Belgian Brewsters B339

Wonderful ! Thank you 🙂

Perhaps this can also be of help to you.

Best regards,

Laurent

Yes, i had it. Not very useful, mind you 😀

The book: that is a nice idea, I’ll have a look for it. And as I speak french, that is very OK with me 🙂

Have you got this one?

From http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Aircraft/Buffalo.htm:

Photograph of the wreckage of one of the three Belgium machines delivered to Bordeaux-Mérignac airfield after occupation by the Germans in 1940. Two were assembled and most probably at least one was taken to Germany for evaluation purposes, dutring which time this photograph of a Belgian Brewster Buffalo was taken at Darmstadt during the war.

Further, from http://www.warbirdforum.com/sight.htm:

A Buffalo ghost in Germany
This incredible yarn was passed along by Richard Bueschel, who wrote the excellent Japanese aircraft books published by Arco in 1970 and now being revised and reissued by Schiffer Military Books (for an update, see below):
I was driving down the Autobahn one sunny day in May 1946, maybe June, and spotted the tail of a familiar looking aircraft over a ridge just north of Darmstadt. So naturally I drove right up the ridge, to land on a cement airstrip. There was a NA B-25b MITCHELL in red-dot-and-white-star insignia (North Africa?) with graffiti scratched in the drab finish (toilet stuff, in German) , a wingless long-nosed FW.190D with a Superman badge next to the cockpit (Superman! I’ve never seen it elsewhere, or ever in print) , and the fuselage of a Brewster BUFFALO in Belgian insignia. A Brewster BUFFALO in 1946? It was a German test site for captured aircraft, and that’s what was left.

Yes, I took photos. I had 6 shots left on the spool and no more film, so I took one shot of the Brewster, and 3 or 4 or more of the Focke Wulf. I’ve got them somewhere, so I’ll look. It’s a great side view with all the markings. No wings, tail or motor. But the whole fuselage. What did I stumble across? I’ve always wondered. — Dick

[As Jim Maas told the story in his Squadron-Signal book about the Buffalo: “Painted in Belgian camouflage of Dark Earth and Dark Green over Silver lacquer and carrying Belgian roundels, the initial example of the Model 339B rolled off the assembly line during April 1940 and was immediately shipped to Belgium. Unfortunately, the German Blitzkrieg during May of 1940 overran the Low Countries and the ship carrying the crated Brewster was diverted to France, arriving at Bordeaux on 28 May 1940. The aircraft was subsequently captured by the Germans and is believed to have been assembled and test flown by the Luftwaffe.” Don’t you just love it when facts come together after half a century? – Dan]

More recently, Dick wrote the following to a Belgian collector:

The Brewster BUFFALO was fuselage only, stripped of engine, wings and tail surfaces. It was camouflaged, in Belgian roundals, well weathered, and had German graffiti scratched all over it, suggesting its days of usefulness were long over and it hung around in the open field for years. It was at an airfield at Darmstadt (that was not picked up by the occupation forces) so was three abandoned hangers, lots of litter, Fw.190 BMW, American B-25 MITCHELL in old red dot/star insignia (North Africa?), a wrecked DFS glider, and a bunch of other stuff. There was one active aircraft at the field, a German Buchman primary trainer in roughly painted USAF insignia, so I think some American pilots used it for joyrides on captured German light aircraft as a sort of “secret” unofficial base. I saw the hangers from the Autobahn, so stopped and went up over a hill to find this junk. It was summer, maybe July,1946. I was a model builder and model aircraft kit designer for two companies during the war, and a subscriber to The Aeroplane and The Aeroplane Spotter, wartime British publications, so I knew exactly what I was looking at. It was like the best wartime aviation spotters magazine come true.

Now, if we could turn up a few more pix of Fleet Air Arm Buffs…;)

Flood

You can also try to obtain this book :

‘Le Brewster Buffalo’, from Jean-Louis Couston
edited by Lela Presse ISBN 2-914017-25-1

It contains a whole chapter on the Belgian Brewster, including 3 side views of the paint scheme.

It’s not really cheap, I paid 50 Euros for my copy, and it’s in French.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Laurent

Thanks for it, I didn’t have that picture.

There is one pic of a Belgian Brewster here:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=34807

But maybe that is the one you already have. I’m shure there must be more out there.

Greets,

Stieglitz