Unusual Spitfire markings

Yes, thanks and sorry.

Thanks Mark, sorry I mentioned it.

Mr Moderator calling

On reflection, and also pointed out by a fellow forumite, I have pulled all references to a certain book written by a certain author and published by a certain publishing house in New Zealand.

There could be legal implications in the route this thread was taking.

Please continue further discussion on this matter by PM.

Mark

Israeli spies apparently stole the plans of a French designed aircraft which I understand became the Kfir. I may be wrong – maybe it became another of their jet types. That is what I have been told, but it was a long time ago, yet I have no reason to disbelieve it.

Quite appropriate really on the subject of the dodgy Isreali Air Force I guess, as they ripped off the plans for the Kfir, I’m told?

Do you mean Ventura ripped Kfir plans for/from the Israeli Air Force?

Sorry Mark12 and Voytech, I just realised that the Ventura Pubs Classic Warbirds Number 7 may not actually be the “ANZAC Spitfires” edition I was thinking of. Sorry, was assuming it was the same book you mentioned before with Dereck Kain’s Spitfire in Mark. My mistake.

It was the same book with Derek Kain’s Spitfire in. The ANZAC Spitfires only mentioned him IIRC, while CW no. 7 had more photos and the story.

Sorry Mark12 and Voytech, I just realised that the Ventura Pubs Classic Warbirds Number 7 may not actually be the “ANZAC Spitfires” edition I was thinking of. Sorry, was assuming it was the same book you mentioned before with Dereck Kain’s Spitfire in Mark. My mistake.

My God I’m drunk…. sorry, I didn’t realise till now….

Sorry Mark12,

I’m puzzled (or perhaps just too sozzled). I don’t have my copy of Ventura’s ANZAC Spitfires book to hand and will look it out tomorrow, but are you saying Laird talks about SAAF Spitfires in the book about ANZAC Spits?

South Africa has never been part of the ANZAc’s. :confused:

I!

Dave you are sozzled or need new glasses. 🙂

Well no clash here with Malcolm Laird’s Ventura Pubs Classic Warbirds Number 7 from New Zealand

Published in New Zealand.

Mark 🙂

South Africa has never been part of the ANZAc’s. :confused:

As MarkV has put it: Learning all the time 😀

In fact Malcolm Laird/Ventura has published quite a few things about Spitfires used by Israelis, Yanks, Poles, Frenchmen, and all sorts of people who have never been part of the ANZACs.

DaveH,

Well no clash here with Malcolm Laird’s Ventura Pubs Classic Warbirds Number 7 from New Zealand

He has a colour three view in Brown, Green and Azure, Temperate Land Scheme and with the same upper wing roundel as the MA793 ‘Evelyn’ scheme. He says in the text most aircraft with 40 Squadron were like this, however he shows a shot also, and says an exception, in Green/Grey Day Fighter Scheme.

In the nicest possible way I am always a bit wary of pilots and crew re-call on the finer details of specific colours, forty, fifty and sixty years after the event. There is a certain Mk IX Spitfire not a million miles from the Seattle area with a grey/green scheme but pale blue undersides. I was over-ruled on the Medium Sea Grey by a 2nd TAF Spitfire pilot who just happened to have been operational in Malta also. 😉

Mark

I am still having trouble posting images…anybody else?

Sorry Mark12,

I’m puzzled (or perhaps just too sozzled). I don’t have my copy of Ventura’s ANZAC Spitfires book to hand and will look it out tomorrow, but are you saying Laird talks about SAAF Spitfires in the book about ANZAC Spits?

South Africa has never been part of the ANZAc’s. :confused:

I agree with you about veteran’s memories after that length of time. I’ve interviewed a lot of them and yes sometimes their memories play tricks. I believe it was about 50 or so years later that Kerry (and I on one occasion) interviewed Bill but he was very, very precise about everything we asked. You know how some people are like that, remember everything? (not me, doh). Plus he had a great collection of photos and newspaper cuttings. He became a celebrity in the press in the Battle of France because he had the same surname as Cobber Kain, and was in the same squadron, so the press called him “Cobber’s Cousin”. In reality Bill was no relation. If you look at almost any 73 Sqn BofF photo and see a thin man in a long scarf, that’s Bill. He was as synonymous with his scarf as Private Pike!

Actually Bill was even interviewed for the extraordinary TVNZ series New Zealanders At War, made in 1995, which was a little after Kerry had interviewed him. In the end however they cut either most or all of his interview from the final edit. We were very angry then, but now as a film maker I understand reasons why things have to be cut. He was almost totally deaf and had been for decades. Bill was actually grounded eventually because of his deafness, which was service related! He’d been flying deaf for a while before they caught up with him if I recall right!

It is my understanding that the Maltese aircraft were an unusal case having been partly over-painted in the field.

Mark, there are two sides to this story:
1) no doubt some Maltese Spitfires were repainted in unusual colours under way (first shipment on board USS Wasp) or possibly on the island (due to shortage of everything there I doubt they would care about proper shades during post-repair painting);
but
2) IMHO most of the “unusual-Malta-camouflage” cases are in fact standard Temperate Land ones: many (most?) authors who write about Malta Spitfires evidently ignore this scheme, so when they come across a photo of a Spitfire with low contrast between upper camouflage colours (where they would expect the high-contrast desert scheme) they consider it a “non-standard repaint”.
I think there was something about this in that Spitfire V book that JDK has published 😉

I decided to have a look at the AMO’s. Appendix 1 of A664/42, in original form, has no reference to the ‘Temperate Land Scheme’ for day fighter based overseas, it refers only to the ‘Day Fighter Scheme’ or ‘Desert Scheme’. However, a subsequent amendment, issued on 8.10.42, reinstated the reference to ‘Temperate Land Scheme’ between the retained references to the other two schemes. So it was possible to make a choice withing AM rulings, confusing perhaps but this would explain the presence of both schemes.

