Battle of Britain B-25 Mitchell camera ship news

Here’s a link to a site which shows what I’m on about: http://napoleon130.tripod.com/northamericanb25mitchell/id68.html I can remember Hawke borrowing the nosewheel from the Historic Aircraft Museum B25 at Southend to ferry what became the IWM B25 to Shoreham. Amazingly he gave it back! Even more spooky is his connection with all three B25’s which were all camera ships, though he was flying alongside and being filmed by the Southend example for 633 Sqn, rather than flying it. I wonder how many B25’s, CASA 352’s, Dakotas and of course the Beech 18 became derelict and abandoned after his involvement?

I agree Roobarb, that this is probably the ex Shoreham one. It might of course be the same design, so nearly as good. The Shoreham Mitchell also had the air blast deflectors on the tail camera position as well. I wonder what happened to those?

Steve

I would say that this is NOT the nose from the famed Psychedelic Monster but the discarded one from the IWM Mitchell recovered from Shoreham. The B of B film B25 returned to the USA and was abandoned by its owner and became derelict (setting a future trend with his aeroplanes). There are pictures of it becoming more and more faded and dilapedated and eventually the nose plexiglass was completely smashed and this is very clear to see. The nose of the IWM B25 was removed and last heard of at a “farm somewhere in Suffolk or Norfolk”. I find it most unlikely that the B of B film nose grew a new plexiglass cone and took a holiday across the Atlantic at some point and decided to settle here…

Was any thought given to displaying the camera nose alongside the aeroplane? It’s all part of its rich history.