Current Affairs

Heroic struggles against overwhelming odds

The Few Gary Eason Flight Artworks sm
"The Few" © Gary Eason: available in the Battle of Britain gallery on the Flight Artworks website

Colchester, 8 April 2020

I was wondering how to start this article when Hylton Murray-Philipson came up with the answer. 

Mr Murray-Philipson spent 12 days in Leicester Royal Infirmary and five days in intensive care with coronavirus disease. Speaking to the BBC as he was finally discharged, he compared the NHS staff to "the Spitfire pilots of 1940".

Any of us with even a passing interest in historic aviation will be well aware that 2020 marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, characterised by "The Few" Spitfire and Hurricane pilots fighting a heroic struggle against apparently overwhelming odds for months on end. 

That conflict would have been my own main focus for the next few months, but events have rather overtaken us all. 

It's striking how the crisis engulfing the country - indeed the world - has left people struggling for comparisons, and typically falling back on WWII in terms of the scale of this, its life-threatening nature, and the indiscriminate impact on ordinary people. 

We're living through probably the most extraordinary times most of us have ever known, and obviously this has had a huge impact on businesses of all sorts. 

I am extremely lucky - and well aware that I am - in that I work from a home studio anyway, mostly on my own, and lead a rather lockdown sort of life in that respect, so I can carry on doing so (health permitting) without too much interruption. 

The print companies who supply my customers however have been impacted to a greater or lesser extent. Some of them have lost a huge amount of regular trade from larger clients. So I am keen to support them where I can by continuing to send them orders.

I'm acutely conscious for close family reasons that many people have less money at the moment, and possibly uncertain futures. But an ideal pastime if you're stuck at home is to browse through this blog and the Flight Artworks website. They're not just pretty pictures: most of the stories they tell involve specific people, aircraft and events, and contain lots of interesting information – and of course they're all free to read.

NEW IMAGES

It might appear that I have not produced much new work recently but I have been steadily busy behind the scenes. 

Anyone belonging to the RAF Memorial Flight (BBMF) official club would have been getting their yearbook through the post shortly. Instead, publication has been postponed because of the pandemic. 

Having created a couple of new pictures for it and seen advance copies of the articles they illustrate, I know it'll be well worth waiting for. But I'm continuing to respect their embargo so I haven't published the pictures myself yet. 

Recent licensing deals include two of my pictures for the end pages in a forthcoming book about a certain well-known aircraft type. I am reliably told by someone who's read a proof copy that the book is "completely brilliant". 

Another features an aerial melée from November 1940 (after the official end of the Battle of Britain) which involved some very famous names. I had not known about it until I began researching it for the picture I've been making for a client, but it's a fascinating story. Still, that's for a forthcoming blog article.

For now: stay home, keep safe - and if you are one of the frontline NHS staff or other key workers who are putting yourself in harm's way to look after us and keep things going: thank you, on behalf of all of us. 

  • I always like getting emails from people but now especially, if anyone reading this is stuck in on their own and wants to drop me a line, I'd be delighted to hear from you on [email protected].

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

As well as commercial assignments I also do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


Courage of the paratroopers who jumped into D-Day

Dakota skyfall crop Gary Eason
D-Day Paratroop Dakotas © Gary Eason

Colchester, 28 May 2019

Have you ever jumped out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft?

I have. Back in 1988, a younger, fitter and more adventurous version of me made a sponsored parachute jump to raise money for the mental health charity Mind. This was at Ipswich Parachute Centre, based at the former Ipswich Airport in Suffolk.

In those days tandem jumps, where you descend strapped to an experienced parachutist, had only recently been invented - although I didn't hear about them until years later. The standard way of doing it as a novice was the static line jump, where you are attached to the aircraft on a long webbing strop that pulls open the parachute for you as you drop away.

This required a full day's training in the basics, including jumping off a shoulder high platform and learning to keep your knees and feet together, bend your legs and roll as you hit the ground. Most of the tuition was about what to do if things went wrong, such as you jumped out and did not separate from the aircraft as intended, but instead found yourself dangling in the slipstream, or if your main 'chute did not open – or did, but was tangled up.  

The whole experience was so off-putting that the friend I had gone with bottled out overnight and did not turn up for the actual jump the next day.

TUMBLED

Climbing to 2,000ft in the Britten-Norman Islander jump plane allowed plenty of time for the nerves to build up. It was made clear in a good-natured but firm way that if we hesitated for too long with our feet dangling over the threshold we'd be 'helped' on our way. 

The instructor's comments on my first descent are recorded in my jump log, which I came across earlier while looking up something else:

"Weak exit. Good spread and recovery. No count heard."

Parachute jump log book Gary Eason

You were supposed to count for a few seconds then check that the parachute had opened satisfactorily. As I recall I basically tumbled out and, with an utterly sickening sense of falling rapidly from a great height - not a natural thing to do - flailed and, well, yelled for my mum.

