VoyTechHello Voytech – I have just spent a few happy hours trawling through my archives and found the 132 (City of Bombay) squadrons ORB for June 1944 – this being one squadron who only recorded individual letters in the form 541 at that time. However, I also found their forms 540/541 for early January 1944 whereby they listed the full serial number, but no letter – presumably a change of clerk later in the year caused the change??!! 🙂
Sounds familiar. 317 Sqn used serials in their ORB until early 1944, then switching to codes only. On the other hand, 308 Sqn used just blank “Spitfire” entries, no code or serial until early 1944, when they changed to serials.
Also the forms 540/541 for 602 squadron for the same period which, as you stated for other years, does contain the full serial number. (I had been assisting with research on withdrawal cover on 7 Jan ’44 for “Forts and Liberators (60 per box) returning from Germany” for my friend Christian Dieppedalle of Orleans). Needless to say MJ586 doesn’t feature in my piece!! 🙂 602 still retained their Lion Rampant when they landed in France on both 15 June (B.2) and 25 June (B.11) and on. 🙂 Your piece “This was 3 months before 602 returned from Skeabrae, so at the time they didn’t have their Mk IXs yet, let alone any badges on them to be deleted.” Whilst they were at Skeabrae their IX’s were operated by 453 squadron still displaying the Lion Rampant and LO codes, this was until 8 March 1944 “125 Wing ORB – 20 Mk. IX Spits ex 504 Squadron arrived for the use of 453 squadron, as 132 and 602 are expected back within the next day or two. By the evening, the squadron letters allotted, “FU”, were painted on, and the kites were all ready for taking over” – however, when they were inspected the following day by the Duke of Gloucester they paraded in front of their ex-602 Lion Rampant equipped Spitfire IX’s 🙂 – cheers – Allan
Do you mean that throughout their stay at Skeabrae 453 Sqn kept their Spitfires with the badges unchanged until they returned? That’s what I would call real brotherhood-in-arms!
VoyTechI also know that 453 (RAAF) squadron shows changes on AM78’s as taking place on 3 November 1943, when they were at Skeabrae, when the actual change over from 341 (Alsace) squadron took place at Perranporth on 15 October. So the AM 78’s are not a 100% accurate source of information – but, until something better (!!??) comes along, they are an essential part of the jigsaw!! 🙂
Yes, it was quite usual that Movement Cards were filled in with delay, but the 15 June 1944 case is unusual in that it runs accross a number of different squadrons. You might be right about the clerk explanation, or perhaps 15 June is the date when somebody from on high got infuriated at the lack of order in documentation. This may have been the same guy who ordered 602 lions painted out 😀
also, not all 541’s show serial numbers, some squadrons just recorded code letters I believe 🙁
My notes show that 602 Sqn ORB quoted serials in 1942-43 and 1945, so I presume it did so in 1944, too.
VoyTechWith regard to Clostermanns MJ586 – according to M&S this was only issued to 602 squadron on 15 June 1944, coming from 84 GSU (which is strange as 602 was part of 125 Wing/83 Group, so logically should have come from 83 Group Support Unit?) and it was passed to 127 (RCAF) Wing HQ on 17 August. Most of the MJ batch in that number range were shipped out to Casablanca and onto the MTO. – cheers – Allan
Allan, most Spitfire LF.IXs of 131 (Polish) Wing used in the summer 1944 have the same date of allocation – 15 June – in their Movement Cards, and this is clearly incorrect compared to pilot’s log books and ORBs. It seems to me that for some reason all aircraft movements of the first half of June 1944 were put in papers as happening on 15 June (was some sort of inventory done by/on that date?).
Perhaps somebody here is able to pop in to the National Archives (ex-PRO) at Kew and check 602 Sqn ORB (Form 541) to find out when MJ586 first appeared in the paperwork?
VoyTechYep I’ll contribute, though it’s a pain getting hold of UK stamps out here in the Mother Country.
Tell me about it!
Snapper, is there possibly another way that I could contribute?
At 10 years of age, if he writes letters, then he probably reads, too (not a common thing among today’s kids), so perhaps we should get him a decent book about Reginald Mitchell rather than just a model?
I’m sure both Spitfires mentioned here by their serials are not out of reach for the sit-in-Spit, are they?
VoyTechStieglitz, something from your neighbourhood: photos taken at Melsbroek in late 1944. All from the personal archive of F/Lt Jimmy Taylor, no. 16 Squadron.
VoyTechI photocopied this from an old magazine, probably Aviation News or Scale Aircraft Modelling (1970ish) who ran an article on these decoys.
VoyTechSimple German decoy used at the outbreak of war
VoyTechAMO unit badge reinstatement. I haven’t read this Order but if they are being re-instated it confirms that they were ordered to be deleted. 🙂
Post no. 54 earlier in the same thread:
A.1246/43 of 2 December 1943 said:
[I]1. Unit badges or other special markings must not be carried on aircraft or other RAF property
This was 3 months before 602 returned from Skeabrae, so at the time they didn’t have their Mk IXs yet, let alone any badges on them to be deleted.
