Patrick

All my fault – I’d forgotten to update my e-mail address in the Control Panel. All fixed now.

NiallC

Treasury files: The key body to which the Air Ministry had to go cap in hand was the Treasury Inter-Services Committee. Treasury records relating to the RAF during immediate pre-war and early wartime years are dotted around T161. If you perform a a search using the online catalogue within that class and using “Fighting Services” as a keyword you’ll get the full (and long) listing. These records are most useful on experimental programmes and funding for the Shadow Programme. As war approached Treasury influence seems to have declined somewhat (or at least its paper trail thins out).

Contract Ledgers: These are in SUPP 4. They cover not just airframes but also equipment, modifications and experimental work. In addition to listing and briefly describing each contract they frequently include some brief notes on the outcome (usually in wonderfully illegible writing) . You’ll appreciate that these are often somewhat confused where, for example, a contract might be placed for Sptifire Is, but later modified for some part of the order to built to a different modification state or even a different Mark or Marks.

The three bodies/committees to which I referred are:
1.The Air Council Committee on Supply (minutes/decisions/memoranda in AVIA 10. e.g 1939 ones in AVIA 10/161 through 10/164)
2. The Secretary of States Expansion Progress Meetings (AIR 6)
3. The elegantly-titled Meetings of the Directors of the Department of the Director General of Production

These are all useful for policy issues, but 1. is by far the most useful for hard detail. (Some of these bodies disappeared or were renamed when MAP was formed)

I think that from the Contract Ledgers you could quite easily arrive at a representative cost for airframe, engine, prop and armament. The difficult bit would be knowing which other bits of Embodiment Loan equipment were fitted and knowing whether a particular instrument or whatever was made by Cossor or British Thomson Houston etc. Each ledger is fundamentally indexed by contractor. And, of course you are still left with the issue of how to treat jigging and tooling costs which were always funded on a separate contract from the airframe.

Hope this helps

NiallC

I believe Archives NZ only holds personnel records pre 1920. Records after that date are still held by NZDF at Trentham. In the case of a deceased airman you can apply for a copy of his service record (i.e. you do not have to be next of kin etc as you do in the UK). For one-off requests the service is free.

The form you need is here:

http://www.nzdf.mil.nz/personnel-records/archive-enquiries.htm

In addition to name and rank you will need correct date of death and service number, in this case: 27 Aug 1944 and 412694 respectively.

Good luck

NiallC

This was Les Colquhoun, Supermarine test pilot, on 23 May 1950 in Attacker WA409. While doing high speed tests of airbrake effectiveness the starboard wing folded (only the outer 3 or 4 ft of an Attacker wing is hinged). Despite having no aileron control he managed to put the aircraft down with no further damage at (I think) South Marston. For this feat he was awarded the George Medal.

NiallC

Thank’s Geoff: The werknummer is clearly visible in the picture, as is the fact that it’s White 16 and the single colour RVD band would be consistent with JG1 (not 301).

So that just leaves us with the mystery 109 of JG 301 also landing at Manston that day as mentioned by Ray Jade. Not the least mystery being what an ircraft of JG 301 was doing anywhere near England at that point.

NiallC

These are two of a set of photos taken at RAE Farnborough in August 1944. There is a further set, taken at AFDU on 19th September, by which time the 300 litre drop tank had been removed. These are at the National Archives in Piece Ref. AIR 40/192.

As Melvyn has pointed out, as Crown Copyright material of over 50 years old they are now technically out of copyright.

Has anyone ever seen a picture of this aircraft prior to its being repainted in RAF markings i.e still carrying Black 16 and with the Red and Yellow RVD bands of JG301?

NiallC

Originally posted by Patrick:
how on earth did you come by this detail of information?

No short answer to that one I’m afraid Patrick. it’s a bit like asking how or when someone learned to cook. 🙂

For me,and I suspect most others on the forum, it comes from simply having an interest in a subject for many years. In my case, having just done mental arithmetic, about 30 years. After a while you begin to find areas that interest you more than others and so tend to learn (or absorb) more about them then others, you start buying books, learning not to trust most of them and (as many here have) then going on to do some primary research of your own. After a while there just becomes a pile of stuff that you just “know”. Or at least think you do.

Some pointers though:

Identifying variants of aircraft: Different variants of most aircraft show external variations that allow them to be identified in photos. There are people on this board who, I’ve no doubt could take an educated guess even as to which factory made a particular Spitfire just by the paint spraying technique and the typography of the serial number. Similarly with the Bf109, for example, there are clear differences in the design of the propeller spinner, engine cowling, windscreen and canopy that allow one to tell a 109E from a F or G. And lots of other tiny differences often visible in photos, such as changed access point locations, or even, clearly visible in one of your pictures, two small oval blisters on the port fuselage side to which, on tropical variants, a parasol type sunshade could be clipped. My wife has a name for this kind of “knowledge”.

