Well I finally got this book to go with my other Air V.C. books as I thought the Art profiles would add nicely to the other publications , only to discover the book is riddled with errors .
The most glaring was the narrative on Flt Lt Bill Newton that lists wrong aircraft, serials , codes and misidentifies photo’s, Bill Newton flew his 16 Mar 43 mission in A28-7 “H” (which took 4 months to repair after this mission) , not his personalised aircraft A28-15 “Q” which he only actually flew on missions twice because of repairs and servicing and he flew A28-3 “C” on his 18 Mar 43 mission when he was shot down.
The RAAF operated 22 DB-7B Boston III’s diverted from a British order to the Dutch East Indies Navy, this was part on an order for 80 Boston’s for the Dutch East Indies Navy , 32 DB-7B’s as a rush delivery diverted from the British order and 48 purpose build DB-7C’s which never actually got to the NEI before it fell to the Japanese and were diverted to Russia.
The “DU” Sqn code applied to 22 Sqn Boston’s was applied in Jul 43 , 4 months after Newton was shot down, prior to Jul 43 the Sqn’s aircraft ran single letter codes, the aircraft DU-Y he is credited with flying on the 18 Mar 43 mission was actually A28-18 which didn’t join the Sqn till well after Bill Newton was shot down .
The photo of a supposed DB-7C is actually a USAAF A-20G, as I have said the artwork is misidentified and to top it off the photo of the formation of RAAF Boston’s actually shows A28-7 DU-H the machine Newton actually flew on the 16 Mar mission 6 months later and behind it is Newton’s personalise Aircraft A28-15 DU-Q.
Arthur Scarf’s Blenheim has for years been misidentified as PT-F, but research that went into the Corgi model of this aircraft showed that the “PT” aircraft were Blenheim Fighters with 27 Sqn and 62 Sqn bombers were FX, the two units combined latter in the Malaya campaign because of losses well after Scarf was shot down.
Hugh Malcolm’s Bisley (Blenheim V) may have had a black code letter not the normal red letter , a photo album recently found of 18 Sqn ops in North Africa and Italy show the initial new Bisley’s (Blenheim V) the Sqn took to North Africa had Black codes and latter replacement Bisley’s after the 04 Dec raid when Malcolm and most of the Sqn’s aircraft were lost from other units and depots had the more common red codes (and some grey ones too).
The artwork of John Cruickshank’s Catalina shows it before its upgrade when it had the later search radar radome fitted above the cockpit and is missing the heat xfer exhaust’s to heat the wing leading edge both of which were fitted for the 17 Jul mission.
Overall I was disappointed in the book with the amount of errors coming from a dedicated aviation publisher.
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