You don’t live in the UK my friend- new laws going through Parliament aim to make it an offence to own, manufacture, sell or buy replica weapons, and this may include aircraft weapons!

John

I am in no doubt that it will include aircraft weapons, whether replicas or deactivated. Building those replica Brownings will be illegal under the new law, as would selling them if you ever had to part with your collection. Write to your MP, write to ministers, protest.

That US scrapyard pic does look like a Tallboy. What do they say about it on WIX? But could it be one of their Amazon bombs? I’m not sure what they look like.

I am interested in the previous comment about the sight of bomber streams raising the morale of occupie people. I am sure this is correct and the sight of the Allied bombers must have reassured the occupied peoples that the war was still being carried to the Nazis. I seem to recall reading an account in Flypast about 20 years ago by someone who was held as a slave labourer. One day late in the war his working party walked past the remains of a crashed B24. The slave labourer saw the advanced design and materials of the bomber (in comparison to other aircraft he had seen) and realised that the Nazis could no longer compete with Allied productivity and design. He was reassured that the Axis were doomed. I also remember a basic military maxim I was once taught: carry the fight to the enemy.

I’m interested to see what he finds out about his grandfather’s service in the RFC. My grandfather was also an “ack-emma” but I know less than I should about the role of groundcrews in WW1.

I remember this as a very unusual, quite disturbing drama with excellent acting. Subjects like “battle shock” and “PTSD” did not seem to be understood or talked about until quite recently.

The Whirlwind saw some use as an escort fighter when it had the longest range of any RAF figher then available. I’m not sure how successful it was in that role. There are users of this forum who could give informed opinion.

I would be very interested in seeing a rebuilt Whirlwind but I think that so few remains still exist that it would be much more realistic to consider the building of a replica, such as the Boulton-Paul museum’s excellent Defiant replica. Unless the USA example miraculously turns up in a Pensacola scrapyard.