But once I had been hoicked the right way up by the blossoming canopy, it was the most marvellous experience. The weather that August morning afforded a fine view across the fields to the River Orwell and the elegant sweep of the A14 bridge. But all too soon I had to concentrate on landing safely within the airfield perimeter.

We had been taught to look off as we approached the ground because the effect of looking down is that it suddenly appears to hurtle up at you: you are inclined to panic, try to get away – and end up breaking a limb.

Whump! And I had fallen to earth, a bit winded but grinning from ear to ear. I still count it as probably the most frightening thing I have done - and also so exhilarating that I went straight back up and did it again.

You may well be thinking, what has any of that to do with this aerial combat blog?

Well, I am in Colchester, not far from the garrison home of 16 Air Assault Brigade: the British Army's rapid reaction force, which is held ready to spearhead military or, these days, civilian aid operations anywhere in the world at a moment's notice.

They are the inheritors of the brave tradition that, 75 years ago next month, saw the paratroopers go into action first on D-Day, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France that began the end of the Second World War.

GLIDERS

We think of it as primarily a massive seaborne attack onto the Normandy beaches of course but, as shown in my picture, the invasion began with C-47 Dakota aircraft dropping paratroopers in the early hours of 6 June 1944 from the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions and the British 6th Airborne Division (which included a Canadian parachute battalion).

Many of those involved in the airborne operations that night, including the very first of the British troops to land, went in aboard gliders towed by Dakota, Halifax, Short Stirling and Albemarle  tugs. I intend to write more about that aspect in a separate piece.

But imagine what it must have been like to be one of those thousands of paratroopers - laden with their own weight again in parachute packs, arms and other equipment - jumping into the dark with flak shells and bullets ripping through the air around them, sometimes above or below the intended delivery altitude, and facing the prospect of landing on stakes or minefields or areas that had been deliberately flooded. 

As an aside, you will see that I was trained to use a "kicker spring deployed reserve" chute. This is an emergency backup, carried on your chest, to be used if the main backpack chute has a problem. First you would release the main, so that you are freefalling unencumbered. Then you pull the handle that deploys the reserve and a spring-loaded plate shoots out a small drogue chute that pulls out the actual reserve. This makes its deployment very fast.

In WWII, British paratroops did not have reserves. The thinking was that the space and weight could be better used for other things, that static lines were inherently reliable, and that being dropped at only a few hundred feet did not allow time to switch anyway. 

'OVERWHELMING'

Once they left the camaraderie of the jump plane the men were very much on their own until and unless they were able to rejoin their fellow troops on the ground, behind enemy lines and facing potential hostility with every step.

On D-Day heavy cloud – and fog in the west – equipment shortcomings and navigational errors resulted in large numbers of men being delivered to the wrong locations - sometimes scattered many miles from where they were supposed to be. Crucially this included the early 'pathfinder' teams who were supposed to mark the landing zones for the following main force of the invaders, with predictable results. That said, the majority were delivered to where they were supposed to be. 

By a quirk of fate one of the first men in the main British paratroop force to jump, at 0040, was the actor Richard Todd, probably best known to readers of this blog for his portrayal of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC, in The Dam Busters film. At the time he was an officer in the 7th (Light Infantry) Parachute Battalion.

He recalled that night in an interview in the Daily Telegraph newspaper marking his 90th birthday, a few months before he died in 2009.

"As I parachuted down, the noise became more overwhelming – machine-guns, shells and mortars," he said.

"It was impossible to tell who anyone was. I could see shapes but didn't know if they were the opposition."

By luck, he came down on the track that led to his battalion rendezvous point.

"So I had no trouble finding it. Other chaps were dropped miles away, in areas inundated by Germans. Some landed in the flooded marshes and drowned."

In spite of all the problems, the courage, initiative and tenacity of those involved meant they succeeded in taking out many key German defences in advance of the beach landings and thus made a major contribution to the success of the overall invasion. 

-

If you would like to read more about the overlapping technologies that enabled the aircraft to get to their drop zones there is an interesting article on the American Smithsonian museum website

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

As well as commercial assignments I also do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


Topsy turvy new Flight Artworks picture published

 

Spitfire PS915 Clive Rowley inverted Gary Eason 1000
Spitfire PR XIX PS915 inverted


Colchester, 24 April 2018

It is always a bit of a strange feeling when pictures that you finished some months previously under embargo are finally published and suddenly now in the public eye.

I was delighted to find a copy of the latest RAF Memorial Flight Yearbook waiting for me on my return from a wonderful week in the remote Mani peninsula in the Greek Peloponnese - there'll be more photos from there on the photography side of my website shortly.

I was asked to make two pictures for the 2018 Yearbook. One is a fairly straightforward depiction of a Battle of Britain Spitfire - except that, of course, every picture has a story to tell.

In this case it's about "nine lives" Al Deere, the New Zealand fighter pilot who, one way or another, by his own account should have lost his life in multiple scrapes.