Still learning.

DaveH,

Well no clash here with Malcolm Laird’s Ventura Pubs Classic Warbirds Number 7 from New Zealand

He has a colour three view in Brown, Green and Azure, Temperate Land Scheme and with the same upper wing roundel as the MA793 ‘Evelyn’ scheme. He says in the text most aircraft with 40 Squadron were like this, however he shows a shot also, and says an exception, in Green/Grey Day Fighter Scheme.

In the nicest possible way I am always a bit wary of pilots and crew re-call on the finer details of specific colours, forty, fifty and sixty years after the event. There is a certain Mk IX Spitfire not a million miles from the Seattle area with a grey/green scheme but pale blue undersides. I was over-ruled on the Medium Sea Grey by a 2nd TAF Spitfire pilot who just happened to have been operational in Malta also. 😉

Mark

I am still having trouble posting images…anybody else?

How intriguing.

There is quite a lot about the colours of 40 Squadron in the Ventura Publications Classic Warbirds No 7. A well respected series. They show a Mk V colour side view of D-K in Brown Green and Azure in Egypt in May 1944.

I think I need to read this in some depth.

Mark

Mark12,

I can wholeheartedly confirm that the colour of that profile is totally spot on. Dereck “Bill” Kain lived here in Cambridge. He has since sadly died. But, all the information in that book and other mentions of Bill in the Ventura series were researched not by Malcolm Laird the author, but by my very good friend Kerry Carlyle.

Kerry got to know Bill Kain and decided to get his RAF story recorded. On one occasion he invited me to accompany him for one of the interviews at Bill’s home.

I was present when the Spitfire photos he had were discussed. Kerry was very intrigued too by the scheme – he is an expert modeller and knew a lot more about Spitfire schemes than me. He decided as a gesture of thanks for Bill’s time he’d make Bill a model of his personal Spitfire, the one coded D-K. So he and Bill went into great depths talking about the colours and Bill was adament that the colours were right. He had a fantastic memory and I guess you’d remember what your own personal aircraft looked like after you’d flown it for many months. From memory he also had a photo of that plane on his mantlepiece, so he obviously cherished the memory of it.

Bill also gave Kerry much more detail that has not been published, especially about his time in No. 73 Sqn in the Battle of France with Cobber Kain. Kerry has given me permission to use it all on my Cambridge website, and I will add it eventually. Incidentally Kerry also was the one who told Bill about Sir Tim Wallis’s Hurricane that was the being restored, and its No. 73 Sqn history. Bill checked his logbooks and found he’d not flown it but he had been on the squadron at the same time and flown with it. In fact I’m, almost surte Bill also flew in the funeral flypast for Cobber alongside Tim’s Hurri. Kerry arranged, on Bill’s wishes, for the spadegrip from Bill’s own Hurricane that he’d been shot down in by the French(!) to go to Wanaka, and today the Hurricane flies with that genuine 73 Sqn spadegrip.

If you want to know more about the Spitfire I can contact Kerry and see what else he has about the scheme.

It is my understanding that the Maltese aircraft were an unusal case having been partly over-painted in the field.

I just pulled my copy of “The Royal Air Force of World War Two In Colour” off the shelf, and one thing I found intriguing was that the underwing roundels were C1 type, with the yellow border, on a photo dated 1943… Surely that’s quite unusual?

You have seen lots of Temperate Land aircraft with C-type roundels, but they were in black and white photos, so you weren’t aware 🙂
Temperate Land was the standard overseas scheme for fighters until mid-1944 according to all RAF regulations, North Africa being an exception to this rule. If you check the book Roger Freeman did of WW2 colour photos of RAF aircraft (the title escapes me) there are nice colour shots of Keith Park opening a new aerodrome in Malta, and his Spitfire is in Temperate Land with late style roundels.

How intriguing.

There is quite a lot about the colours of 40 Squadron in the Ventura Publications Classic Warbirds No 7. A well respected series. They show a Mk V colour side view of D-K in Brown Green and Azure in Egypt in May 1944.

I think I need to read this in some depth.

Voy Tech

The Royal Air Force of World War Two by Roger Freeman. I see the shot.

Mark

Presumably, Mark V means that he’s not seen them on this scheme instead of the upper wing B type roundels?

Yes – I am saying I have never seen the late (C type as we call them) roundels used in combination with the Dark Green/Dark Earth ‘Temperate Land Scheme’. I would expect fighters that were not UK based to be in the ‘Temperate Land Scheme’ but, as they were based abroad, with Dark Green replaced by Middle Stone.

You have seen lots of Temperate Land aircraft with C-type roundels, but they were in black and white photos, so you weren’t aware 🙂
Temperate Land was the standard overseas scheme for fighters until mid-1944 according to all RAF regulations, North Africa being an exception to this rule. If you check the book Roger Freeman did of WW2 colour photos of RAF aircraft (the title escapes me) there are nice colour shots of Keith Park opening a new aerodrome in Malta, and his Spitfire is in Temperate Land with late style roundels.