Hurricane pic needed

Thanks Dave, all great stuff, it is appreciated. The 2 Spit pics are interesting and the first one I believe he is sitting in a Harvard. Note the forward windscreen, look at the instructor mirror on the instrument cowel and the rollover brace aft of the seat. Thanks again and what’ll ya be drinkin’?

P.S. I’ll probably end up buying the book anyway, never could turn down a good book.;)

No 3

No 2

Probably not a lot of help to your project Cajun but I found a couple of photos of Sir Keith in various planes today so scanned them fro you. One of the scans has gone odd and cut a tiny portion off for some reason. The last two are from Spitfire The New Zealand Story by Gerald S. Morris (an excellent book btw) and i can’r recall where the first one came from, some BofB book.

Yep, that’s the photo I was trying to describe. I wonder what that square marking is, and what colour it was.

At least you don’t need to buy the book now Cajun

After further examination and study the offset antenna appears to be the forward bead sight. It turns to the centerline of the a/c and appears to stop on the centerline. It’s also about the right height. Uh … interesting bit of trivia that.:cool:

Mike,

Many thanks for the posting. It will help a lot. I owe you several tall adult beverages.

It’s interesting to note a couple of things: 1, The “antenna” or whatever offset on the forward cowling and 2, the marking on the fuselage just aft and below of the sliding section of the canopy. The a/c also appears to have the DH prop and spinner confirming my original thoughts.:)

Thanks again.

Dave, Ant, Mark, DJ, Web, etal
Thanks for the info/assist. As I see it now the a/c was coded OK*1 on the port side, O*K1 on the starboard side as opposed to the more standard 1*OK or OK*1. I am also assuming that it carried the AVM pennant on the port side also (would seem reasonable). I will just have to wait and see if I run across any more info.

Again many thanks, and a tall adult beverage for each of you … cheers:D

Ant,

Yes it is the same image.

In the Japanese book it is not so closely cropped and you can see what appears to be the Medina. See Steve Young’s Avatur.

Mark

Hi Mark,
I dunno if Park regularly flew a Mk.V on Malta,but he certainly flew one on May 15th,1943.This was the day that the new airstrip at Safi was opened,and Park performed the first landing and take off as part of the opening ceremony.The event was attended by Lord Gort and a huge number of Maltese civilians,along with troops of various nationalities on parade.
There are a couple of beautiful colour pictures on page 120 of Roger A. Freeman’s book The Royal Air Force of World War Two in Colour.It appears to be a V.b with a Dh prop,a highly polished black spinner,green/brown upper and sky blue undersurfaces. Unusually,it appears to have fuselage style roundals on the lower surfaces of the wing,complete with yellow rings.
The machine also had an AVM pennant painted under the windscreen,all suggesting that this was his personal mount on a more regular basis??
Two apologies-firstly,the photo’s don’t show a serial number as the wingtip gets in the way in a taxiing shot and the other shot is of the undersurfaces.Secondly,I don’t have a (working) scanner,so can’t post the pics.
Hope this is of some use anyway. 🙂

I picked up a copy of the new Bunrindo 102 – Spitfire, at Shoreham last weekend.

Although Japanese text there is a great colour pic of what looks like Keith Park, with white helmet, in a Mk Vb Spitfire in 1942. It looks like Malta to me. I am pretty sure I can identify the Medina towers in the background making it Ta’kali. There are several hundred airman behind ropes looking on. An IWM photo.

Did he have both a Hurricane and a Spitfire in Malta?

Mark

I’m pretty sure there is a series of photos of Park in a Hurricane being the first to fly off the runway at Ta’Qauli in Malta – or was it Hal Far? Sadly most of my library is currently in store between moves but I seem to recall it was in a copy of After The Battle on the Malta battles.

Doesn’t really help, though does it?!

Cajun,

A fairly cheap copy of the Ornage book can be found here,
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=219740392

There are several copies available on abe books so if you cannot find it in the library you should be able to pick it up – but remember the photo is not in the newer paperback.

Have you ever seen the amazing footage of Park taking off in a Spitfire over a Wing Parade in (I think from memory) Malta. He was some pilot.

😉

Wow, I just found that despite the BofB getting it wrong, MoTaT got it right on the replica that used to be at their gate. This is not even there any more, now at Omaka in desert colours. But a photo of it appears on this page – you can see a little bit of it anyway. I’ll try to find a better pic of the replica.

By the way, MoTaT’s aircraft are at Sir Keith Park Memorial Airfield

http://www.motat.org.nz/exhibitions/aviation.htm

I am afraid no matter how hard they tried , they’ve got it wrong on that BoB movie version of Park’s Hurricane.

I checked out the book “A Biography of Sir Keith Park, GCB, KBE, MC, DFC, DCL” by Vincent Orange today for you Cajun. In the orignal paperback edition there is a photo of Park standing beside the plane. The caption taken from the back (from his handwriting) states it is the Hurricane he flew throughout the entire Battle of Britain, and that it still did 350 miles an hour even then, when he wrote it – which is dated 15th of September 1941.

Now in this photo the markings are arranged oddly for an RAF plane. two letters come after the roundel on the starboard side. So it is actually O*K1 on the starboard side, seen in the photo. And not OK*I as seen in the BofB movie still posted above.

I was unable to scan the photo sorry, but if you want to track down the book, it was published by Methuen, London in 1984. The ISBN is 0413 49770 4

Get the original hardback – the photo wasn’t in the paperback edition beside it on the library shelf.

If you have no luck finding the book let me know and I’ll get it out and try to scan it.

Oh yes, there was also some emblem under the cockpit, dark and square. Couldn’t see what.

Hi Mark12,
Yes, they had a real event to make the film about. 😉

Cajun,
If it’s the Malta end you are after, try TaQuali and the Maltese boys. I’ve not seen a shot, but they may have some other info. You never know!

Good luck again…

Cheers

Cajun21,

Sorry about that.

On this forum we have got so used to ‘BoB’ in the context of the film rather than the event that I misinterpreted your request.

Mark 😮

Hi JDK,
Thanks for the info. You are correct, I am looking for an original shot. I, too have been searching for about a year now. I did contact the RNZAF museum and all they had was a gutted MK II on display painted up as the film version and written comments on his a/c (no serials or other info) so still no joy. I quess I’ll just continue searching for the elusive “holy grail”. But it is better than tilting at windmills.:D
Thanks again.

Hi Cajun,
Septic and I spent some time trying to track down accurate info on both Park’s real Hurricanes and the one in the BoB Film. The shot Mark12 posted is indeed from the BoB film.

In sort we came up with nothing after many years of digging. We didn’t (I don’t recall anyway) trying the RNZAF Museum. Perhaps worth a go. This was in the hold days of writing letters and waiting, not just googling.

I have a drawn b&w profile of the Hurricane illustrated that I did, but again, it’s the film machine, not, I presume, what you want?

Good luck!

PS For those following the proofreading thread, please note a jumping ‘h’ making literals of two words!