I was called on to portray the Spitfire he named "Kiwi III" during one of those sudden lulls in a hair-raising aerial combat maelstrom, off the North Foreland of Kent in the summer of 1940.

IN THE CAN

The reason for it, I was told last October, was that one of the BBMF's Spitfires, venerable P7350, would be going in for a major servicing and would emerge in a new colour scheme: Al Deere’s 54 Squadron Battle of Britain Spitfire Mk1 R6981, which carried the codes KL-B.

 

Al Deere Spitfire Kiwi III North Foreland Gary Eason
Al Deere in Kiwi III

As usual, they would not have any photos of the new scheme until the Yearbook had appeared, which is where I came in. And of course - no surprise - there were no actual photos of the original aircraft. Got that T-shirt.

By a brilliant bit of happenstance, from my point of view, I had shot some photographs of that precise location at about the right altitude a few months earlier - rather bizarrely (in the circumstances) as my wife and I were returning from ... Deere's home country, New Zealand.

Background sorted, with the addition of some weather to suit the reports from that day, I screwed the rivets and painted the codes onto his Spitfire - along with my best guess at what his Kiwi logo might have been like. You can find the finished version here on the Flight Artworks website

The next request was, technically, much more interesting. It was to illustrate a very personal anecdote by the memorial flight's sometime commanding officer, now historian and publications editor, Squadron Leader (Rtd) Clive Rowley MBE, about the time he was displaying Spitfire PR XIX PS915 in the Isle of Man and the undercarriage jammed up.

Cutting it short: the techies advised that he would have to fly straight and level upside down to get it to deploy.

I learnt more than I thought I would ever need to know about Spitfire landing gear in making this one. For example: those little loops sticking out from the main "oleo" legs? I had never really noticed them before - but those are where the locking pins go that hold the gear up when retracted. And thereby hangs the whole story.

OLEO LOADING

Gear deployment? It's a close thing but the port wheel travels first, then the starboard - so it needed to be shown "legs akimbo". I hope I got the differential about right.

And artistic licence, frankly, on what the oleos look like when not under load but upside down and therefore under their own, unaccustomed, gravity loading.

Short of getting someone to do it again so we can watch, I daresay no-one knows what this actually looks like so my picture might be unique in that regard.

In other details: at the time, PS915 was wearing the 152 Squadron South East Asia Command (SEAC) colouring of UM-G, which had the squadron’s leaping black panther on the fuselage.

I love those five-bladed props, by the way. 

Well, probably not a best seller as a picture but a fascinating one to work on. Here is my finished version.

Enjoy the Yearbook: it's a terrific read.

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

As well as commercial assignments I also do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


New challenge: two-seat Spitfires and a Hispano Buchon

Spitfire TR 9 and Buchon Gary Eason
Spitfire TR9s and Buchon fighter affiliation experience

Colchester, 27 February 2018

This one turned my usual work upside down.

The normal Flight Artworks brief is to use the 'time travel' button on my custom-built Nikon camera (cough) to create high-resolution colour pictures of aircraft – mostly from WWII, when there was a lot of aerial combat and very few photographs.

A client who has been lucky enough to have made several flights in various warbirds, including three Spitfires, asks if I can recreate the "untoppable experience" of a fighter affiliation trip with another two-seat Spitfire and a Hispano Buchon in Messerschmitt Bf109 markings.

He has some photographs from the day, taken on the ground and in the air. In which case, I wonder, what does he want me to do?

When I see them I get the point. It was a dull day with low cloud, and possibly rain – and it is very hard to convey the overall experience when you're in the back of one of the Spitfires. He is looking for something that reminds him of the overall sensations.

The essential set-up was a tailchase. Following my usual practice, I sketch something that has the Spitfires up front - with 'his' in the foreground - and the Buchon off to the rear. I substitute a sunny day with fluffy clouds.

He would prefer to have them all in the front of the frame and after juggling various ideas my fifth sketch hits the spot: "That's it - you've nailed it - that will look glorious."

And so to work.

REFLECTIONS

Which brings me back to where I started. The gloriously restored and maintained 'warbirds' that we see flying around are, understandably, so lovingly cared for that they positively gleam. Under wartime constraints that had to come low on the list of priorities.

There is a theoretical debate to be had about the nature of paint finishes, cleaning, polishing-for-speed and so on – but in practice, in general terms, working aircraft looked up-close ... well, rather like the boot sill of my car on a February weekend after the dogs have been tearing around in the muddy woods all afternoon.

To that end, I keep a stock of textures in Lightroom that are layered onto pictures I'm making as "grime", "grubbiness", "smears", "streaks" and so on.

For this picture, with three beautifully presented, preserved aircraft to depict, I was instead having to find out much more about applying reflections – which proved to be a very useful exercise in both observation and Photoshop work. 

In the final composition, all three are turning in the same direction but the centrepiece, with my client in the rear seat, is coming in over the top and partly inverted.

