RAF Hurricane Pic Battle of France May 1940. Important for SoW Devs?

[Crumpp]

Do you know who's writing is on the back? By that, Is it the guy who took the photo or is someone who bought the photo postwar and wrote down what they thought?

I ask because I have friends who have been scammed on photos before.

As regards the first photo, the lack of RAF markings on the fuselage,fin and wings make it unlikely that it flew from England in 1941/2.

Why is it unique to the Battle of France? AFAIK, Insignia were often time taken for souvenirs by folks on the ground.

And the countryside is very much French.

I agree but cannot be certain.

I'm sure that there is a lot that happened during the Battle of France that is not in the Text Books. And this applies to perhaps all historical periods. That is why photos such as these are so interesting.

There is an unbelievable amount of lost knowledge out there from the war.

You just have to be very careful and vet your sources well.

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

Aside from anything else, I think the chaps uniform is German, which since the Hurricane was not (I think, informed contradiction would be interesting) used on Rodeos and Circuses, pretty much nails it to the BoF (I always think of Norway as cold, but I suppose that's a possibility).

It's not in Norway. Afaik, only the 46sqn flew in Norway, from Bardufoss Air Station, and this is how they were marked:
http://www.rafweb.org/SqnMark046.htm
(The Hurri is about 1/3rd down on the page)

The Hurri in this pic has obviously another paint-scheme, so it cannot be from the 46sqn.

[MB_Avro_UK]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

Do you know who's writing is on the back? By that, Is it the guy who took the photo or is someone who bought the photo postwar and wrote down what they thought?

I ask because I have friends who have been scammed on photos before.



Why is it unique to the Battle of France? AFAIK, Insignia were often time taken for souvenirs by folks on the ground.



I agree but cannot be certain.



There is an unbelievable amount of lost knowledge out there from the war.

You just have to be very careful and vet your sources well.

It would not be possible to remove the national markings without removing the fabric of the fuselage and fin. They were painted on. Souvenir hunters had to cut away the fabric.

There has been no cutting in the first photo. Therefore, in my opinion the national markings for a reason as yet unkown were not applied.

And yes, it's possible that the writing on the rear could be faked. But I don't see that either of the photos themselves are faked. Unless of course someone has rebuilt two damaged Hurricanes recently


Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

[SlipBall]

If you look very closely at the first photo, you can just make out the circle of the former national marking, it appears a lighter color compared to the rest of the nearby area. It seems to me that it was painted over for what ever reason.

[Crumpp]

It would not be possible to remove the national markings without removing the fabric of the fuselage and fin.

The fabric is removed from the fuselage and the vertical stabilizer (fin?) is not exposed in the film. I can only make out the silhouette with no details on the v. stab.

It looks like it has 6 gun bays on the right wing too. How are you ruling out that they are not outboard gun bays?

[Crumpp]

It seems to me that it was painted over for what ever reason.
__________________

I do see the faint outline of the roundel. Not sure if it painted over or just the camera's interpretation of the light off the fabric doping.

[zodiac]

For everybody who's interested in the mysterious hurricane or the history of hurricanes in general, here is some more stuff to think about:

I've compared the photo with some paint schemes of Belgian Hurricanes from the period 1939-1940. The Belgian roundel was a lot smaller and was also situated a little more to the bottom of the fuselage in comparison with British Hurricanes. Still, the piece of canvas that was cut out seems a little bit small to carry a Belgian roundel. On the other hand, the roundel was the only thing that was on the Belgian fuselages, so that could explain the absence of squadron codes. Belgian Hurricanes only got a number painted on their rudder (that area isn't on the photo). All the Belgian Hurricanes I've seen did not have a flag painted on the tail, for as far as I see, this hurricane neither...

At first I also considered that this was an airplane that didn't got his national markings painted on yet when it was destroyed. But that seems not logical because there must have been something that those souvenir hunters found interesting enough to cut out...

There are also a lot of facts that make the possibility that this was Hurricane with Belgian Markings doubtfull. The main one is that the version the Belgian military bought (some 20 planes) were all from the early type with the two bladed propellor. It's clear that this can't be one of the original Belgian planes.

An interesting detail is that Belgium possesed at the beginning of the war some Hurricanes that they had captured from the British! In the months that preceded the German offensive Belgium tried very hard to maintain their neutrality. It happened that British Hurricanes ran out of fuel and landed on Belgian soil. Those British pilots where then captured and their planes joined Belgian regiments.
The situation of neutrality caused also some funny events. On day during the phoney war a British Hurricane ran out of fuel and landed on a long straight road, just a few hundred meters from the French border. Civilians informed the pilot that he was on Belgian soil and pushed the plane a few hundred meters down the road so it was back in France again. The plane was refueled and the pilot could rejoin his squadron.

As for me, the black and white undersurface of the Hurricane from the picture and his three-bladed prop, proofs that it was (at least originaly) a British plane. The Belgian undersurfaces were only one color.

It takes a lot of remarks to fit this picture into the story of the captured hurricanes... Still it is not impossible that a British hurricane with three propblades landed in Belgium and was transeferd to a Belgian airfield. It's possible that they didn't repaint the whole plane but just changed the national markings.

In each case, the chance that this plane saw combat if it was Belgian in may 40 is very small, because almost all the Belgian hurricanes were destroyed on the ground during the first hours of the war.

