less than the published figure I found for 1250 miles for the Harrow. Admittedly that would require overflying Portugal and Spain, not an option during WW2. Except perhaps at night? Any dogleg would add significant extra distance, but how much dogleg might depend upon the date – pre July 1940 there’d be less need to travel out into the Atlantic. It does appear rather marginal – which may simply explain why they were very few such flights. Some range would be gained by removing the turrets and fitting the streamlined nose and tail.

Even so, the quoted range appears low – it is little more than that for the Blenheim without the long range tanks in the wing. The Bombay is quoted at 2230 miles, and they stemmed from the same original specification. The Bombay does not seem to have any aerodynamic advantage over the Harrow. It would be interesting to know the comparative fuel loads, but I don’t have a reference for these.

I suspect that any modification to carry extra fuel would have been mentioned somewhere – unless the Harrows used were Cobham’s, which perhaps already had extra tanks? But I suspect they were in the fuselage and not connected to the Harrow’s engines. Do you know which aircraft carried out these flights?