WW II colour photos

The Mosquito factory is part of a series:

BUILDING MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT AT THE DE HAVILLAND FACTORY IN HATFIELD, HERTFORDSHIRE, 1943. © IWM (TR 930)IWM Non Commercial Licence

BUILDING MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT AT THE DE HAVILLAND FACTORY IN HATFIELD, HERTFORDSHIRE, 1943. © IWM (TR 925)IWM Non Commercial Licence

BUILDING MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT AT THE DE HAVILLAND FACTORY IN HATFIELD, HERTFORDSHIRE, 1943. © IWM (TR 919)IWM Non Commercial Licence

BUILDING MOSQUITO AIRCRAFT AT THE DE HAVILLAND FACTORY IN HATFIELD, 1943. © IWM (TR 1426)IWM Non Commercial Licence

One of the down sides of websites blogs and social media is a tendancy to re-use poor quality material which is then recycled onto another site, and so on.
The original of the Tomahawk is in the IWM Collection together with 1373 other WW2 colour images, but they don’t seem to surface on facebook or blogs in their original form, and it’s probably for the better if most of them stay on the IWM collections pages.

THE DESERT AIR FORCE, 1943. © IWM (TR 824)IWM Non Commercial Licence

Although some of my favourite colour images lurk in other collections:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/CorexDoc/MAG/Media/TR2/7/b/4/c/NYC35591.jpg

I did ponder on the use of the Charles Brown pics on the Etienne site . Flight International gave away A4 prints as the Flight colour feature weekly and many were Charles Brown images.Perhaps thats where they were scanned from.

Apparently “lifted” from another web site according to this post at another site –

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/message/1430591961/These+photos+were+%27lifted%27……….

Lifted! Lifted indeed from the Etienne Flickr site.

Yes I seem to remember spending a lot of money on some colour 16mm stock in the US from which technicians were able to craft together some 12 or more frames to make one colour WWII side view of a surviving Spitfire.

Not cheap.

Without requesting or crediting it appeared on said Flickr site having been scanned from Aeroplane Monthly.

Double Standard.:(

Mark

Some of the photos are available from the RAF museum http://www.rafmuseumphotos.com/charles-brown-colour-photographs/photo/8012.html

The woman in the Spitfire is Lettice Curtis Brian c d

Picture 3 on page 1, picture 7 on page 2 and 5 on page 3 are were taken at Duxford. there is also a shot of the Mosquito production line at Hatfield.

The one of the P40 being serviced looks like a painting?

The woman pilot is Lettice Curtis.

Those images with which I am familiar have been published as colour images. For instance, the Dutch Sea Fury picture was published, in colour, several times in Flight in the late 1940s. The oddities we attribute to modern ‘colourisation’ may have more to do with old-style colour printing.

Apparently “lifted” from another web site according to this post at another site –

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/message/1430591961/These+photos+were+%27lifted%27……….

I wonder whether some of the pictures are colorised from B&W originals – parts of the pictures seem strangely blotchy, or in some cases apparently out of focus areas seem inconsistent with the rest of the picture.

I’ve seen one or two before, but most are new to me too.
At least three are post war – the target tug pics (is that an Athena or a Balliol I see behind the Tempest?) and the Dutch Sea Fury – in that case, it’s a David Brown VAK1 or VAK1A behind! – and I’m sure there are more (eg the woman in the Spitfire), but they’re all still interesting. Some unusual types too – the AW Ensign, I think, and the Vengeances for starters.

I love the briefing on the back of the Auster… but am a bit alarmed by the coffin lid access to the Boston cockpit!

Adrian