ianwoodward9Thanks, lazy8, for the information. I’m not familiar with the book you mention but, when I came across the photo in a magazine, I looked around on-line and found several photos of Aeroposta’s Ju52s, including one of LV-BAB being loaded on to, or lowered down from, a ship, presumably being delivered. Apparently, Germany (and particularly Lufthansa) provided a lot of back-up for Aeroposta.
On-line, it said that the last two of their five Ju52s arrived much later – LV-AAJ from Brazil in 1942 and LV-AAN from Bolivia in 1943. Elsewhere on-line, however, I found a photo of the latter (poorish quality but the registration was clear) captioned as being taken at the end of 1940.
Meanwhile, here’s LV-BAB in the air – but not flying:
ianwoodward9This photo is not about Lisbon in WWII but the thread has ‘extended’ the topic a bit in the last year. This photograph comes from 1939 and shows Quilmes Airport, Buenos Aires. The caption referred to the five Ju52s, saying three of them belonged to Aeroposta Argentina (presumably LV-AAB, LV-BAB and LV-CAB) and two to Lufthansa. I can only make out one (top left) that is clearly a Lufthansa machine but be that as it may. Another seems to have a registration ending in “ZZ” – any thoughts?
ianwoodward9I’m not seeking to fall out with anyone here. Not only do I know little on this subject but aviation is not my primary interest. I saw the thread, it brought to mind something I remember from the past, I found it and posted it. The subsequent interchange in this thread prompted me to look further on-line and I found the two ‘extracts’ from the SAAF Spitfire book and posted them as well. That’s about it from my point of view – and I certainly do not regard anything I posted here as unbalanced.
You had no need to establish your credentials, by the way. It was clear enough to me, even without those being stated, that you know this subject well. I acknowledge that without reservation.
For myself, I have been: a consultant to the BBC (credited on screen and in the publicity material); credited in a PBS-TV programme; and acknowledged for contributions to several “respected, published books”. I have had many an article published and I wrote and edited a specialist newsletter for 28 years. None of it was to do with aircraft or aviation but something very different – nevertheless, involving what I might call ‘transferable’ skills and a similar mindset. I fully understand the points you are making about the reliability of “accepted” sources and I do not have a habit of accepting something in print as necessarily true or accurate. I know well that a much-repeated error can become accepted wisdom.
Your ‘colleague’ Steven McLean twice referred to 261 Squadron in connection with ES127. Perhaps you could ask him the source of his assertion. Specifically, what is the source of the information that [1] 261 had a two-seat Spitfire and [2] ES127 was on 261’s strength?
ianwoodward9Look, I know very little about this subject. For example, I’m not quite sure how, in 1947, journalists at AEROPLANE SPOTTER went about their trade, what sources were available to them nor how they checked what was put in print. On the whole, I have found the publication pretty reliable but it did make errors, of course. One, as I recall, was a photo caption which went, “Two Spitfires in formation with a Hurricane which is not shown here” or something like that.
The misattribution of a photograph in THE TELEGRAPH (or elsewhere) could be the result of all sorts of causes but, to the best of my knowledge, should not (and certainly not necessarily) be put down to the journalist who wrote the article. Sometimes, media outlets don’t even publish a photo of the right person, let alone get the photo credit right, if they include the photo credit at all, that is. As for ‘tosh’ in a recent aviation magazine, I have no idea how that would occur; it’s bad enough that the journalist in a specialist publication would get it wrong; how does it get past the editor? I don’t know.
The one element in that 70-year-old report that you dispute is the reference to “261 Squadron”. I have little doubt that AEROPLANE SPOTTER included that information in good faith but that doesn’t make it correct. Obviously, the author of “The Spitfire in SAAF Service”, writing more recently and with access to a wider range of sources, concluded that the two-seater version of ES127 was not flown by 4 Squadron SAAF and that the aircraft went into service with 261 Squadron.
Whether it seems likely or even logical or not, the author made two statements that you can presumably check, namely that 261 Squadron had a two-seat Spitfire and that ES127 was on the strength of 261 Squadron.
I am not asserting that ES127 served with 261 Squadron. I simply do not know but two publications (one rather old and another more recent) have made that assertion. Rather than simply dismiss it out of hand, why not look into it?
ianwoodward9In answer to your question, Mark12, I;m afraid I have no idea.
The South African website says that 261 Squadron had a two-seater Spitfire and that ES127 was allocated to that squadron. You may know – are these two statements correct?