THE AIRCRAFT

His mount for the day was Supermarine Spitfire MJ627 in the markings of 9G-P of 441 (Silver Fox) Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the unit it first served with as a Mk LF.IXc in 1944. 

Spitfire TR9 MJ627 cutout Gary Eason
Tandem Spitfire MJ627

From what I have read, after the war it was converted to a two-seat trainer for the Irish Air Corps, but subsequently pillaged for spare parts until it was purchased for restoration in the 1970s, eventually flying again in 1993. 

It has continued in flying trim ever since, apart from repairs after a forced landing in the late 90s, and is now operated by Warbird Experiences Limited at Biggin Hill. Since the flight depicted here - which was in 2014 - it has been re-coded as 9G-Q, its first operational designation, with its D-Day stripes pared down to the undersides only.

Spitfire TR9 SM520 Gary Eason
Spitfire TR9 SM520

The other Spitfire is SM520, built in 1944 but not used operationally until being sold to the South African Air Force (SAAF) four years later. It suffered two accidents and was sold for scrap in 1954.

A quarter of a century later some of its major parts were recovered and eventually returned to the UK as a restoration project, involving conversion to its current TR 9 two-seat configuration. It is now owned by Boultbee Flight Academy and flies in the markings of an RAF two-seater that was converted from a 4 Squadron SAAF Mk V Spitfire in Sicily: KJ-I.

The Buchon is a film star. HA-112-M1L wears the 'Yellow 10' markings it wore as one of the stand-ins for German Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109s in the 1969 film Battle of Britain.

Hispano Buchon G-BWUE Gary Eason
Hispano Buchon G-BWUE

These were Spanish-built versions of the 109 which used Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, like the early Spitfire marks.

This machine, built in 1959, was one of a batch of aircraft given to the American pilot Wilson 'Connie' Edwards for his work on the Battle of Britain film. Sold back to UK owners in the 1990s it is now operated by Historic Flying Ltd, based at Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire, with the UK registration G-BWUE.

Not having a model of a TR.9 to hand to work from, my starting point was a Mk IX which I then had to cut up and rebuild digitally. This is not just a case of shoehorning in the extra rear seat, but also involves moving the front cockpit forwards by just over a foot (0.3m).

So, not my usual cup of tea but very interesting to work on. When I began the picture I was not particularly fond of the tandem Spits; they just looked messed about, to my eye, a corruption of the superbly elegant lines of the Spitfire airframe.

But I have to say they grew on me, and now I think the shape works rather well. And I should think none of us would object to being put in one!

I learn from the fascinating Two Seat Spitfire Page on Facebook that there are currently eight airworthy two-seaters in the world and no fewer than six in various stages of repair/restoration and construction. So whatever you think of them, we are going to be seeing more in the skies.

---------------------------

To commission something or to buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com: this is the Contact page. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


Special 460 Squadron coins flown in BBMF Lancaster

 

Coin presentation Gary Eason _DSC8914

RAF Coningsby, 30 October 2017

Squadron Leader Andy "Milli" Millikin, Officer Commanding the RAF Memorial Flight presenting a special commemorative coin to Australian visitor Richard Munro of the 460 Squadron Veterans and Friends Group, at RAF Coningsby.

460 Squadron commemorative coin and certificateThe coin is one of only 12 that were flown on board the memorial flight's Lancaster, PA474, on its return to Coningsby from Duxford on 4 July 2017 in its new colour scheme as AR-L for Leader of 460 Squadron RAAF.

Richard was a key member of the small team that researched the details of the original aircraft and its distinctive nose art of a kangaroo in Wellington boots playing bagpipes.

In his association newsletters, he has described Milli's decision to opt for the AR-L scheme on the Lancaster's port side as honouring all who served in 460 Squadron during World War Two. He aims to organise a visit to RAF Coningsby for veterans and relatives. 

Having the coins flown in PA474 was the idea of another member of the team, Darryl Fell of the current 460 Squadron RAAF, and was arranged by BBMF historian and publications editor (and former OC), retired Squadron Leader Clive Rowley MBE. 

I am proud to say that, having also helped to research the colour scheme, I too have one of them – which is currently being mounted and framed with its certificate, signed by the Lancaster skipper, Flt Lt Tim Dunlop, to go on my office wall.

 

 


New Supermarine Swift WK275 artwork

Swift WK275 pictures Gary Eason

The Flight Artworks depictions of WK275: book cover (left) and in flight over the English countryside.

Colchester, 21 September 2017

If you are going to Duxford Airshow this weekend, look out for aviation author Guy Ellis who tells me that he will be signing copies of his new book about Supermarine Swift WK275 in the Aviation Bookshop marquee.

It is being formally published by Grub Street Publishing next week but is being launched at the show. I am excited to see it because I did the cover art.

Guy first approached me back at the start of January to see if it was something I could take on. Following my usual practice I drafted some initial ideas and he chose the sort of picture he wanted.