Identifying Units: The RAF and the Luftwaffe (for all aircraft except fighters in the latter case) both used simple coding systems to identify units. In the RAF case a two letter code on on side of the fuselage roundel identifies the squadron, and an individual letter on the other side of the roundel identifies the aircraft within the squadron. (before someone points it out, there are MANY exceptions, including, unfortunately from your point of view, OTUs) So, for example, the rather distressed Hurricane being trailered away for repair has a squadron code where the first letter is M, the second not being visible. There was only one Hurricane squadron in the Middle East theatre using a code letter beginning with M, 260 Squadron, so it would be reasonable to identify the aircraft as one of theirs. There have been a few books on this subject over the years, but one that should still be readily available is Combat Codes, by Vic Flintham and Andrew Thomas, ISBN 1-84037-281-8.

For Luftwaffe Bombers, transport and recconaissance aircraft the 2 character code forward of the cross tells you the unit, the two characters aft of the code identify the individual aircraft and which Gruppe and Staffel it belonged to. There was a very large book by, I think, Barry Rosch (sp?)and listing all these, but there were so few Luftwaffe units operating in North Africa that you get to know them off by heart after a while.

Luftwaffe fighters are different, but there is still a system of numbers (and their colours) and the symbols such as the chevron and vertical bar visible in some of these pictures, that allow you tell something of the aircrafts origins. Many Luftwaffe fighter units painted unit badges on their aircraft (far more so than in the RAF). For example, the “ace of spades” painted on the engine cowlings of some of the Bf109s in your pictures is the unit badge of JG53.

Identifying specific aircraft: If it’s an RAF aircraft and the serial number is visible, you may be able to uncover the aircraft’s complete history. Air Britain has, over the years published a series of books providing thumbnail histories of RAF aircraft by serial number. They’re not infallible, but very useful. Some are now out of print. To acquire the whole set would be expensive, but many members of this forum will have them, so a posting here will probably get you want to know. Alternatively you can visit the Dept of Research and Information Service at RAF Museum Hendon where they hold microfilm copies of the (so-called) Aircraft Movement Cards. The Air Britain Series was largely (but not wholly) based on these. The cards are heavily laden with abbreviations that may initially confuse, but, again, there are many here who can help. Unfortunately they are usually next to useless for aircraft that went overseas, simply recording the date of allotment to an overseas command and then noting sometime later (usually at the point of a periodic census) that the aircraft has been Struck off Charge. The parallel, local records for what happened to the aircraft after it arrived in, say the Middle East, have not survived. If you want more detail your only real recourse is to look at the unit Operational Records Books at the National Archives.

With regard to Bomber OTUs, I’m sure there are others here with more knowledge than I (since it’s not really my area), but, as a suggestion, Air Britain published a book Royal Air Force Flying Training and Support Units by Ray Sturtivant and others in 1997. This gives a brief potted history of all of the OTUs (and a huge variety of other non-frontline units) and may be a good place to start. Aircraft losses with Bomber OTUs are also covered in one of the volumes of Bill Chorleys excellent Bomber Command Losses of WW2 series.

If you want more detail, my guess is that you’ll have to go to the Operations Record Book for the OTU in question in class AIR 29 at the National Archives. Another possible source of information might be the various histories of individual UK airfields that have been published – again I suspect others here will be more familiar with these than I am.

Hope this helps

NiallC

Originally posted by Alertken
but the human causes of why are obscure

Too true, and not just the human causes but also the complex interactions between a wide variety of factors: policy and doctrine; the types of aircraft required to execute that policy (about which the Air Staff frequently disagreed among themselves, let alone with their technical directorates); an industry that was (quite rightly) still focussed on turning a profit; rapid advances in aircraft performance and equipment; manpower and materials issues; the need to order and expand rapidly enough to placate press, public and Parliament without saddling the RAF with obsolete inventory when something better was always just round the corner; the changing international situation – not just Germany, but also the Ethiopian crisis and emergence of Japan; and many other factors.

It’s an incredibly complex picture, and, as you say, just one small change or different decision at an early stage (for example Hooker staying at RAE rather than going to Rolls) might have transformed the eventual outcome.

However as human beings we don’t much like this sort of stuff – it’s too complex, too hard to get a grip on. We prefer, and get, nice simple – and simplistic – explanations involving a single cause and a single effect, or a heroic designer/engineer who reads the tealeaves and single-handedly comes up with something war-winning or even total myths such as Ralph Sorleys’ solo invention-by-brainfart of the 8-gun fighter. The fact that these explanations/beliefs do not survive even momentary contact with the (very substantial) archival record hasn’t stopped them becoming “true”.

As for Portal I’ve never really thought about how historians have judged him. My own impression, having reviewed a lot of the primary material on, for example, the escort fighter issue, the use of fighters for ground attack and tank-busting and his inability to get Harris to do as he was ordered, is that Portal comes across as doctrinaire, unimaginative and altogether something of a lightweight. I’ve no doubt that Freeman – altogether more analytical, open minded and technically savvy – would have been a better choice. Whether it really was his divorce, as he certainly seems to have believed, that stood in his way, I doubt we will ever know.