Pre-/early-war Spitfires

I will leave it unless you really want to have it removed.
No disrespect to yourself but if there is one thng that does annoy me slightly (and I have to be very careful on the annoying front…;)) is when threads are deleted or posts removed; in this case the other following posts would have to go too, otherwise they have no point.
Flood.™

Flood,
I agree with you on removing posts in general. I have never removed any of my posts (even if after a while I wished I hadn’t posted them…).
However, I thought there was a good reason to remove this one: if some casual visitors to this thread had a look at that post only, without following the entire discussion, they would leave the site with the impression that the information I posted was correct. I didn’t want that to happen, that’s all.

Flood,
Thanks for your comments.
I have checked and I cannot quote a published source of my info, just a number of conversations. Obviously there must have been some confusion as to the actual person, unless someone has spread rumours aginst P/O Hardy in the past. I apologise for posting the info without checking first.
I have removed that post. I leave it up to you to either leave it in the quote in your post (with your correcting comment), or to remove it, too.

I will leave it unless you really want to have it removed.
No disrespect to yourself but if there is one thng that does annoy me slightly (and I have to be very careful on the annoying front…;)) is when threads are deleted or posts removed; in this case the other following posts would have to go too, otherwise they have no point. We all have a memory and it is the little things which stick in our minds – so in a few months time someone will be asking about RAF traitors and, with the relevant bits gone from here, they could go with half forgotten thoughts and rumour from mischievious ‘others’ and PO Hardy could end up as a bona fide traitor.
I didn’t know Hardys subsequent history until I searched; for all I knew he could have been led astray and taken a look when the BFC tried recruiting, found out what it really was about and got out quick – quite a few did.

Flood.™

British personnel in the SS

Bloody hell… this was something I’d never heard of!

http://www.feldgrau.com/wssbf.html

Hi DazDaMan – Mentorn, who made the “Fighter Dig – Live” programme :), also did a prog. on British Personnel in the SS. Mark Senior, who was translating and advising the German crowd about Vic Murphy, assisted Mentorn by interviewing people in Hildesheim for that prog. as well. If you want some more info. about their escapades I can always drop him an e-mail? 🙂 – cheers – Allan

I had read that somewhere, too, and it’s what I originally wrote first time until reading the Luftwaffe Experten page on it.

I’m maybe wrong and it’s a little while since I looked into his incident but I was under the impression that he was embarrassed because he had got disorientated/lost and had he landed in France thinking he was in the UK. This is not verbatim.

Flood,
Thanks for your comments.
I have checked and I cannot quote a published source of my info, just a number of conversations. Obviously there must have been some confusion as to the actual person, unless someone has spread rumours aginst P/O Hardy in the past. I apologise for posting the info without checking first.
I have removed that post. I leave it up to you to either leave it in the quote in your post (with your correcting comment), or to remove it, too.

Since this was PO Richard Hardy there is a fair chance that his aircraft was called ‘Duty D!ck’. N3277 was lost whilst in action on 15/6/40 and forced landed near Cherbourg. Hardy was in Dulag Luft at Oberusel, near Frankfurt, by 5/41 and was probably one of the 18 unfortunate tunnellers who failed to escape in an attempt on 1/6/41. Later he was in Stalag Luft III at Sagan, and was liberated 5/45, being released from service in 1946 as a F/Lt. After that he faded from sight…
I have searched for other ‘known’ names on the net and they have come up; nothing implying any wrong-doing by Hardy comes up, so I would be interested to hear of your references.
My info on Hardy comes from Men of the Battle of Britain, whilst my info on the Britisches Frei-Korps comes from Renegades – Hitlers Englishmen by Adrian Weale, and some pages on the net (which seem to update Weales work rather than contradict it).

Flood.™

Have you got references for that – he is not a known name:-
http://www.geocities.com/herrvermylen2/BFCnames.html (A list of all the names who served in the BFC)

I believe I have. I have considered this a rather known story. But, of course, a well-known story does not have to be true. Will check that!

BTW it may be “Duty ****”

http://www.luftwaffe-experten.co.uk/supermarine.html

There was at least 1 RAF Air Gunner who faced charges post war on this as well but he was aquitted of most charges – and maybe all..

The reason why P/O Hardy never spoke about it may have had something to do with the fact that he was one of the (few) British servicemen to join the thing called “Britische Freikorps”, formed by Germans for propaganda reasons. I believe he was sentenced for treason after the war.

Have you got references for that – he is not a known name:-
http://www.geocities.com/herrvermylen2/BFCnames.html (A list of all the names who served in the BFC)

The only BFC member that I have found to have come from the RAF was Railton Freeman, captured in France in May 1940 whilst with 24Sqn.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SSfreemanR.htm

Flood.™

Bloody hell… this was something I’d never heard of!

http://www.feldgrau.com/wssbf.html

I have removed this post. In view of what Flood said further in this thread, my information was not correct. Sincere apologies.

In the colour pic of the Spitfire down in France, isn’t that Patty Stephenson offering the Germans money and cigarette cards “Hey man, we’re neutral, I’ll take it, by the end of the war these will be worth nothing, I am doing you a favor . . .”

MH

I had a good squint at the name on the side, and it is indeed “Dirty D!ck”. You can just make it out in the colour plate of the aircraft, in a sort of Gothic style script.

The link to Luftwaffen Experten doesn’t work at the moment,the site seems to be temporarily unavailable.

I made enquiries about this a few years ago, I was told that P/O Harvey was so embarrassed by the incident he never spoke about it.

Maybe Mark12 can throw some light on it.

Looks like N3277 had a name (see second photo) in that case what was it? The second word looks like “DYE”

Do or Dye perhaps?

😉 😀

Caption Comp!

And now to the 1940 lets see how many Germans we can get into Spitfire Competition, where the contest is really hotting up.

Looks like N3277 had a name (see second photo) in that case what was it? The second word looks like “DYE”