We then refined the precise angles in the composition - working by this time also with the publisher and their designer - showing the unique aircraft "almost as if it were 'climbing'  the cloud", as he put it, in my background photograph. 

SWIFT BY NAME . . . 

It is only fair to say the Swift was not the most successful aircraft the RAF ever got involved with - but from my point of view it is certainly not unattractive, perhaps quite a perky looking number whose lines live up to its name. As did its performance: an F.4 like this was, briefly, the holder of the world airspeed record, having attained 737.7 mph (1,187 km/h) over Libya, 64 years ago this week, in the hands of Vickers Supermarine's chief test pilot, Mike Lithgow. 

I say that WK275 was unique because as I understand it no other Swift airframe ever had its precise configuration, and it is the only fighter variant still in existence.

It was used as a test frame for various developments, including what they call a slab-type tailplane - in other words with wholly moving horizontal stabilisers instead of fixed ones with moving elevators on the trailing edges. Later, no longer flying, it was used for noise research.

By this time, the 1960s, it was already a very faded, tired and sorry looking specimen. It then became a "gate guardian" at an outdoor clothing and camping store in Herefordshire. Up on bricks in all weather, it was rotting away. 

It was rescued in 2012 by a private buyer, Tim Wood - who set out to buy his son an ejector seat and ended up with an entire aircraft - and he got the remarkable guys at Jet Art Aviation to do the seemingly impossible job of restoring it to (non-flying) splendour.  

I asked Tim whether getting it flying again had ever been on the cards. He had inquired, he said. It would have cost another £3m. 

DETAILS, DETAILS . . .

Not knowing anything about the Swift before I started on this project I had to get up to speed on the general outlines to begin with, then the peculiarities of WK275. 

For example, there is a stub on the top of the nose where you might expect to find a pitot-static tube, but the instrument itself had been moved to the starboard wing.

I was also keen to get the subtleties of such things as air vents and the various warning labels as correct as I could. Jet Art kindly answered some of my questions about specifics and sent some close-up snaps for reference. 

To create the picture I worked initially from a small model I commissioned of an F.4 converted from an FR.5, the more successful low-level reconnaissance version. But there was a great deal of pixel painting to do. 

My work on this as on everything else was interrupted by a delightful few weeks travelling around New Zealand and making landscape photographs

But eventually the finished picture was completed, tweaked and signed off in April, five months ago, and my job was done. Meanwhile, of course, the publishers had a book to make! 

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

I also do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


The search for the Lancaster bagpipes kangaroo artist

 

PA474 photo and W5005 artwork
Left: PA474 this week (Photo: Clive Rowley). Right: detail from my depiction of W5005 in September 1943

Colchester, 30 June 2017

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's much-loved Avro Lancaster, PA474, is back in the air after its long layoff for major maintenance and a repaint – which features a new livery and some striking nose art. 

My involvement in this story began last autumn with an invitation to create one of my Flight Artworks featuring the new paint scheme.

The BBMF needed publicity materials featuring pictures of their new-look aircraft, before the aircraft themselves had been repainted. This year two of their Spitfires were also getting a makeover – but those are separate stories.

In the Lancaster's case, the Flight's commanding officer, Squadron Leader Andy "Milli" Millikin, had decided the aircraft would have not one but two new identities.

Its port side would represent 460 (RAAF) Squadron Lancaster W5005 when it was coded AR-L and named "Leader". On starboard it would be VN-T of 50 Squadron, which Milli's grandfather, F/O Douglas Millikin, flew on most of his first tour of operations in WWII.

My brief however was to depict W5005 in 1943 – which had nose art of a red kangaroo in Wellington boots playing some bagpipes, supposedly indicating the origins of one of its crews: Australian, Welsh and Scottish.

I subsequently learnt that the 460 Squadron Veterans and Friends Group had been sounded out on possible aircraft as long ago as January 2016. They were delighted that their squadron was going to be honoured in this way.

Over the winter I found myself in an ad hoc project team that included the BBMF's indefatigable historian and publications editor, Sqdn Ldr Clive Rowley MBE (ret'd); the equally tireless Richard Munro of the 460 Veterans and Friends; and Flt Sgt Daryll Fell of the newly reformed 460 Squadron, now a Royal Australian Air Force intelligence unit.

BOMB TALLY

Clive had determined already through his researches that the Lancaster described in various sources as being the one that had carried this nose art, JB607, could not have done so. The tally of bombs painted alongside the kangaroo in various surviving photographs showed its aircraft had completed at least 30 operations – and JB607 had been shot down after only nine.

The 30 ops did match W5005's record – sort of. Painstaking reading through 460 Squadron's operational records books had thrown up a problem, however, until Clive realised how the three rows of yellow bomb symbols must have been painted: middle row first, then the third row (with ice cream cones signifying trips to Italy), then the partially completed top row, with red bombs denoting attacks on Berlin. 

