Dave HomewoodGreat thread, it is wonderful to hear another genuine Battle of Britian Hurricane is getting airborne.
Five kills too, the Buchons better watch out at future airshows. Who was/were the pilot/s that made the kills? Any still alive?
Dave HomewoodI’m not trying to take anything away from this marvellous restoration and project, but having looked at the link that Cees posted, I was a little surprised that the building itself looks nowhere near finished.
It seems there’s a lot of work to be done on the structure, including the lining inside and some external work. I was jsut wondering, what was the rush to get the bomber into the new building when it’s only half built?
The builders will now be building around the priceless aircraft where anything can happen. Is there even a sprinkler system in there yet?
Dave HomewoodAnother Halifax in Canada? Where has this this one come from? So there are now four Halifaxes on the surface then? RAFM, YAM, Trenton and Nanton? Not bad for an extinct type a few years back.
Are there plans for any more to be raised? When you see planes like the recent He111 and Ju88 in Norway, and the B17 in Canada coming to the surface, and combine that with the work achieved on this Halifax, there’s hope that anything can be done with lakebed aircraft. What will we see raised next I wonder.
Dave HomewoodDave Homewood,
I just re-read your post and you allude to the “fatcat” businessmen that held sway in the US…Put yourself back in our shoes in 1940…Here they go again, those Europeans starting yet another world war!!! after millions died in the first one!! why would any American feel compelled to send their son over to be killed? Don’t look at past events with the sensibilities of todays world. The US was the 17th ranked Army in the world in 1939!! Portugal had a larger Army!!! we were quite content and peaceful. Most Americans could have cared less about another European war.
Take a look at Europe today!! they are essentially arguing that they don’t need to get involved in the Middle East..its America’s war, why send our sons to die for a problem the US has? Its the same mind-set.
For one thing, I really don’t think most British people, or French (or New Zealanders! And many other nations), wanted to send their sons off to war either – they’d lost a lot more in the First World War than the USA ever did. But when you’ve got somone like Hitler threatening to invade and destroy the world you know, there’s not a lot of choice, is there?
I am fully aware that the average US citizen didn’t want to get involved. I’m not saying the average Joe citizen was at fault in any way. But while neutrality is good for the citizens, its great for business. Many of the top US moguls of 1930’s and 1940’s business in the USA were Nazi sympathisers – Ford and Rockefeller had huge interests in Nazi Germany. Hitler knew how to make millions, he was a financial genius – but at what cost. To the outside world in the 1930’s he looked like a great role model and a great trading partner. As we know, many ultra-rich businessmen just see dollar signs in every opportunity, rather than consequences.
Would there even have been a Battle of France and the Lowlands, or a Battle of Britain, without the oil and money supplied to the Germans by these US businessmen? Hard to say, they may have sourced it elsewhere, but they had the greatest amount of support within the USA. It was when the supply of US oil was halted that Hitler had to look east to Russia.
As for today’s wars, if I told you what I think of that, it would have this thread pulled by a moderator. Go Europe!
Dave HomewoodI just wish that they would be able to roll her out into the sunshine for one photo op day!
And an engine run. 🙂 Would be nice though. Oh what the heck, and a short flight to. Haha.
Is the new building it has gone into the same place it’ll be on permanent display? Or is this just a new restoration hangar?
Great photos, the hard work gone into this restoration has truly paid off – and it has advanced so rapidly. When this is finished, has the team any new projects to move on to? Someone please find them another Halifax, and this time they should get it airborne.
Dave HomewoodCheers Gareth. I was most pleased with the Kiwi one, I love that nose art.
And I like the Scotsman too but I’m not sure if I did him in the right colours – can’t be too far wrong I expect. 30 Sqn had some great artwork on their Avengers.
I have been setting up a website recently for the No. 30 Sqn and S.U. Association. The chap who runs the association kindly sent me some recent newsletters which are great, lots of stories and memories from airmen. I offered to set up a wesite for them, and he’s very happy for me to do this. I might use a few colourised photos on that I think. The site is still under construction but I hope to have it all tickety-boo soon.
Dave HomewoodI agree that the USA would have eventually stepped into the war if the Pearl Harbor attack hadn’t happened, because of their financial interests in the Pacific. I just thought it would be an interesting scenario to debate.
After all, they were neutral in the first two years of the Second World War and many US companies were creaming it big selling to both sides, especially in oil. George W. Bush’s grandfather Preston Bush was, I’m told, apparently one who supplied oil to the Germans to keep their war machine going – hmmm!