Photo via IPMS Canada.
The photo adds nice flavour to the earlier argument about cleaning (or not) aircraft surfaces before painting anything on…
VoyTechYou can see the nose of this Spitfire in much nicer finish at my favourite thread (the one about small regular white areas on Spitfires), posted by Mark 12. There’s also quite a bit about MK210 in Ventura’s “American Spitfires”.
VoyTechA thought – as the invasion stripes were black and white, could the possible ‘painting out’ of the 602 Sqdn badge simply have been done at the same time by the same hand with the same brush, out of convenience?
Logical and has already been suggested.
Mark12, with your experience in aircraft painting etc., what size brush would you suggest for painting out the badge? And how long it would take to apply D-Day stripes with brush of this size?
And if
the most logical explanation is that pre D-Day, a directive was given to “remove or paint out any ‘personal’ markings that could directly be attributable to a squadron or unit”.
then why the September 1944 AMO that reinstated unit badges on aircraft referred to that December 1943 regulation, and not the hypothetical “pre D-Day directive”?
VoyTechBattle of Britain DVD.
Spring Chicken to Sh!tehawk in one easy lesson!
Ditto
For the first time I was able to read the names of the Polish pilots chalked on the blackboard in the “Royal Air Force is not a flying circus…” scene. Interesting reading, and interesting that a Spitfire undergoes servicing outside the window during the scene. Anyone knows which one this is? 😉
VoyTechMaple, are your badges also incribed in latin rather than cyryllic characters?
As far as I remember the Soviets were never very keen to commemorate the Lend Lease, as they preferred to be the ones who saved the bad capitalists from the even worse nazis and not the ones who needed assistance from said capitalists. So I would rather think this was something made for foreign tourists, or perhaps for foreign businessmen on the occasion of some trade deal.
The combination of P-40, Hampden, Spitfire, Soviet Navy and the Air Force fits nicely with the Northern Fleet as its Air Arm used all three types.
VoyTechVoyTech,
On that photo of Closterman’s Spitfire taken side on, how do you explain the red of the roundels and finflash being so dark if the camera filter has eliminated the red of the lion? It simply makes no sense to me, sorry. I am convinced that the unit crest markings were removed physically with white paint.
Dave, your reasoning is quite right.
I have withdrawn my filter theory as soon as I learned the lion was positively red
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark12
OK we have four possibilities.
Originally Posted by VoyTech
Well, if the lion was red, we don’t.
Surprising as it may seem, I really didn’t know the colour of the lion until this thread, and my reasoning was that if it was blue, it could disappear when a yellow/red-enhancing filter was used.
And it still makes no sense to me that the crest markings were removed (as opposed to “not applied”), because:
602 Sqn was up north at Skeabrae until March, equipped with non-Mk IX Spitfires there. In March it returned down south and re-equipped with Mk IXs. So your theory is that they applied their full badges in March 1944 (or later), and then (in March 1944 or later) removed them because of an Air Ministry Order dated December 1943? Why would they apply them at all? Wouldn’t it be wise to wait until the order was cancelled (which did happen in September). Or, if they chose to apply their badges ignoring the order, what would make them change this? If it was some high brass who specifically said “Hey, you there in no. 602, get rid of your emblems, it’s forbidden”, then I still doubt this particular nit-picking high brass would content himself with anything short of removing the entire emblem inculding its white shield. (Dave, please remember, I never referred, or am going to refer to what Germans knew or didn’t know about badges, shield shapes etc. What matters is the opinion of the RAF commanders who issued the non-badge orders and controlled if these were carried out. And they were in position to know these details.)
What we have here, are two different Spitfire IXs (or could it be one aircraft at two moments in time?) of 602 photographed in June/July 1944 with what appears to be a blank (but certainly no snow-white) shield. A mystery to me, that’s what it is. Now, is it possible that all three photos show Pierre Clostermann’s Spitfire(s)? And is it possible that (hypothesis 4bis) he himself had a different motif applied on his personal aircraft? I don’t have his book to check if he ever mentioned anything like that.
I know a case where a 316 (Polish) Squadron Hurricane carried the prescribed squadron badge base (white triangle), but the motif in it was not the official badge of no. 316, being rather the badge of the pilot’s pre-war Polish squadron.
VoyTechCan’t you get closer, SwissM?
What is the meaning of the “L” (learning to drive?) sign in that spot?
VoyTechIn view of the above discussion, the title of the remake shoud probably be:
Battle of Britain – the Hay-day of the RAF
It goes without saying which part is mine: Repeat, please! Good Aft-Er-Nun! i tak dalej.
Sign In
