Can’t believe nobody (Mark 12 in particular) mentioned the Spitfire! Especially so, as TZ138 (the ski-equipped Spitfire) is a survivor.

🙂 I am saving the images for the book!

Skip the images, do you know what happened to the skis? They might come in handy if global warming continues to reverse-advance at this pace.

I have viewed gun camera footage recently of an individual with this name –

Two individuals

Combat Film K1416 F/O Szymankiewicz 317 20/7/42 Spitfire Ground Targets

F/O Teofil Szymankiewicz, service no. P-0744

Combat Film K2958 P/O Szymankiewicz 316 21/11/42 Spitfire Ground Targets, Holland

P/O Jerzy Szymankiewicz, P-1626, who survived the war

Very interesting thread.
I seem to remember that 43 Sqn used to have a ‘fighting c0ck’ very much alive and pecking when I visited RAF Leuchars some years ago.
I notice that the ‘boxer c0ck’ motif was only applied on Hunters. Can anyone here tell what is the origin of this drawing? Is it some sort of a cartoon character?
There’s a picture (scan1) of a similar bird, with ‘POLAND’ shoulder flash, that used to be linked (by Polish researchers) with Polish pilots of 43 Sqn (there were several during WW2, including a very famous one). However, a recently unearthed photo (scan2) shows the same emblem on the wall at RAF Hemswell in June 1943. The other emblems on that wall were those applied on Wellingtons of 300 (Polish) Squadron so presumably the ‘boxer c0ck’ was, too.

The last thing anybody at that time, except the terminally stupid, wanted was the continuation of war.

I understand that what you present is the Western viewpoint but you might want to notice that according to this definition there were dozens of millions of terminally stupid people between Elbe and the Pacific. For many of them the stupidity was literally terminal, either by a bullet in the neck or by freezing and starvation in places like Vorkuta.

A very interesting thread, I really learned a lot.

I think you should read the posts properly no one has suggesting nuking Russia to save Poland.

Read posts 13 and 16.

Malcolm, I think Graham is right that no one has suggested nuking Russia to save Poland, and I am positive no one has done that in posts 13 and 16. I can’t speak for CADman (post 13), but I don’t think he mentioned Poland. In my post (16) I never suggested nuking anything to save anything. I personally think it would have been silly had the Americans nuked Moscow in 1945, but I would never go on say that anybody who considered this as an opion at the time was a silly person. In post 16 I just tried to suggest that perhaps you should use less arrogant terms when referring to people who did not think what you assume they should have, especially when they were in a situation somewhat less comfortable than you are now. I then tried to explain that in more plain terms in post 23, but it seems I failed. Sorry, my fault, being a foreigner I cannot express myself properly in English.

I’d say that by late 1943/early 1944 individual exhausts were pretty much standard on Mk Vs and the fishtail ones were rare on them.
If I understand correctly, the Vokes filter was not a ‘tropical’ filter (I think filtering air doesn’t help with temperature) it was to prevent dust entering the engine. It is usually associated with tropicalised Spitfires because they happened to be the first ones used from unprepared fields in dusty conditions.

Stalin didn’t have a causus belli to attack the western allies or advance further than he did. Had the US, Britain or others been stupid enough to attack Russia … they would have discovered the efficacy of the Russian war machine

IIRC Poland in 1939, Finland in 1939 or the Baltic states in 1940 had not been ‘stupid enough to attack Russia’ but Stalin somehow managed to invade them without any casus belli.