I have just rediscovered a book in my cupboard that I vaguely recal buying some years ago very cheap in a sale. I haven’t really looked at it at all till now, and I have discovered it is pretty good.
It is called Aces past by Christopher Shores and Patrick Bunce (Salamander Books, 1991).
It is really a paper version of this forum. It is a large book in height and width, with little text, and just loads and loads of beautiful coloured photos of almost every flying warbird that was extant in the UK at the time, plus several in the USA and a smattering of wartime b&W pictures.
It is one of these wartime pictures that has me puzzled. On page 61 there’s a Spitfire Mk IXe of 40 Squadron, SAAF, with the name ‘Evelyn’ painted below its canopy. It also wears a triangle officer’s pennant (for the life of me I can’t recall the rank, I think the triangle one is Sqn Ldr isn’t it??)
It also has a nose-art that looks like a squadron logo on the nose.
The thing that has me puzzled is its code letters. The squadron code WR is normal, but after the roundel are two letters, RR, denoting the individual aircraft code. One of the R’s is above the other, in supercript then subscript form.
Was this the personal markings of the 40 Sqn, SAAF. Commanding Officer? Perhaps he had a double-banger surname? Or did the SAAF have a different system of marking the aircraft’s individual code? I’ve not seen this before.
By: Mark12 - 26th January 2005 at 10:53
General Rogers in the 1970’s with MA793 painted as PT672. He is flanked by Larry Barnett on the right and Alan Lurie on the left, both then reserve officers in the SAAF.
Lt.Col. Rogers in WWII
Mark
By: Mark12 - 26th January 2005 at 10:33
I have just rediscovered a book in my cupboard that I vaguely recal buying some years ago very cheap in a sale. I haven’t really looked at it at all till now, and I have discovered it is pretty good.
It is called Aces past by Christopher Shores and Patrick Bunce (Salamander Books, 1991).
It is really a paper version of this forum. It is a large book in height and width, with little text, and just loads and loads of beautiful coloured photos of almost every flying warbird that was extant in the UK at the time, plus several in the USA and a smattering of wartime b&W pictures.
It is one of these wartime pictures that has me puzzled. On page 61 there’s a Spitfire Mk IXe of 40 Squadron, SAAF, with the name ‘Evelyn’ painted below its canopy. It also wears a triangle officer’s pennant (for the life of me I can’t recall the rank, I think the triangle one is Sqn Ldr isn’t it??)
It also has a nose-art that looks like a squadron logo on the nose.
The thing that has me puzzled is its code letters. The squadron code WR is normal, but after the roundel are two letters, RR, denoting the individual aircraft code. One of the R’s is above the other, in supercript then subscript form.
Was this the personal markings of the 40 Sqn, SAAF. Commanding Officer? Perhaps he had a double-banger surname? Or did the SAAF have a different system of marking the aircraft’s individual code? I’ve not seen this before.
Dave,
MA793 painted as ‘PT672’ General Roger’s, then chief of the SAAF, Spitfire in WWII.
Refer to Scrap yard thread re S A Metals.
Evelyn – Larry Barnett’s wife I think
Mark
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January 26, 2005 at 10:07 am