The photo shows ES127 as a two-seater, everyone seems to accept that the photo was taken in Scicily and none of the South African personnel there at the time can recall a two-seater Spitfire on their charge. Adding two and two together doesn’t always come to four but it’s good starting point, surely?
AEROPLANE SPOTTER may not be a definitive source but why would they say “261 Squadron”? There was no need to mention the squadron number at all if they didn’t know it.
ianwoodward9“Just an enthusiast magazine”?
ianwoodward9The same website ( http://www.saairforce.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3306 ) has another photo of it but the same explanation:
ianwoodward9As I say, I have no specialist knowledge. I just found this on-line, however. Is it the right explanation? Between SAAF service and 261 Squadron service?
ianwoodward9Is it possible that this was a very senior officer whose initials were used rather than the code for 261 Squadron?
I have very little knowledge about this subject, so I’m just casting around for an explanation that might fit the statements in that report and be congruent with the evidence in the photograph. The ‘pilot’ must have been pretty senior to engage in ‘liaison’ work, pretty senior to have a ‘batman’ (‘bagman’ might a better word in this case, but the same would apply) and pretty senior to be able to arrange for such a modification to be undertaken. And I do seem to recall that individual initials were applied to aircraft back then, instead of squadron codes, but I can’t remember where I got that notion. Am I totally off-beam here?
ianwoodward9I hope I didn’t mislead anyone. Post #21 was about a report of a ‘field’ modification, rather than a ‘field report’. It came with the same photograph as in Post #23 but, being on newsprint, in inferior quality. My printer-scanner-copier is in for ‘repair’ at the moment, so this is a camera shot of said 1947 report:
ianwoodward9Thank you, rovinge. For me, that is interesting as I wasn’t aware that the extension of the Lisbon service to Gibraltar was flown by the BOAC/KLM DC-3s.
ianwoodward9Imperial Airways ‘stamp’ from 1937 – not an advertisement as such but certainly advertising:
ianwoodward9I know that this thread is about extant two-seat Spitfires but it stirred a memory of something I had read in the distant past and, at last, I found it.
It is a 1947 report of a ‘field’ modification of a ‘tropicalised’ Spitfire Vc, in 1944 at Catania, Sicily. The pilot carried out liaison work and took his batman with him when performing these duties. A compartment was fitted in front of the regular cockpit and behind the engine. This compartment had a windscreen but no cover. The aircraft in question was ES127 of 261 Squadron (code: KJ-I), described as “almost certainly …. the first two-seat Spitfire”.
The name of the pilot is not given (nor that of the batman, for that matter).
ianwoodward9At the end of March, I posted images of an advertising brochure for the Tu-114, an aircraft I recall as being a turboprop that stood high on the ground, but was fast and had a very long range.
By coincidence, I saw an article in the latest issue of TIME (10 April cover date) which compared the Saudi Crown Prince’s visit to the USA with that of Kruschev almost 60 years ago. It said, in passing, “Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev arrived in September 1959 in a Tupolev 114 with cracks in the fuselage to knock around the country for 13 days“.
I don’t recall ever reading about cracks in the Tu-114’s fuselage before. Can someone please enlighten me?
ianwoodward9You’re right, there are certainly examples of great artwork around, sometimes by artists who are collectable in their own right. I mentioned Abram Games in an earlier post. Here is another example.
In the mid-1950s, Pan Am was seeking to take air travel, hitherto largely the preserve of the rich and famous, to a broader market. To this end, their advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, proposed that Pan Am sponsor a world tour by the artist Norman Rockwell, who had provided many covers for THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, images well-known to, and well-regarded by, middle America.
Rockwell’s tour took place in September and October 1955, the adverts appearing the following year, but it was not a meeting of minds. Rockwell wanted to show the “Peoples of the World” and the way they lived their lives, whereas Pan Am wanted middle-class Americans to be shown potential vacation spots abroad.
They say every picture tells a story and Rockwell demonstrates this notion in many of his works. He depicted people in situations such that you could sense their hopes and fears. The ‘story’ was often portrayed with humour and understanding, sometimes idealised, sometimes with social comment. Even his portraits conveyed the character of the sitter.
The Pan Am advert below is one such. It features uniformed Pan Am pilot John Mattis, a veteran of 500 Atlantic crossings, it says. Clear-eyed and with a steady gaze , he looks straight at the reader – serious but dependable, trustworthy, rugged even, an impression confirmed by the text. But what of the boy, toting his Pan Am cabin bag and looking up at the airline captain, as though at a poster? What’s in his mind, I wonder?
Sign In
