I hope you like these photos – i think this forum is more interested in what i provide than others i post to.
RAF operations at Singapore 1941?
By: PeeDee - 20th January 2011 at 00:55
Why is photo 5 (Hudson A16-51 and others) displayed mirror-image?
Laurence
Life magazine put the negs in the scanner. Mistake.
By: longshot - 20th January 2011 at 00:54
These appeared last year on the Google Life archive when their search engine was working better…some thumbnails leading to low res versions in the thread on link below…you can get to the original files on LIFE by clicking ‘back to image details’ on one of Daniel’s large photos then digging around in the ‘more’ box on the RH side
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=100703&highlight=colour+spitfire+photo
By: Dave Homewood - 20th January 2011 at 00:33
I interviewed an RNZAF pilot a month or so ago who was in Singapore in Vildebeests. When the attacks came they lost most of their aircraft in raids on the Japs and on Japs raiding them. They then found some abandoned Albacores and he flew a few combat ops in one of these. They escaped down to Indonesia but eventually he had to give himself up and spent four years as a POW, much of it building a railway in Sumatra that after the war the locals tore up and removed! It was an incredible privilege to have him tell me his story, which he has not really talked much about before.
By: AdlerTag - 20th January 2011 at 00:22
Yes the fuselage in the workshop shot is another Buffalo.
I feel very much the same as DD and John, these are great pictures but you can’t really enjoy them knowing what was about to happen. The fall of Singapore and Malaya were terribly tragic in so many ways, the suffering that was endured by so many out there in the fighting and then as PoW’s is beyond imagination.
By: EN830 - 19th January 2011 at 23:21
Dave they appear to be early Blenheims
By: Dave Homewood - 19th January 2011 at 22:21
Great photos there Daniel. I’d not seen any of these and the No. 488 Squadron Buffaloes are of particular interest. Is that a Beaufighter scooting in over the top of the second Buffalo shot?
Also, what’s the aircraft in the workshop photo? Is that a Buffalo too? It’s an unusual and interesting angle.
By: Discendo Duces - 19th January 2011 at 17:58
I can never look at photos like these without thinking “how many of those poor baskets made it out of there”. I visited Changi Jail a short time ago.
John
I’ve never visited Changi Jail, but I was thinking exactly the same.
Their world was just about to be turned upside down.
DD
By: l.garey - 19th January 2011 at 14:18
Why is photo 5 (Hudson A16-51 and others) displayed mirror-image?
Laurence
By: John Aeroclub - 19th January 2011 at 12:40
I can never look at photos like these without thinking “how many of those poor baskets made it out of there”. I visited Changi Jail a short time ago.
John
By: Linrey - 19th January 2011 at 11:27
Thanks Phil, for providing links to these interesting, yet publicly available pictures.
By: EN830 - 19th January 2011 at 11:25
These appear to be RAAF Wirraway’s, Hudson’s and RAF, RNZAF Buffaloes.
This page may help with RAAF Hudson’s in Singapore and Malaya RAAF Hudson’s
Aircraft that I can identify :-
Hudson A-16-51 delivered 13 March 1940, served with 1 Sqn RAAF and was written off in the Far East, 6 March 1942. Source
CAC Wirraway A20-86 served with 21 Sqn RAAF, lost in Far East March 1942. Source
Hudson A-16-52 delivered 12 March 1940, served with 1 Sqn RAAF, destroyed by enemy action 19 January 1942. Source
Hudson A-16-86 delivered 17 May 1940, served with 8 Sqn RAAF and was written off in the Far East, 6 March 1942. Source
Brewster Buffalo W8135, Serial/No 151, Model 339E, NF-? 67Sqn RAF/488Sqn RNZAF Fate:- “crashed on takeoff due to oil pipe fracture, 12 January 42 into swamp. Sgt Vic Meaclem ok.”
Brewster Buffalo W8138, Serial/No 154, Model 339E, NF-O 67Sqn RAF/488Sqn RNZAF Fate:- “18 January 42, had Dragon motif. P/O Sharp’s a/c heavyly damaged.w/o”
:- Source
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January 19, 2011 at 11:18 am