That's a big load of history that that photo would carry with it if it was indeed one of those captured hurricanes. I fear, that once again the truth maybe isn't that impressive and it's just a scrapped hurri without national markings on an field somewhere on the countryside

[TheGrunch]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

It looks like it has 6 gun bays on the right wing too. How are you ruling out that they are not outboard gun bays?

If I'm not mistaken, that's the landing light bay.

[MB_Avro_UK]

Originally Posted by zodiac

For everybody who's interested in the mysterious hurricane or the history of hurricanes in general, here is some more stuff to think about:

I've compared the photo with some paint schemes of Belgian Hurricanes from the period 1939-1940. The Belgian roundel was a lot smaller and was also situated a little more to the bottom of the fuselage in comparison with British Hurricanes. Still, the piece of canvas that was cut out seems a little bit small to carry a Belgian roundel. On the other hand, the roundel was the only thing that was on the Belgian fuselages, so that could explain the absence of squadron codes. Belgian Hurricanes only got a number painted on their rudder (that area isn't on the photo). All the Belgian Hurricanes I've seen did not have a flag painted on the tail, for as far as I see, this hurricane neither...

At first I also considered that this was an airplane that didn't got his national markings painted on yet when it was destroyed. But that seems not logical because there must have been something that those souvenir hunters found interesting enough to cut out...

There are also a lot of facts that make the possibility that this was Hurricane with Belgian Markings doubtfull. The main one is that the version the Belgian military bought (some 20 planes) were all from the early type with the two bladed propellor. It's clear that this can't be one of the original Belgian planes.

An interesting detail is that Belgium possesed at the beginning of the war some Hurricanes that they had captured from the British! In the months that preceded the German offensive Belgium tried very hard to maintain their neutrality. It happened that British Hurricanes ran out of fuel and landed on Belgian soil. Those British pilots where then captured and their planes joined Belgian regiments.
The situation of neutrality caused also some funny events. On day during the phoney war a British Hurricane ran out of fuel and landed on a long straight road, just a few hundred meters from the French border. Civilians informed the pilot that he was on Belgian soil and pushed the plane a few hundred meters down the road so it was back in France again. The plane was refueled and the pilot could rejoin his squadron.

As for me, the black and white undersurface of the Hurricane from the picture and his three-bladed prop, proofs that it was (at least originaly) a British plane. The Belgian undersurfaces were only one color.

It takes a lot of remarks to fit this picture into the story of the captured hurricanes... Still it is not impossible that a British hurricane with three propblades landed in Belgium and was transeferd to a Belgian airfield. It's possible that they didn't repaint the whole plane but just changed the national markings.

In each case, the chance that this plane saw combat if it was Belgian in may 40 is very small, because almost all the Belgian hurricanes were destroyed on the ground during the first hours of the war.

That's a big load of history that that photo would carry with it if it was indeed one of those captured hurricanes. I fear, that once again the truth maybe isn't that impressive and it's just a scrapped hurri without national markings on an field somewhere on the countryside

Good post. We may never know the exact facts. Or maybe we will??

Best Regards
MB_Avro.

[tools4fools]

Was digging around a bit; for the props I searched around for Spitfires as well, and found this comment:

What is beyond doubt is that Rotol props with wooden blades were over Dunkirk but fitted to Hurricanes with RX5/2 props with Weybridge DR.291 blades or possibly RX5/5 props with Jablo RA.4067 blades.

and

As we all know, the Hurricane was intially fitted with a Watts 2-bladed prop with a small pointed spinner. This was followed by a De Havilland 2-position prop, followed shortly thereafter with a De Hsavilland costant speed 'bracket' prop, both of which had the shorter but rather pointed spinner. About March 1940 the Rotol RX5/2 was introduced on the Hurricane with the rather longer but stubby looking spinner.

taken from here:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=87258

So it seems that there were 3 blade wooden props around, would explain the broken prop blades (rather than bent). Images of a Ju88 with wooden broken props I have seen looked same, clean straight cuts when broken.

The black/white underpaint seems to indicate France:
http://www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/id47.htm
Scroll down to the Hurricane just past the He111 pattern.

If you do a google search you find more images with black/bright under pants:
http://www.nvva.nl/renekrul/catalogs...ne.l.--kt-.jpg
Some earlies had precious little markings:
http://homepages.tesco.net/~mrogers/...story-pg3.html
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/unitedki...ne-mk-i-01.jpg
However hard to say what happened to the markings.

Early Hurricanes lacked armour or self-sealing tanks. They used "ring and bead" gunsights, with the ring being mounted above the instrument panel and the bead mounted on a post above the engine cowling. The standard GM2 reflector gunsight was introduced in mid-1939, although many Hurricanes retained the "bead".

Looks like the Hurri in the pics is one of those that retained the bead.

4 Wing guns, outer bays are for lights.
Gun camera seem to have been mounted outside, near the guns themselves, while closer inside at wing roots there was oil tank indeed:
http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace...ne-cutaway.jpg
This might be a gun cam mount, albeit in other wing:
http://mm04.nasaimages.org/MediaMana...sa&profileid=9
Bad quality, but shows something round on left wing which does not exist on right wing. Maybe really connected with oil tank as seems only one oil tank in the plane, not in both wings.

Plenty of rough field in front of airplane, guess it came down wheels up and then turned around just before it got to a stop.

Two of these fellow have seemingly same strip at uniform collar, and they sure look German to me:
http://crbolch.com/hurricanedown2.jpg
As do the 3 fellows at bottom of engine in this pic:
http://crbolch.com/do17&crew.jpg


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