One thing I was keen to know from the outset was who had painted the original nose art, which is of a good quality as these things go. As it turned out, this would prove to be a key piece of the jigsaw in identifying which crew had been flying W5005 when the kangaroo was painted – and, therefore, had probably 'commissioned' it.

Zooming in on a picture in the Australian War Memorial (AWM) archive suggested that, unusually, the work had been initialled: it looked to me like "F.W." but it was not clear on the low-resolution version available at the time. Rummaging around in aircrew and groundcrew records was not turning up any name that would definitely fit that.

CLINCHER 

Richard Munro had mentioned a newsletter article he had written in June 2009 about a 460 Squadron veteran who had made nose art and painted the bomb symbols recording aircraft operations. This was Fl Lt Thomas Victor ("Vic") Watts DFC & Bar. Richard contacted his daughter on the off-chance that he might have left a portfolio of some sort.

We agreed the initials might perhaps be "T.W." (Thomas Watts). Searching for that name in the AWM image collection I found a photo of Watts himself at work on another Lancaster.

Then the penny dropped. What if those indistinct initials were "V.W." ("Vic" Watts)? This picture on the left, which was not signed, showed Watts at work, according to the caption in the AWM archive. I reckoned the same artist might well have painted the nose art on the right – which was signed. 

 

AWM: photographers unknown
Vic Watts at work (left) and another of his nose art paintings. AWM: photographers unknown

 

The clincher came from Vic Watts's daughter, Robyn Jackson. Based on my idea that the same artist had painted several aircraft, Richard contacted her and she sent him a scan of a photo – previously unpublished – of her father working on the kangaroo nose art. Richard thought it showed Watts doing a touchup job on the artwork, which might have been made earlier by someone else. 

I immediately realised this was Watts actually making the original painting. The reason I was so certain was that it was unfinished: the final version has musical notes floating up from the bagpipes - and they were not yet there in this photo. On a closer look, the bag on the pipes also lacked detail at this stage. 

All we had to do was count the bomb symbols alongside the picture and we would have a date. 

Vic Watts painting kangaroo courtesy Robyn Jackson
Vic Watts painting the kangaroo, courtesy of Robyn Jackson. Photographer unknown

Unfortunately, real life is rarely that neat. As you can see, Vic Watts's arm gets in the way, as does one of the propeller blades of the aircraft's Number 2 engine.

Nevertheless the picture was 'gold dust', and Richard made a six-hour round trip to her farm to collect the original, in order to make a high-resolution scan. (Incidentally, I have no idea who took the photograph: if anyone does know, do please get in touch.) 

It was apparent that it showed certainly 12 operations, and because they were in rows of 12 there might be (out of sight) as many as 18. Either way that placed the likely commissioning crew as that of a Scotsman, Sergeant J D Ogilvie – unusually, a British pilot on an Australian squadron. 

Ogilvie's regular crew included three more Brits: wireless operator Sgt P W Moore, mid-upper gunner Sgt S F Hare, flight engineer Sgt John (Jack) "Mad Mac" Mckenzie, who came from Wales but had a Scottish father and a Welsh mother. The other three crew members were all Australians: navigator Sgt R J Garrett, bomb aimer F/O H G D Dedman and rear gunner Sgt J E Atherton.

Incidentally, although Vic Watts sang well and played several instruments, it seems he did not know much about the bagpipes. The Scots version he was presumably depicting usually has five pipes: the one you blow into, the "chanter" that you play the tune on, and three drones, as they are called, which sound constant notes – one much longer than the other two. His kangaroo has four drones of varying lengths. Artistic licence.

TARTAN

There remained one glaring issue that our photographs could not help with: what colours he had used. An educated guess could be made on the kangaroo, given the orangey red hues of the real animal and the sort of paints Watts would have had available.

Wellington boots in those days were any colour you wanted, as long as it was black. I have never been convinced from interpreting the greyscale of the original photos that he had painted them black, but in the absence of any evidence, I went with the obvious solution.

 

Screen Shot of some of my tartan colour tests
Some of my tartan colour tests


But then, crikey, the tartan on the bagpipes' bag cover. I ended up with some educated guesses based on various Ogilvie tartans, and experimented with converting these to greyscale images to see which most closely matched the originals – although anyone who has researched wartime images knows that interpreting colours is made tricky by variations in film, lens filters, processing techniques and developer filters.

I gave it my best shot. As PA474 was unveiled in the restoration hangar at Duxford, I was pleased to see that the 'official' version looked remarkably similar. Job done.

The wider search for information about the aircraft and its crews threw up errors in various official records and – to my surprise – logbooks in which the aircrew had written down incorrect serial numbers for aircraft they had been in, sometimes more than once. 

We also discovered why W5005's pilot at the date depicted in the bomb tally on PA474 (September 1943), 21-year-old William Edward Maxwell Bateman, was known by all as Jerry – and with that something of the troubled history of the pearl fishing industry in his home town, Broome in Western Australia. 

