A trip to the Fighter Collection evening to be made this Sunday made me remember the first time that I went to view ‘warbirds’ at Duxford.
I believed that I no longer had any photos from that visit as I had sold my pics to the newsroom of my employer Anglia TV…but lo and
behold there was still one of the two films I had shot hidden in my files.
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In 1968 I heard that the movie ‘The Battle-of-Britain’ was being shot at Duxford, so at the first opportunity I drove down from Norwich to
see if I could get any photos. I was hoping to make some money by selling them to the local newspaper.
Director Guy Hamilton’s ‘art department’ had already made a big start and Duxford really did feel like it was 1940. The hangars were ‘dressed’ with netting, additional buildings and ‘pill boxes’ had sprouted up in all corners of the airfield and the beginnings of Hamish McHaddie’s ‘Air Force’ was already being assembled.
It looked the part in every respect that is except the weather. The summer of 1940 had been glorious but alas in 1968 the film company was faced with continual grey skies.
I had no special access to the airfield so hunted around to find any good spots. In the distance down the western end, I could see bits of ‘set’ that included the complete front of a French Chateau. The rear of it…well that was just scaffolding.
The motorway to the East of Duxford didn’t exist then and I captured a two seat Spitfire that was being used as a camera platform as it flew over the village road.
Looks like the camera operator in the rear seat is squashed hard up against his front cockpit glass.
Another Spitfire came back to land.Some of the Spits were definately not of 1940 vintage.
An Alouette helicopter took off and commenced chasing a Bouchon across the fields.
The background of this picture has a double decker bus, undoubtably the location caterers ‘food bus’ and there’s a Land Rover over on the right as well. So it’s not just the Spifires that look rather ‘non-1940’. I’m sure the camera in the chopper is being very selective though.
Another run down the field by the Bouchon. You can certainly see that this really was not a day to be capturing on film.
I moved around and found an interesting bit of ‘set’ that might make for a more interesting picture. It’s obviously not completely ‘dressed’ but has signs on the wooden buildings saying ‘aerodrome’, ‘flying lessons’ and of course ‘teas’! What a wonderful word ‘aerodrome’ is, why don’t we use it now.
The Alouette was still jockeying to get the best shots of the Bouchon.
The Bouchon then surprisingly went into a loop…but probably roll of the top I guess. I couldn’t capture it without getting some foliage as well.
Keeping with the order that’s on my film, we have a rather late mark Spit come in for a landing. It’s even got a retractable tailwheel.
Same Spit. All were wearing ‘CD’ codes that day, including the two seat camera ship. No sign of the ‘big camera ship’, the B-25 by the way.
Next up on the film is the Bouchon but I’ve got a bit closer to the ‘aeroclub’ building.
My camera at the time was a Pentax and my longest lens an 135mm of f3.5. On the Ilford FP3 film I’m shooting here I was struggling to get any sharp images of flying.
Another similar one but I couldn’t contain the plane and all of the set in the frame here.
I must have managed to get reasonably close to the runway end…here the Bouchon lands.
The ‘aeroclub’ set was obviously near the runway end, as the next couple of pics showed it again. A more likely looking 1940 Spitfire taxies. Note the hangars in the background.
That same Spitfire. Pity about the foreground oil barrel.
Landing shot.
And another. Last on the roll.
So what happened after that?
Well I loaded a roll of HP3 film. It’s 400ASA speed was going to help on a poor day. I remember that down the western end of the airfield I found a couple of ‘prop’ Hurricanes and I also got some really good shots of the French Chateau. Both front and back.
All these, with the rest of the flying shots….I sold to Anglia TV and they got shown on the evening local news programme ‘About Anglia’.
I had intended to approach ‘The Eastern Evening News’ as I only had stills, but on mentioning to someone in the Anglia newsroom that I had photographs from the new ‘movie’, they took the film and the Anglia photo section developed it and printed half a dozen 10×8’s.
These were mounted on card and the usual simple method of showing ‘captions’ was used. A stage hand had them all on a ‘caption stand’. A TV camera framed them tightly and on the command ‘pull’ from the TV director, the stage hand pulled the front picture to reveal the next pic.
As a junior sound assistant at Anglia I was very pleased to have made £30 and had my photos on TV…I wish I still had the negs now though!
David Taylor.
By: GrahamF - 17th April 2012 at 16:47
I have often wondered whether the ruts we all stumble over in the traders tents at Duxford are the remnants of the slit trench dug for the film?
By: Dobbins - 17th April 2012 at 16:09
The aircraft dispersal pen that you mention and show is indeed still there.. for on sunday i took the dog for a walk and wandered over to it. The pill box that is shown in front of it has gone, but the entrance to the right of the pill box leads into the underground room, and although it was dark there is still a fairly hefty metal door at the entrance with two swing over latches still in situ. On turning right you walk out onto the airfield side and onto what would have been the concrete dispersal, and now used for storing sugar beet etc.
