Some further googling reveals that trials on land were undertaken for an “Upkeep” attack on the Dortmund Ems canal (weapon unspun) but this is the only reference to the use of these weapons on terra firma – plus you’d imagine these would have taken place with “upkeep” rather than “Highball”

Regards,

Frank

Horrido!

Keep googling Frank! 😀 I used “618 squadron highball” and got the BB post (from May 2005) on page 2 of the hits. Also found some images of 618 squadron’s machines derelict in Australia from the Webshots album of a certain Australian forumite – Setter 🙂

Rob / Kansan

Dear Rob/Kansan,

Various documentaries including the CH4 one you mentioned have shown footage of “Highball” but the point I was making was that they have not shown the exact footage shown in “Mosquito Squadron” which depicted a Mossie dropping a “Highball” on land. All the documentary footage I have seen shows Highball dropped on the water.

Best Wishes,

Colin

Colin,
I’d better go and find a copy of “Mosquito Squadron” 😀

In the meantime – this looked interesting

http://www.narromineaviationmuseum.org.au/remembranceday.pdf

After a welcome by the Mayor, we played some wartime film footage on the museum auditorium’s new video projector system (which incidentally is available for hire for functions). Included were some rare scenes of 618 (Mosquito) Squadron RAF’s ‘Highball’ skipbombing trials in the UK prior to its posting to Narromine, the video coming to us via the RAF Museum and the efforts of Wal Rae during his recent trip to the UK.

R/K

The 1968 film “Mosquito Squadron” features some black-and-white archive footage of a Mosquito dropping a “Highball” bomb on land. I have watched the film many times and believe this footage to be genuine film from WW2 rather than a reconstruction. If this is so where did it come from and why has it never turned up in any documentaries about the war particularly the large number of documentaries about the “Dambusters”?

It did. The CH4 documentary “Secret History” about the Dam Busters touched on 618 Squadron, (Mosquitos), the Highball bomb and also showed some German archival footage of a bouncing bomb being dropped from a Focke-Wulf 190. (!)

It’s cropped up in a couple of other places too, but just can’t remember where.

Rob / Kansan

Ah, ok, I won’t bother putting it on my shopping list then. Thanks chaps.

Ou of interest – or desire for more custard in James’s terms – did the Canadian flying Lancaster appear in it?

I think it did. I think the serial number and codes were altered to make it look more generic (or less like the Mynarski Lancaster) but I think there were some shots of people getting in and out of it. There is an article about it somewhere. I thought the film was older than 1992 but that’s just my memory playing tricks again.

Rob / Kansan

Meanwhile, back at the roundels…

I think we can say it’s an early application of the low-viz national marking.

I think you can see a number of contemporary shots of Wellingtons and Hampdens with altered type A1 roundels since the yellow and white elements of the RAF roundel were just too distinctive on Bomber Command Camo.
I think in particular there are a number of pictures of KX-coded Wellingtons with the same range of alterations. IMHO it’s similar to the USAAF practice of greying-out the white star (and later star and bar) on B-24s because it stood out so much.

Rob / Kansan

O Canada, our home and native land…

Is quoting yourself a bad thing?

BTW Where else (if anywhere) on the Web does this picture occur? I couldn’t find it ater a short google yesterday.

Anyway. This may (or may not) add some interest to the “where” aspect.

I found a source for the photo – it’s Canadian.

Actually I bet Stormbird Phil could have told us that anyway. 😀 Are you OK mate??

The URL for the picture itself is:http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/equip/grfx/equip_gallery/historic_gallery/wallpaper/hurrican.jpg

The interesting bit is the copyright/fair use statement (below – formatted by me) which says

Information on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public non-commercial use and may be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission by the Department of National Defence. We ask only that:

If therefore this is a Canadian DND Official Picture, perhaps we may like to look at this in a new light, especially if we’re on the OTHER side of the Atlantic from where we started (and on the other side of the 49th Parallel from where I am now).

Bring on the Canucks! 😀

Rob / Kansan

Any chance they are the 5 Portuguese Hurri IIs used in Angels One Five? Seems like I read somewhere they had the wrong roundels to begin with and were changed halfway through filming. They looked pretty beat up and didn’t have cannons.

Dan

I must admit I thought that before I started looking.

However IIRC the ex-Portuguese in “Angels One-Five” still were Hurricane IIcs that had the little cannon blisters in the upper wings which are visible in the film. Also for what it’s worth “Angels One-Five” machines also wore some bad 56 Squadron codes (US-whatever) rather than code/roundel/letter – they also looked darker than this lot – two of them are looking very faded.

There isn’t enough detail on the wings to see whether or not it’s a Hurricane IIc, but it doesn’t look like it. There is enough ambiguity in the spinners that if you *want* to see it, you can see the spinnerless Canadian Hurricane XII, or you can see a shiny surface reflecting on a black spinner.

Coastline edge looks a bit steep to be just sand. Yes, there is some kind of wake in the lower right corner and what looks like some kind of darkened churned-up trail in the surrounding water in theat same area.

How about the weather? It seems to be very bright and the sun is very high. It doesn’t *feel* english. I take the point about the trees near the cliff edge.

Got me wondering about landscapes.

BTW Where else (if anywhere) on the Web does this picture occur? I couldn’t find it ater a short google yesterday.

Rob / Kansan