Pakistani Tempests

India supply Pakistan with Tempests !!! – think you might need to bone up on your modern history ….

Why not refer to the ‘Typhoon and Tempest Story’ which would tell you that Pakistan received 35 Tempest IIs from the RAF at Partition, bought 24 refurbished from Hawker, and another 21 purchased from surplus RAF stocks …. total 80. India’s acquisition of Tempests followed a similar pattern but totalled 233.

Firstname instead of initials

And yes, there was at least on other in addition to ‘AL’ …. Wg Cdr G.W.Northcott of 126 Wing had ‘JEFF’ marked on his Spit IX and XIV aircraft in 1945/5.

Red Herring

The ‘199’ on the fin is misleading. The aircraft is one of only 2 Hispano Aviacion HA-1110-K1L trainers that were built in 1953. They had Hispano-Suiza HS 12Z 17 engines – which accounts for the different nose profile frrom the later Merlin-engined variants which acquired the Buchon name.

KNL

Kit North-Lewis was a regular Army officer who transferred to the RAF and flew Blenheims with 13 Sqn and Mustangs with 26 Sqn, in which he became a Flight commander. In January 1944 he was due to take over 231 sqn but it was disbanded so he converted to Typhoons, flying with 175 Sqn as a supernummary Flt Lt, 182 Sqn as a Flt Cdr, CO 181 sqn, before becoming Wg Cdr Ops 124 Wing in August 1944. One of the squadrons of this wing was 247 Sqn which was commanded by Basil Stapleton from August to December 1944. His Typhoons when with with 124 Wing were MN922, MP189, RB208 and SW530 (not flown on ops). After being shot down, captured and receiving the surrender of his captors (when he was shot down during the Rhine crossings, 24 March 1945) he was taken off ops (he had flown an extremely long tour)and posted to 83 GSU where his Tempest was SN214. He stayed in the RAF, later commanding Tempest and Vampire units, 7 Sqn with Valiants and RAF stations Akrotiri and Wyton. He retired from the RAF in 1971 as an Air Commodore. He is alive and well and lives in West sussex.

There is a photo of RB208 after its crash landing on 24 March 1945 in ‘2nd TAF Vol.3’ page461.

Proctors et al

Kind sole? … Gulls, Petrels … sounds a bit fishy to me.

… and the Typhoon …

Further to my last – the aircraft can most easily be identified as a Typhoon (as opposed to a Tempest) by the distinctive ‘D’ door shape, ie. the smaller of the two undercarriage doors. The port ‘D’ door can be seen beneath the wing and bears a section of the black and white Typhoon identity stripes. As these were introduced in late 1942/early 1943 it is almost certain that the Typhoon is ‘ZH-G’ EJ924 which was his chosen mount from February to July 1943 (when his tour with 266 Squadron finished).

Have I missed something here? Some just-adequately rendered profiles full of errors (eg the Typhoon has the wrong exhausts, incorrect serial number, yellow LE stripes far too wide, no underwing stripes on the front view), parroting others inaccurate research (the green/grey Whirlwind should have black stripes between the white ones and the wing tips were black; the markings were for Operation ‘Starkey’, more than a year after ‘Dieppe’ as quoted). The ‘projects’ are more interesting but many (especially the postwar ones) feature inappropriate schemes.

So what exactly are these illustrations offering us? Trouble is, ‘profiles’ seem to acquire a quite unjustified authority – much like the ‘published word’. Oh dear I don’t seem to be able to find the right ‘smiley’….