Cowley Dump- scrapyard photos by Paul Nash

I had a thought last night (yes, it hurt).

That tailwheel in the bottom left of Totes Meer – the way it sits, you can pick it out in one of the photos. Intriguing that something so abstract also had figurative elements within. (that may be arty ballcocks – I’m afraid I suffer from art failure).

Adrian

Must post those pics of YC-125…

Hi Adrian (yes it is that Ben).

We have to stop meeting like this, people will talk!

Adrian

Thanks for finding these.
The fuselage centre section standing vertically with a fuel tank visible is He11, its nose up in the picture. The crate like things next to the tank are the vertical bomb racks. Someone no doubt will be able to say which varient of the He111 this is, some had two rows of crates and others had one row replaced by an extra fuel tank, as in the picture.

Richard

Very interesting, thanks for posting Ben.

I know where the house was on Banbury road, I remember a story of aircraft parts in the garden in the 1980’s, I never got to look into it more.

Some nice shots from local airfields too.

Jules

Oh, and another interesting Cowley Dump thing I found:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/a-gift-from-the-skies

A newsreel made just after the end of the war.

Oh, and this account of the analysis of the aluminium is interesting too:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/08/a7250708.shtml

Hi Adrian (yes it is that Ben).

Some of the photos say they are taken outside a house on the Banbury Road (with various bits Nash was able to take away with him, it seems), so he was living there then, I think.

I like the way they were using the wing ribs of once fabric-covered wings and tails like fences holding in the newer, mostly German, parts.

I think this image:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]241510[/ATTACH]
Image from the Tate Archive, by Paul Nash, 1940
Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

Was taken just before another artist, Frances Macdonald, visited and the three main aircraft are depicted in this painting.. The engine was removed the the standing Bf 109 between the photo and the painting.

This, of course was the inspiration for ‘Totes Meer (Dead Sea)’ 1940-1

[ATTACH=CONFIG]241502[/ATTACH]

Well now, there’s a way to open your account here! Thank you very much for posting these, I bet a few forum members are poring over them with the magnifying glass already. I know that Nash lived on Banbury Road, Oxford, so Cowley may well have been his local scrapheap, though I’m not 100% sure he was living there in 1940.

Adrian