WW1 Memorial props history.

Someone posted a barometer made from wood and con rods in this thread. It’s gone? Wouldn’t mid knowing what engine it was made from.

Sorry, I took it down as I thought it was an unnecessary distraction in the propeller thread.

It is (was) made from a set of Rolls-Royce Kestrel connecting-rods.

My information regarding the Vulcan company came from Bruce Robertson’s writing in Ray Rimmell’s publication WW.1 British Aeroplane Colours and Markings, in the chapter dealing with Manufacturers Modes and Trademarks. He states “Firms letters were VN”. I take this to be Vulcan Number. Is there then a possibility that the aeroplane was in fact made by Vulcan (they did make BE.2e’s) and the Darracq made prop has been annotated with a Vulcan mark. Darracq made FE.8 Vickers FB.9,DH.5 and Sopwith Dolphin. I do not know if they made BE’s.

VMEC made BE’s DH, 4’s, 9’s and 9A.

John

Thanks Paul, Trove is a treasure trove for information. After you linked it here I found that Broadbent had also won the Harmon trophy!

John, I have been in contact with Bob Gardner. He said there is no information to his knowledge linking the Vulcan works and propeller manufacturing.
He said every Darracq prop has the name of the craftsman who made it and gave me a list of 7 known people.
Bates, E Bilsson, R Cole, Coombes, W Fowkes, WJ Harris and WM Slater.
I do believe the stamp on mine says R Cole.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246649[/ATTACH]
Looks but the VN stamp is still a mystery.

Someone posted a barometer made from wood and con rods in this thread. It’s gone? Wouldn’t mid knowing what engine it was made from.
Here’s another barometer of mine. Almost a meter across. ( I put the barometer in it. Looks like it has had a few time pieces installed over the years.
Regards, Stephen.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246648[/ATTACH]

Probably linked to this somehow

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17336049?searchTerm=Broadbent littlejohn&searchLimits=

I forgot to add the stamping T7448 is the Royal Aircraft Factory’s propeller drawing number for BE2 A through D models.
Thanks to Bob from aeroclocks for that information.
Thank you to all for the input on this.
You never know, some day someone might chime in with some information that might explain the engraved plate.

Ps, A good fellow sent me a picture of the Royal aero club of NSW lounge, circa 1988. You can see this prop on the wall.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246627[/ATTACH]

Cheers all, Stephen.

The 1928 is definitely the serial number of the prop…

I stand corrected. 🙂

VN were the marks of the Vulcan Motor Engineering Company. So I posit that they sub-contracted the prop for Darraq (who also made props). So it’s possible that VN 1928 is a Vulcan serial or drawing number. The RAF 1A is of course the standard engine for the BE.2e. Thanks for the clearer picture as I couldn’t read this before.

Further to my original thoughts, there was never any suggestion that the prop was any other than a genuine BE.2e airscrew and perhaps the “shot through” blade was too badly damaged and a ‘good’ blade was retained as the down piece when the others were truncated.

I’m beginning to think that this was a genuine BE.2e prop which had been damaged in combat and brought to Australia. This prop was later obtained and used as a memorial to Mr Littlejohn by Mr Broadbent who had the plaques made, one in appreciation of Littlejohn and another one to record the prop’s history and which perhaps was incorrectly recorded from heresay by genuine mistake.

John

Hi
I sent an email to Bob at www.aeroclocks.com as he has been keeping a database of all types of wooden propellers plus written a few books about them too!
The 1928 is definitely the serial number of the prop. He has never seen a Darraq prop made for a BE aircraft and he’s been recording prop info for 25 years now.
The VN is a mystery to him as well. He did guess maybe it’s upside down and in fact NA (not airworthy)
He said most likely not though as there isn’t even a hint of the A having a cross score.
He did say the stamp RAF1A is the engine which make perfect sense and fits the time frame.
Might have to accept the engraved details added to this prop in 1935 may be incorrect. From what I’ve read Mr Broardbent was a well respected person and of good standing in the community. I don’t think it fits his caricature that he would make this up for a memorial to his friend.
One thing is odd to me. 3 German aircraft against a BE? One would think it didn’t make it back.
Here’s some more pics anyway.
Cheers, Stephen.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246605[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]246606[/ATTACH]

The VN appears to be composed of multiple stamps with an I shaped stamp – perhaps it’s an inspector’s mark?

So what does ‘VN’ stand for / mean?

Normally props have details of design drawing number, Diameter 2769 mm and Pitch (illegible) as in the one above posted by Ivor as well as the engine or horse power it fits (but not in all cases) or the specific aircraft type. The other numbers will be the various makers codes.

In this case the VN1928 is a total Red Herring because it looks like a date. The Dia of a typical BE prop is around 9 ft (108″)

John

But wouldn’t a wooden propeller have the date on it?

Apparently not. This poor mobile phone picture is of a BE2C prop centre from our museum collection and it too doesn’t have a date. I’ve always been very interested in the green paint which is on it. Any ideas?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]246587[/ATTACH]

In short…..it doesn’t. That’s why I said ‘date’ and not date.

But wouldn’t a wooden propeller have the date on it? Which this doesn’t.

And it’s got everything else on it; manufacturer, where made, aircraft type, and another (serial?) number.