It had been a fascinating exercise that reminded us yet again of the enormous sacrifices made by these young men. 

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

I do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


Polish 'boxing bulldog' Spitfire TD240

Screen Shot 2017-01-05 at 20.47.36
RAF Spitfire Mk XVI TD240 / SZ-G of No 131 (Polish) Wing © Gary Eason 2017

Colchester, 4 January 2017

Let's get the new year off to a flying start with this new depiction of what is going to be the new paint scheme for the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Spitfire TE311.

When eventually their Mk XVI emerges from its repaint it will be sporting the colours of TD240 when it was the aircraft usually flown by the Officer Commanding No 131 (Polish) Wing, Group Captain Aleksander Gabszewicz VM KW DSO DFC, during the last weeks of the Second World War and into the summer of 1945.

It was common practice among RAF officers of his rank to have their own initials on 'their' aircraft, but his was coded SZ-G as if it were still part of his old unit, 316 Squadron.

It did have his group captain's pennant on the side of the cockpit, and the red and white Polish checkerboard emblem (szachownica lotnicza), with the word POLAND beneath it, on the nose.

But far and away its most striking feature was the colourful boxing bulldog artwork alongside these, the last and largest of similar artworks he had on his various aircraft.

DISNEY

I had been under the impression until I researched this that the "boxing bulldog" - wearing Polish national team colours and a flying helmet - had been created by a member of Gabszewicz's ground crew, Sgt Wojciech Milewski, who was an accomplished boxer.

But the story has been muddied by the existence of another, celebrated and very similar artwork by none other than Walt Disney, of the legendary cartoon studios.

It seems Disney created a boxing bulldog in an almost identical pose, and set up a team that made numerous other insignias, as a contribution to the US war effort - in this case as the emblem for the 62nd Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group, as this Luke Air Force Base article shows.

Gabszewicz flew with the 56th on secondment in late 1943/early 1944 when it was suffering from a shortage of pilots.

I cannot say at this stage who first came up with the design. I am sure the BBMF will have the full story in due course.

But another version of the nose art was adopted by No. 135 (Fighter) Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force as its emblem.

PREVIOUSLY

I believe TD240 was next flown by Squadron Leader Boleslaw Kaczmarek with of RAF No. 302 (Polish) Squadron, until August 1945, whereupon it was re-coded as WX-V.

Those with longer memories might recall having seen a version of the scheme before on another Spitfire, MH434 operated by the Old Flying Machine Company. It carried a smaller artwork and SZ-G codes for just over a year between 1997 and 1998.

Now the full size, final iteration will be appearing on the same type of airframe as Gabszewicz's original: the Memorial Flight's clipped wing LF Mk XVIe (MH434 is an elliptical wing Mk IX).

I am portraying TD240 as it was in 1945 in this air-to-air depiction; in keeping with their usual practice, I believe TE311 will continue to bear its own serial number. I am sure many other images will follow once the real thing is unveiled later in 2017.

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

I do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on Instagram @flight.artworks.


EXCLUSIVE: Two new paint schemes for BBMF Lancaster

Avro Lancaster PA474 Gary Eason _DSC2837

Colchester, 23 October 2016

EXCLUSIVE: I gather that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster, PA474, will have not one but two new paint schemes following its winter service.

The left-hand side will be painted as 460 (RAAF) Squadron Lancaster W5005, coded AR-L "Leader", which had nose art of a kangaroo playing bagpipes, indicating the Australian and Scottish backgrounds of one of its crews. (Some sources say this was on JB607 AR-N, but I am reliably informed this is a case of mistaken identity).

The right side will carry the 50 Squadron code letters VN-T, representing the Lancaster flown by FO Douglas Millikin DFC – grandfather of the BBMF's current Officer Commanding, Squadron Leader Andy "Milli" Millikin, on 27 of his first tour of 30 operations.

PA474, the only Lancaster currently still flying on this side of the Atlantic, recently moved from its base at RAF Coningsby to the Aircraft Restoration Company's magnificent newly-opened Stephenson Hangar at Imperial War Museum, Duxford, for a major service, following which the repaint will also be carried out.

The decision on the new colours was confirmed this week and announced at the flight's end-of-season guest dinner by Sqn Ldr Millikin. His grandfather's crew's wireless operator, John Tait, was at the dinner. 

LONG SERVICE

The original Lancaster W5005 completed at least 44 operations while it was with 460 Squadron at RAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire, including four to Italy and four to Berlin, between 1943 and 1944. 

It was then transferred to 550 Squadron, where it kept its nose art but was recoded BQ-N.  It made another 50 trips and was well on its way to becoming one of the rare 'centurions' (more than 100 operations) when it was ditched in the Humber Estuary as it was returning to RAF North Killingholme from an attack on Kiel in August 1944. No-one was injured but the aircraft was lost. 