There were several of these dispersals still around into the seventies but this is the only one left, and is now owned by the landowner of the surrounding fields. It is now basically the last remnant of the airfield on the southern side, at the eastern end is a flat roof building that was once close to the original runway threshold before the M11 was built.
There’s another fighter pen behind the American Air Museum. There are some photos in Roger Freeman’s Mighty Eighth in Colour showing JD Landers’ Mustang in it
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 21:45
Why were the Proctor/Stukas not used, had they been flight tested prior to the making of the film. Also did any survive and make it into preservation.. as in a way they are part of history as well.!
They weren’t able to handle the steep dives performed by the real thing, if I remember right. Hence the use of models (as stated on the models thread – based on the Hendon Ju87).
Have just found this image of a Proctuka in the middle of an engine run, sans Luftwaffe scheme:
http://www.brendan-mccartney.fotopic.net/p28186203.html
There’s also a pic of the aircraft near the bottom of this page:
By: Wyvernfan - 17th March 2009 at 21:04
Why were the Proctor/Stukas not used, had they been flight tested prior to the making of the film. Also did any survive and make it into preservation.. as in a way they are part of history as well.!
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 21:04
The story is in Robert Ruhalls book, it was that they got the Stuka running and it could be taxied and maybe flown but the decision was made not to and use the proctor converstions (which they did not use even after that) and eventually used the models (see the other thread) instead.
curlyboy
D’oh! You’re right, I completely forgot about that! 😮
By: Arabella-Cox - 17th March 2009 at 20:51
Too much work/too much money. There’s the oft-quoted story of the actual running of the Stuka, though I dunno if that was ever confirmed…
The story is in Robert Ruhalls book, it was that they got the Stuka running and it could be taxied and maybe flown but the decision was made not to and use the proctor converstions (which they did not use even after that) and eventually used the models (see the other thread) instead.
Everytime i see the Stuka at Hendon i do think it could have flown down the runway at Duxford 10 years before it became a museum itself.
curlyboy
By: Roobarb - 17th March 2009 at 20:10
Think you’ll find the Mosquito was RS712 which was Hammish Mahaddie’s personal transport! It was offered for sale in the disposal sheet at the end of filming. It ended up stored at West Malling with CASA 2-111 G-AWHB. The CASA went to the HAM at Southend by road and the Mosquito flew out to Strathallan and later to Kermit Weeks and grounding due to reported wood delamination problems IIRC.
By: SADSACK - 17th March 2009 at 19:01
re
I meant for static, i read they wanted to get them all flying but it would have taken too long.
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 18:04
I wonder why the opted not to use the genuine 110, HE111, Emil and Ju87 and Ju88? Would they have needed too much work?
Too much work/too much money. There’s the oft-quoted story of the actual running of the Stuka, though I dunno if that was ever confirmed…
By: SADSACK - 17th March 2009 at 16:26
re
I wonder why the opted not to use the genuine 110, HE111, Emil and Ju87 and Ju88? Would they have needed too much work?
By: Mark12 - 17th March 2009 at 15:43
L-R
P7350
SM411
TE476
PM651
LA198
LA226
Mark
By: scorpion63 - 17th March 2009 at 14:31
Ju88 It is then, I wasn’t all that interested at the time.
By: Mark12 - 17th March 2009 at 13:59
Oo great stuff. The RAF Museum’s late model Stuka, and ‘Black 6’. Oh, and some Spitfires. 😀
RAF Henlow 1967
L-R, T-B.
SL574
P7350
Head on ?
Mossie
RW382
TE384
SM411
Head on ?
Mark
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 13:49
Yes RAF Henlow,1967. Spanish AF He111 fuselage
It looks like it’s wearing a serial number (PJ876), which makes me think it’s not a Spanish Heinkel. The front end looks distinctly Junkers 88.
(Google brings up the Ju88 Wikipedia page, which lists “PJ876” as being the RAFM example.)
By: scorpion63 - 17th March 2009 at 13:42
Yes RAF Henlow,1967. Spanish AF He111 fuselage and unknown Mosquito in the back ground
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 13:18
Great pics Scorpion.. but any idea where they were taken, as that does’nt look like a Duxford hanger.?!
Henlow?
By: Wyvernfan - 17th March 2009 at 13:12
Great pics Scorpion.. but any idea where they were taken, as that does’nt look like a Duxford hanger.?!
By: DazDaMan - 17th March 2009 at 13:01
Oo great stuff. The RAF Museum’s late model Stuka, and ‘Black 6’. Oh, and some Spitfires. 😀
And what appears to be a Mosquito in the background of one pic….
And, also, what looks like the Ju88 in another!
By: JDK - 17th March 2009 at 12:45
Oo great stuff. The RAF Museum’s late model Stuka, and ‘Black 6’. Oh, and some Spitfires. 😀
By: scorpion63 - 17th March 2009 at 12:34
Spitfire Productions Ltd Spitfire and Me109 production line for the film plus the odd Stuka
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March 6, 2009 at 8:47 pm