It is certainly an impressive piece. I’m still a little confused by the 1928 ‘date’ or serial number ‘VN’ (something number?) but I’d say I’m confused rather than troubled by it; if the plaque was made in 1935 then the propeller blade had to be somewhere in 1928. It is only a problem if that number is linked to manufacture (a wooden propeller would surely be marked in some way to show its age?) and I don’t see any other obvious dates on the propeller?

I’m no expert on WWI era propellers, or any propellers for that matter, but would anybody still be making propellers like this in 1928? This kind of slender, all-in-one, four-bladed propeller would look dated in 1918, never mind 1928, surely; and the BE2c (or BE2e) was certainly obsolete well before 1928 so who would be making propellers for them that late?

It is far too much effort to ‘fake’ the whole thing, even in 1935, the wood (mahogany?) and effort alone would far outweigh the price it would be likely to fetch, and this is more true at any time since 1935 surely? And why, since everything else seems so right, would any fake item have the ‘wrong’ date on it (and why wouldn’t the plaque say 1917 rather than 1935)?

Why does ‘1928’ have to be a date? It’s a BE.2e prop for sure, most likely manufactured in 1916. Good job its s/n wasn’t ‘2016’…

It is 166cm long from tip to tip and 52cm wide. It is rather big although it doesn’t seem so in the photo.

It is certainly an impressive piece. I’m still a little confused by the 1928 ‘date’ or serial number ‘VN’ (something number?) but I’d say I’m confused rather than troubled by it; if the plaque was made in 1935 then the propeller blade had to be somewhere in 1928. It is only a problem if that number is linked to manufacture (a wooden propeller would surely be marked in some way to show its age?) and I don’t see any other obvious dates on the propeller?

I’m no expert on WWI era propellers, or any propellers for that matter, but would anybody still be making propellers like this in 1928? This kind of slender, all-in-one, four-bladed propeller would look dated in 1918, never mind 1928, surely; and the BE2c (or BE2e) was certainly obsolete well before 1928 so who would be making propellers for them that late?

It is far too much effort to ‘fake’ the whole thing, even in 1935, the wood (mahogany?) and effort alone would far outweigh the price it would be likely to fetch, and this is more true at any time since 1935 surely? And why, since everything else seems so right, would any fake item have the ‘wrong’ date on it (and why wouldn’t the plaque say 1917 rather than 1935)?

My further thoughts on this are, that if the person who commissioned this miss-read a poorly written note of the action and subsequently did not add the ‘5’ after the two, then the incident on the 25 march could be valid. However if this prop had been “shot through” then I would have thought the ‘wound’ would be worth retaining on the remaining prop blade. Four blade props with three blades truncated were quite often used as grave marker crosses. Could this prop have been obtained in Australia at a later date and used for this Memorial?

John

Hi
I put the barometer back in it and pinned the plates on with a couple of toothpicks for the photo.
It is 166cm long from tip to tip and 52cm wide. It is rather big although it doesn’t seem so in the photo. (Port bottle added for comparison)
No evidence of repairs that I can see. I’m suspecting it might have had a clock or larger barometer in it at one stage. They have hollowed the hub out considerably. All that work for a barometer that dosent encroach into the space provided?
Fortunately the front of the hub was preserved. I have a few props here and they have whiteness marks from the hub plates. I’m guessing the BE.2’s didn’t have any holes where the wood might force through when tightened? If they did then this prop was never fitted to an aircraft.
I will have to look closer at Littlejons ancestry. See if he was related to R Littlejohn.
Both Broadbent and Littlejohn didn’t fly in the Great War but they most certainly knew a lot of people who did. Maybe that’s where this prop was obtained before or after its travel to Australia.
Cheers, Stephen.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246556[/ATTACH]

Thanks Vintav: so apparently no link to Broadbent.

Thus I would have to say that it looks likely to be the Cravos/Sheperd incident referred to by John in Post #2.

However I see on 25th March 1917 an unidentified BE.2e loss with 2Lt R Littlejohn WIA and his observer, 2Lt AD Collins DOW: is it possible that George Littlejohn had a brother, whose prop this was?

Clutching at straws a bit, but the name is one of the more unusual ones in RFC/RAF terms.

Here’s a shot of its two engraved plates and the one remaining pin that holds them to the prop.

Very nice; and another useful point on the graph…

…because the oldest these plates can be is May 1935.

The engraving is beautiful, and of a different age; somebody has gone to an awful lot of trouble to include aircraft numbers, dates and locations. The only problem seems to be that the information, or some of it, is ‘wrong’?

Does the propeller still have evidence of being ‘shot through’? As has been pointed out, this doesn’t mean that the aircraft was shot-down, or even that the propeller was written-off. Is there any evidence of a repaired bullet-hole?

My only other concern is one of size; trench-art ‘keepsakes’ from the First World War tend to be fairly modest in size. This is a pretty large and heavy thing to bring back from the Western Front (assuming that is where and when it was ‘retired’)! How was it moved? Did somebody carry it (in addition to the rest of their kit)? Was it posted? Did it travel with somebody by train?

How big is the whole thing by the way?

Hi Sabrejet
Littlejohn was Lost with Charles Ulm trying to make a record trans-pacific flight in 1934.
Here’s a video about it.

Harry (jim) Broadbent had acquired this prop and made it a memorial to Littlejohn in 1935. Both men were notable aviators.
Here’s a link to Broadbents info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Frank_Broadbent