Desert Spitfire Erk Bags !!!!

Cheers Tom.Good to know that my memory isn,t all as bad as what I thought…Now what day is it?????Yep that doco had to be early with the amount of sideburns in it.First time I had ever seen Bader and Johnny Johnston in a doco.Their is a good one around called “Luftwaffe Aces” that has Steinhart and Hartman in it.You can still see the steely glint in their eyes.Legends all of them.

A gentleman with the name of Gregs Farrish or Parrish, IIRC – yes, Gregs, not Greg! Now sadly deceased.

The Raymond Baxter documentary, again IIRC, was made in about 1974. Certainly pre-September 1982, as Douglas Bader was interviewed – talking about what happened if you put your nose down and the “gravy” went to the top of the carburettor…

Adrian

Blimey, THAT early! I certainly remember taping it in the eighties at some point. Yes, I remember the Bader/Stanford-Tuck interview in it, in front of Hendon’s Spitfire, demonstrating their tactics with the Aifix 1:24th scale Spit and Me. 109E. It’s worth it just for their terminology – wonderful stuff! I THINK I still have it somewhere.

Farrish

No mention of the Italian biplane, but the erk in question, “Spanner” Farrish, did indeed fly to Anzio to get four unserviceable Spitfires back in action, and was courtmartialled afterwards.

Greggs (2 G’s) ‘Spanner’ Farrish was the engineering officer on No 72 Sqn. I had the honour to meet him at a squadron reunion in 1993. He is now sadly deceased. He was taught to fly in a captured Caproni biplane by F/Lt Tom Hughes in Italy whilst on 72 and was later posted to 93 Sqn. (Tom, incidentally, holds the record for being the only RAF fighter pilot to bale out of a Bf109, captured in Italy.) It was whilst he was with 93 that he flew the Spit into the airstrip at Anzio to make repairs to a couple of u/s Spits there. He was ,of course, court martialled for using his initiative (can’t have the chaps hazarding valuable RAF aircraft, don’tcha know!)

The book, ‘Algiers to Anzio’ by Greggs Farish and Mike McCaul (72 Sqn intelligence Cpl) tells the story well. It is available from Woodfield Publishing by mail order/internet order.

I am currently writing the history of 72 Sqn 1937-61 and would welcome any input from forumites. I am also membership sec for the 72 Sqn association, so if anyone would like to join us we have a ‘Friends of the Association’ branch for historians. photogs etc.

Hope this is of interest.

Yours aye

Tom Docherty

No mention of the Italian biplane, but the erk in question, “Spanner” Farrish, did indeed fly to Anzio to get four unserviceable Spitfires back in action, and was courtmartialled afterwards.

A gentleman with the name of Gregs Farrish or Parrish, IIRC – yes, Gregs, not Greg! Now sadly deceased.

The Raymond Baxter documentary, again IIRC, was made in about 1974. Certainly pre-September 1982, as Douglas Bader was interviewed – talking about what happened if you put your nose down and the “gravy” went to the top of the carburettor…

Adrian

Not sure about the mention of the Italian biplane in the other book, but I’ll see if I can dig my old copy out over the weekend and have a look.

Cheers guys.You can still see that sparkle in her eyes.Daz I too remember the story of the Erk who flew the spit.Flypast?????Had a little bit of training on the squadron hack,a captured Italian biplane I think before hand.Flew the spit to a nearby airfield to replace sparkplugs I think.Only read the first part of the story.

The Margaret Horton incident was recalled in a documentary from the 1980s (it was simply entitled ‘Spitfire’), in which she was interviewed by Raymond Baxter. Despite her advancing years, Ms Horton was coaxed into the position over the tail she was in when AB910 went up!

In 1968 Margaret Horton, who had made the amazing circuit on AB910, posed for the Telegraph Magazine on her former steed.

At that time I wrote to here to enquire if any photos had been taken at the time of her flight. She responded that to her knowledge none were…but memory fades.

Research in Canada, in a pilot’s personal album, produced a couple of period shots of a WAAF in leather jerkin standing by a Spitfire. In the first case standing by the tail with one of those small serials at the top of the tail band and the front of the code visible and in the second case standing by the cockpit with the remainder of the code visible.

AB910 MV- T (for trouble). On the reverse of the shots was the simple inscription in pencil. ‘Margaret Horton – Aircrew’.

53 OTU. A future paint scheme for AB910 perhaps?

Mark

😉

On Spitfire VB AB910, currently still flying with the BBMF….

She must be exhausted.

There is a story of an erk flying on the tail of a Spit in the Med, I think it’s in G/C Duncan Smith’s book Spitfire into Battle, but it’s been a while since I read it. That one survived.

There is also a story, I think in the same publication, of an erk managing to fly a Spitfire with ONLY the aid of the pilot’s notes (and having never had a flying lesson in his life prior to the event!). He’d decided to try and fix some unserviceable Spits at another airfield, so borrowed a Spit, flew there, did the job, and flew back. I seem to recall he was court-martialled for it, however!

My mate Earl told me a similar story that happened to his mate in the Med.Unfortunately the Erk on the tail didn,t make it.Thanks for the pic Daz.Yes Ali the story is well recorded.Have an old BBC doco with her in it.Told how she was able to straddle the tail fillet and was able to manipulate the rudder controls on the tail.Pilot radioed in of control problems and tower confirmed the problem but not telling the pilot in case he panicked(having a 5foot 1 inch female flying on the back of a spit) and told him to land straight away.Pilot landed without incident and nearly had a heart attack when discovering the control problem.Lucky girl.

I did read of a WAFF that did a circuit of the airfield sat on the tail.

Ali 😮

On Spitfire VB AB910, currently still flying with the BBMF….

Wouldn’t that cause huge CoG problems?

Best wishes
Steve P

I did read of a WAFF that did a circuit of the airfield sat on the tail.

Ali 😮

Found it!!

From The Spitfire Story (Alfred Price):

Modification devised by Group Captain Barwell, commanding Biggin Hill in 1943, to enable a Spitfire to carry a couple of passengers. The man-sized canvas bag was laid out along the top of the wing. It had a loop to secure the forward part to the cannon barrel, and it was attached to the trailing edge of the wing inside the flap. It is believed the scheme was never air-tested with a live passenger for want of a necessary volunteer!
(pic from Public Archives of Canada)

From somewhere I have read that during a transfer flight by a staffel of 190,s they got caught with their knickers down by some Mustangs.Sadly a few were shot down with Erks in them..Or it could be my holey memory again.

Have definitely seen images of erks posed in the hatch door of an FW190 – wouldn’t fancy either mode of transport myself! :p

I know the germans used to transport their Erks by putting them in the fuse through the radio hatch.Think a 190 could hold two.Would be interesting to see a Spitbag though.

Maison Blance

The place is Maison Blanche airfield, Algeria, which is just French for ‘White House’ airfield. As to the rest?

Dunno.