R.I.P

On a minor note – he was also the first CO of No.10 Squadron, Indian Air Force

Nah, this was clearly a Mk IIB – with a Merlin XX.    The  12 gun wings were so obvious even the Police Academy  KNEW it was a IIB !!  (totally impressed by the UP Police by the way.. they knew their Hurricane variants)

Also note that upto 26 Jan 1950, it would have been part of the “Royal Indian Air Force” – INdia while being independent was still a dominion.  After that date, india went full republic and dropped the “Royal”

Bonzo, Apologies for not replying earlier – I lost my forum credentials and took some time to get back here.  

Definitely would like to see some of the artifacts if possible – please do post. 

Dang.. is that “Spitfire Singh” a Hard cover? I need one ! because they never released a hard cover edition in India.

Yes its a cracking read by Mike Edwards. Harjinder is a bit of a legend in the IAF – the senior most tech officer who was there right from Day 1 the IAF was started. He is acknowledged as a brilliant engineer who can fix and repair anything. He gave the Brits a tough time when in service, and laid the foundations of the IAF for its post independence growth. In his later part of the career, he butted heads with other senior officers who were his friends and peers in the early days. He was one of the first to write his memoirs – and it was published in a now out of print book “Birth of an Air Force” and he pulled no punches in it. Mike Edwards has ofcourse more sources and more information since that early memoir was published and he has been able to add more colour and detail to his life.

A few more points about him:
– To Harjinder goes the credit of not just the Spitfire NH631, but also restoring the Hurricane and the Wapiti . He laid the seeds of the ‘IAF Museum’ in Kanpur even before it was officially opened in Delhi in 1966.
– Being the Tech wizard that he was, putting together the Spitfire, Hurricane was no big deal for him.
– He built a home grown AOP aircraft Kanpur 1 and Kanpur 2, and it was him who led India into the HS-748 deal and started the HS-748 assembly as an IAF operation (not HAL!) Building the Avro in India
– There is a bit of a dispute if he was ‘solely responsible’ for the restoration of the B-24 Liberators – because the some sources attribute it to a team from HAL. Link

I second Mark12 – its a cracking read and gives a rare glimpse into the IAF of the 40s/50s
———————

I am not done yet – I also have the second book mentioned here – Matt Poole’s RAF Liberators over Burma. Since this deals with the RAF in India and Liberators – Recently I wrote about Liz Dent’s book about her Dad’s photographs and how one forum member (John Aeroclub)’s chance encounter with her resulted in the book being published – it is to Matt’s credit that this memoir by Bill Kirkness, languishing with the family in search of a publisher finally saw the day light and is in our hands in form of this lovely book. Bill Kirkness (With matt’s dilligent research) writes about his operational tour – sortie by sortie – with tension buidling up as he gets close to his 30 sortie tour.. Great perspective from the eyes of an WO/AG. And a whole bunch of rare unpublished photographs of Kirkness’s tour in India – with a generous sprinkling of aircraft photos.

You cant go wrong if your interests spans the RAF in the Indian Subcontinent/ Burma front.

As per “Weekly state of Operational Type Aircraft – ACSEA at 7th September 1944” shows a total of 487 + 51 (PR) Spitfires with Squadrons, Training Units, Depots etc in ACSEA/India. Another 59 Spitfires with 222 Group (Ceylon)

So atleast an year prior to the war – 597 Spitfires existed in the Asian Theatre.

Surely there are similary surveys for other theatres of war that were taken right around September 1945?

So this arrived in mail:

It is clear by the author’s introduction that if not for John Aeroclub’s First post on this thread being curious about a bunch of photos – this book would never have happened.

Take a bow – John, for the big part you played in getting this book to our desks..

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