Spitfire invasion stripes.

[davidc1]

Just had one of these tear past me as I sit in my sunny garden in north Kent. Nice and low. Made my day and a timely reminder of what went down 70 odd years ago v the IS nonsense in the news these last few days. Good old England!

Edited by davidc1 on Thursday 21st February 15:34

[Eric Mc]

Good old Britain and its Commonwealth don't you mean (not to mention Poles, Czechs, Belgians, French, Irish etc who flew those Spitfires too).

[CAPP0]

I'm in NW-ish Kent and on decent weather days the Spit often overflies us several times.

It's lovely to see and hear but it has slightly taken away the "wow, I can hear a Merlin approaching" excitement factor I used to get!

Occasionally you get a few aerobatics thrown in. MrsC works outdoors and it overflies them so regularly, and they wave, that they now get a wing wave as it passes them.

[davidc1]

Eric Mc said:

Good old Britain and its Commonwealth don't you mean (not to mention Poles, Czechs, Belgians, French, Irish etc who flew those Spitfires too).

Yes of course.

[Eric Mc]

Good to hear. We don't want England claiming all the credit.

[theplayingmantis]

Eric Mc said:

Good to hear. We don't want England claiming all the credit.

BoB would have been lost without them. however something i heard once, was would they have helped us if it wasn't in self interest/revenge against Germany? (the Europeans not he CW pilots). i hope they would but if Germany was just attacking us and nothing had happened on the continent. Assume they would be obliged by pre war treaties

[Seight_Returns]

Difficult to imagine how (or indeed why) Germany could have mounted a sustained air assault on Britain only, with the countries that they would have to overfly and in who's skies conflict would inevitably occur remaining neutral.

[Neonblau]

theplayingmantis said:

BoB would have been lost without them. however something i heard once, was would they have helped us if it wasn't in self interest/revenge against Germany? (the Europeans not he CW pilots). i hope they would but if Germany was just attacking us and nothing had happened on the continent. Assume they would be obliged by pre war treaties

In that scenario I doubt if they would have been needed as the single engined 109s didn't have the range to escort the bombers, which would also have been extremely limited.

[Eric Mc]

theplayingmantis said:

BoB would have been lost without them. however something i heard once, was would they have helped us if it wasn't in self interest/revenge against Germany? (the Europeans not he CW pilots). i hope they would but if Germany was just attacking us and nothing had happened on the continent. Assume they would be obliged by pre war treaties

Germany had no real plans to attack the UK. It's main aims were always in the east.

[theplayingmantis]

good point. but if France was neutral and had given them air bases (i know i know we into war gaming realm here). i would still like to think eastern Europe would have helped us, but then they wouldn't have been in the country if the nazis hadn't invaded theirs so its a speculation that doesn't work on many levels. i guess if we didn't have that man power, we would have ramped up CW pilots? or did we max them out too in BoB?

[Seight_Returns]

France couldn't willingly give Germany access to airfields from which to attack Britain and claim to be neutral - ridiculous scenario.

Not a bad summary of how and why the Poles came to fight alongside the British in the BoB on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Air_Forces_in...

[theplayingmantis]

Seight_Returns said:

France couldn't willingly give Germany access to airfields from which to attack Britain and claim to be neutral - ridiculous scenario.

Not a bad summary of how and why the Poles came to fight alongside the British in the BoB on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Air_Forces_in...

i know its ridiculous! lets call them neutral in such a way as sweden was neutral.

[Eric Mc]

The number of Commonwealth pilots available to the RAF in the Summer of 1940s was relatively few. The Battle of Britain was chiefly fought by the pool of pilots who had joined the RAF in the pre-war period and most of them would have been from the British Isles (with the odd Commonwealth pilot here and there). During the Battle, some additional Commonwealth and mainland European pilots started to arrive but Commonwealth aircrew didn't really start being available until 1942 or so when the massive training schemes (many of them based in Commonwealth countries) began to produce new aircrew.


On a separate point Mr Playingmantis - any chance you could make use of a few capital letters now and then. I find your posts difficult to read without them.

[theplayingmantis]

No need to be formal, you can call me Mr Coney.

I do me best! But such is my typing diarrhea I must type it otherwise I forget it. And no syntax/grammar check on here...

[Seight_Returns]

Britain would have interpreted France's actions in this scenario as an act of war and acted against them accordingly.

There would be little practical difference between the fantasy scenario of a "neutral" France collaborating with Germany and the actual situation of a defeated France doing the same - including the bravery of the significant number of French Men and Women who fought against Germany despite their country's capitulation.

Not very respectful to be discussing WW2 in terms of a game on a day when we're commemorating those who died in the war that actually happened.

[theplayingmantis]

Seight_Returns said:

Not very respectful to be discussing WW2 in terms of a game on a day when we're commemorating those who died in the war that actually happened.

What an odd comment. Why comment yourself then?

Why is respect being brought into it anyway? Is talking about anything respectful or disrespectful? Please explain that to me, or take you faux outrage somewhere else, and find something else to be offended at that isn't to any intents or purposes offensive to anyone.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

theplayingmantis said:

BoB would have been lost without them. however something i heard once, was would they have helped us if it wasn't in self interest/revenge against Germany? (the Europeans not he CW pilots). i hope they would but if Germany was just attacking us and nothing had happened on the continent. Assume they would be obliged by pre war treaties

Germany had no real plans to attack the UK. It's main aims were always in the east.

Oh it had a plan all right........it just wasn't a very viable one, as it pretty much required both the RAF and the RN to be non-existant for it to have worked.

[Tango13]

On the actual subject of invasion stripes I was chatting to my brothers step son during his tour at the BBMF and he mentioned the beardy anorak types with nasal voices pointing out where the paint jobs on some of the aircraft weren't quite right.

I suggested that for added authenticity their invasion stripes should've been applied by the lowest paid 'Erk' with a 4" paint brush in a hurry to get the job done so they could get down the pub...

[Eric Mc]

Invasion stripes varied in quality depending on by whom and when the painting was carried out.

[Tootles the Taxi]

There are quite a number of photographs showing D-Day stripes being applied by said "lowest paid Erk" with brooms. They were more concerned that they wouldn't get shot down by some trigger-happy matelot over the Channel than looking neat & tidy.