The Australian War Memorial's collection has a photo of its nose art as it was in August 1943. The chap in the pilot's seat is Flight Lieutenant Alexander Stuart MacWilliam DFC, who was the squadron's gunnery officer: he had no direct connection with the aircraft. 

Australian War Memorial collection PD image UK0396


 

 

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

I do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on on Instagram @flight.artworks.


The shooting down of Whisky Hotel 799

Suez-Canberra-PR7-Gary-Eason-sm

Colchester, 2 August 2016

When was the last time that an RAF aircraft was confirmed as being shot down by an enemy in an air-to-air engagement?  

It was during the Suez crisis in 1956.

I call it an engagement rather than aerial combat because the casualty was an unarmed photo reconnaissance 'plane: a 58 Squadron English Electric Canberra PR 7, WH799.

Two of the crew ejected safely; the third – the navigator, 26-year-old Flying Officer Roy Urquhart-Pullen – was killed.

The Canberra was crippled in its starboard engine by cannon fire from a Syrian Air Force Gloster Meteor F8. The British-built fighter was one of two small batches that had been sold to the Syrians by Britain in the early 1950s.

I was unaware of any of this until I was asked to make a picture to mark the 60th anniversary of the encounter this November.

Stripes

The Canberra was a superlative aircraft, conceived in the 1940s as a jet successor to the equally brilliant De Havilland Mosquito.

In continuous service with the RAF for more than half a century, Canberras were also licensed to Australia and to the United States of America (as the B-57) and subsequently used by almost a dozen other countries.

Through a succession of improvements the PR 7 had evolved from the B 6 bomber version.

Suez – an embarrassment in British history – is not a conflict that brings any cause for celebration, aside from the fact that the RAF pilots did their job efficiently and bravely as usual.

The photo reconnaissance Canberras were stationed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Like all the allied aircraft in the region they were given a hasty, D-Day type treatment of high contrast fuselage and wing bands, in this case yellow and black - although a shortage of the correct paint meant the ones in Cyprus wore more sandy coloured 'yellow' stripes.

Observer corps

The Syrians were not directly involved in the conflict but were very closely allied with Egypt – their pilots trained there – and British commanders were very keen to know what was happening in the Syrian airfields amid reports of Russian MiG fighters being delivered.

An earlier overflight on 6 November had been thwarted by cloud cover but it had also been intercepted by the Syrians. It had been fired on – unsuccessfully, at extreme range, but you might think it surprising that a repeat mission was ordered in another unarmed and unescorted Canberra.

Syria had limited air defence resources but had devised a basic system involving ground observers telephoning in aircraft sightings. Centrally-controlled fighters could then be scrambled to intercept the intruders. Sound familiar?

So it was that as WH799 did the rounds of target airfields – and because the Syrians were already alert it was caught, in the vicinity of Homs, in a break in the cloud cover that had cloaked its mission.

In a diving stern attack one of the Meteors set fire to the Canberra's right engine.

Ejected

The normal crew on the photo reconnaissance aircraft was two. In this case the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Bernie Hunter, who was sitting in an ejector seat. His navigator-cum-photographer, Flying Officer Urquhart-Pullen, lay in the transparent blister in the aircraft's nose, but also had an ejector seat in a compartment behind the pilot.

On this occasion however there was a third man aboard: Flight Lieutenant Sam Small. The PR Canberras at Akrotiri had received a field modification that had installed a periscope in the nav station so its occupant could look backwards to watch for attackers. You can just make this out in my picture. Sam Small was in the nav seat to do this.

Realising the aircraft was doomed the pilot ordered Small to eject, which he did. Hunter said he did not know what became of Urquhart-Pullen – possibly he tried to bail out through the normal forward entrance hatch. His body was found with the wreckage, which came down just inside Syria, and now lies in the Anglo-American Cemetery in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Hunter and Small landed on their parachutes just on the Lebanese side of the border. They were taken to a Syrian border post but after a tense few days they were repatriated.

At midnight on the day they had been shot down, Britain declared a ceasefire.

Details

Making the picture presented a number of challenges, as always. Checking the details of the aircraft proved tricky and I had to make a number of educated guesses. 

For example, I went with the widely accepted version that a lack of yellow paint for the detachments on Cyprus resulted in a more sandy mix for the identification stripes. 

And on many of the Canberra bombers the stripes around the fuselage were centred on the RAF roundel. However on another of the PR aircraft at Akrotiri I know they were painted further back, so I went with that as being the more likely. 

The trickiest thing to depict was the metallic sheen of the aluminium paint scheme. I settled on a mix of brightness and dark areas, with a partial overlay of reflected sky blue and clouds, as looking most effective to my eye.

As so often, it's all about the light.

---------------------------

To buy prints of any of my works please visit www.flightartworks.com.

I do private commissions, for individual aircraft or bigger scenes.  To get in touch visit the Contact page on my website. Find Flight Artworks on Facebook, on Twitter @flightartworks, and on on Instagram @flight.artworks.