I know Roosevelt was simply waiting for an excuse to get into the war on the Allied side, despite pressure from the fatcat business men, many of whom supported Hitler. If Japan had gone the way I suggested, they’d have had little choice but to join in the war, and I agree the Allies still would have won.
Please do not feel that my suggested scenario or comments are meant to belittle in any way the efforts of the fine American men and women who fought for and saved many countries, including New Zealand, from the evil Japanese empire. It is amazing how much respect there still is among Kiwi Pacific veterans I’ve talked to for the US forces of World War Two.
Dave HomewoodImagine this scenario – if the Japanese had attacked Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Guinea and all the other places where they eventually invaded in 1941-1942, and kept coming southwards – BUT had not attacked the US at all and not declared hostilities with the USA, would the Yanks have gotten involved? Or would they have continued to sit neutrally on the fence and happily see the western Pacific and Asia become a Japanese empire?
There’s an interesting twist.
Dave HomewoodI do know that the Japanese had extensive plans to keep heading south, hoping to take Fiji and then New Zealand. Fiji would have been a doddle to capture for them.
They would have met some resistance in New Zealand, but not much – the bulk of our army was fighting in the Middle East and Europe, we had next to no navy and the RNZAF was only just becoming modernised with Hudsons and P40’s by the time of the Battle of Midway. Plus most of the RNZAF’s combat experienced aircrews and groundcrews were on the opposite side of the world.
There was a NZ Home Guard but at that stage this was still very ill-equipped, nothing like the money of the British HG was spent here in NZ. At its peak the NZ HG had just 100,000 men and had a coastline to defend that’s bigger than that of the USA’s. The population was just over 1 million, not enough people to sustain a good defence of a country as big as NZ.
The Japs had their own New Zealand money printed, and had all sorts of contingencies planned for when they got here, not if. Once they’d landed and got a foothold, there’d have been little stopping them because good old Britain had already decided to sacrifice New Zealand if this had occurred. ie, they would not immediately come to our aid, but instead wait a few years till they had the strength to attack later, like with France. Nice after all NZ had done for them since 1939, but oh well.
In the meantime the Japs would have used NZ to open a whole new front against Australia, and that country would have been eventually attacked from the north via New Guinea, etc, and the east from NZ (if the Yank cavalry hadn’t arrived by then to drive them out).
I do see what you’re saying Rob but historians and strategists here have said that had it not been for the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal halting the southwards flow of the Jap, New Zealand would definately been an easy target and would have provided them with a huge base with lots of resources. Thank god it never happened – can you imagine the mess that would have created – I’m not even sure if the US and British would have been able to drive them out of NZ by 1945 if they’d established a good foothold here in ’42. Their war machine against ours would have decimated the Kiwi population, and they’d have become slaves to the Japanese war machine just like had happened through Asia. No doubt the Germans would have come in and set up U-boat bases here too. Oooh, very nasty. It doesn’t bear thinking about really.
Dave HomewoodApparently this same Lancaster flew under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There is a Robert Taylor sketch of the event, but I wondered if anyone has seen an actual photo of this feat?
Dave HomewoodI wondered that myself Daz – and they must have eaten a heck of a lot of condensed milk too!
Dave HomewoodWhat an amazing story. There is definately a feature film in this. There is so much written about Allies escaping from German camps but you seldom come across anything of the other side doing the same thing, even if it were unsuccessful in the end.
I wonder if the recaptured prisoners were punished for the escape. At least they were not executed like many of those recaptured in the ‘other’ Great Escape.
Dave HomewoodNice shot of NH799 Daz. Who is flying it there? Was it taken at Wanaka or while it was still in the UK?
Does anyone know when it’ll be flying again? The last I saw of this plane was Ardmore airshow last year – at least I think this was NH799 – there was a photo of NH799 taped to it.
Lets not forget Black 6, though she no longer flies
Dave HomewoodDaz, I ‘think’ Sir Tim Wallis’s tragic Mk XIV did.
His other two Spitfires certainly carry/ied their original schemes – TB863 still with the collection, and AR614. Also his Hurricane P3351 does too, in its Battle of France scheme (though it’s restored in its later guise of MkII).
Here in NZ also many Harvards and Tiger Moths carry their original wartime and postwar schemes. And Sir Tim’s Fox Moth is in its original colours when it was used to transport the future King around.
Dave HomewoodThanks Mark, Mike and Ian.
Nice to see the Mustang is in the colour scheme of an RNZAF pilot. The Alpine Fighter Collection’s ex-P51D wore that same scheme for a while, and flew at a WoW like it when the pilot’s widow attended. Might have been WoW96 I think.
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