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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 21, 2019 16:04:00 GMT 12
You make that sound like the RNZAF placed Gudsell there to train up on the Beaufort for intended RNZAF service with them. He was in fact posted to No.100 Squadron RAF in Singapore which was flying Vickers Vildebeests, but at the time they were forming a third flight with Australian assembled Beauforts that were meant to eventually replace the Vildes. He and several other new pilots and crew members were posted into that flight and were supposed to train up on the type but the six aircraft they had received were absolutely unreliable and they were getting no flying whatsoever. So they got very little training and insufficient to take on the Japanese with them as the aircraft kept breaking down. In the end it was decided the aircraft had to be returned to Australia to the factory as the RAF was thoroughly dissatisfied by the underwhelming job they'd done putting them together. And the crews were also sent to Aussie. Of course they did not get a chance to return to Singapore, most of the Vildes and their crews were wiped out in the Battle of Endau and the squadron ceased to exist.
However the remnants of No. 100 Squadron RAF who's gotten back to Aussie were formed into the new No. 100 Squadron RAAF, and the rebuilt and newly built Beauforts came from the factory to equip it. They fully expected the Japs to keep on rolling down and into Australia so they were tasked with defending the Queensland coastline, flying out of Mareeba. George Gudsell was there some months before he returned to New Zealand and was posted to No. 3 Squadron shortly before they deployed to the Pacific. But he was not in Aussie on Beauforts at any behest of the RNZAF, only because his RAF squadron was decimated and the RAAF needed every trained man at the time.
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Post by davidd on Jul 22, 2019 11:20:56 GMT 12
Yes, New Zealand certainly attempted to obtain Australian-built Beauforts in early 1942 (They asked Britain for Beauforts initially, but they passed us onto Australia, and we did not get much encouragement from them, so we made do with the Hudsons arriving from the USA, deducted from RAF allotments). After that, we seemed to forget about Beauforts, until some RAAF examples arrived at Piva Bomber strip at the end of 1944, but these were mostly used as freighters and for communication, possibly also for photography. My Dad took a photograph of the one that was painted with Japanese characters under its mainplanes, marked up so as to spread the massage to enemy ground forces to surrender, although was probably not necessary under the circumstances at the time. Apparently they were quite happy to throw in the towel, having believed up till the surrender that they would all die in battle and never return to their homeland. New Zealand crews were astonished to see large numbers of Japanese military personnel all around Bougainville, New Ireland, New Britain, etc, strolling along beaches, fishing off jetties, swimming in the sea, and burning large amounts of material which was presumed to be secret material and records of battles which they were very keen to prevent the Allies ever seeing. Also it was noticed that most Japanese seemed to be in good health, and with reasonably smart uniforms, and many of them waved cheerily to the Allied aircraft crews as they flew past. Some of the soldiers were even cheekier, throwing rocks at low-flying Allied aircraft, not that they had a hope of hitting them, just a show of defiance and unlikely to result in punishment. All Allied personnel had been informed that it was believed the Japanese forces were starving, sick and bedraggled, and depressed, but apparently not all of these assumptions were entirely true! My uncle was put in charge of a small group of surrendered enemy personnel with instructions to supervise then in the task of clearing up camps, roads, toilet facilities, etc, and he reckoned they were the best and most enthusiastic workers he had ever commanded, although he eventually realized that up until a few weeks before they all believed they were doomed men, with death in battle being imminent. No wonder they were happy! David D
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 22, 2019 12:28:00 GMT 12
Just to be clear my post was not disputing the Beaufort attempted acquisition story, only that George Gudsell's time on Beauforts had nothing to do with any deliberate posting as part of an RNZAF scheme to purchase them. Here's a shot of that RAAF Beaufort you mentioned David,from the late Basil Fraser's collection (I have seen many shots of this aircraft in RNZAF veteran collections, it sees to have been a popular one.) And here is another of the RAAF Beauforts from the same collection, also at Piva. Apart from sharing the same airfield, I don't think the RNZAF guys had anything to do with these Beauforts, did they?
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jul 22, 2019 14:12:35 GMT 12
I guess we beg to differ Dave, I was a close friend of George's and he told me on several occasions that his service with the Aussie Beauforts in Australia was with agreement of the RNZAF, for him to gain knowledge on their operational effectiveness. I recorded all of this in interviews which are held by the air force museum
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jul 23, 2019 14:58:01 GMT 12
Dave to further add to the above, in December 1941 six Australian built Beauforts (less armament) were sent to Singapore and the crews were untrained. They suffered from intermittent fuel stoppage problems and other snags so all but one were returned with crews to Austalia. The remaining aircraft was used for long range reconnaissance. George Gudsell had begun his conversion onto the type when they were withdrawn and then was posted to the British HQ in downtown Singapore. He survived several air raids on Seletar where during a strafing attack by Zeros, noted their system of using the cowl gun machine guns as sighters before using their cannons. This knowledge was put to use when his Hudson was attacked by Zeros in the Solomons (See SEEK AND DESTROY) When in the operations room at Singapore on 10 December He took the phone call that advised that the Repulse and Prince of Wales had been sunk "I saw grown men cry that day" he told me years ago. He managed to get on one of the last ships out and after arriving back in Australia was awaiting transport back to NZ when he was seconded to the RAAF to gain further experience on Beauforts (as David says were then being considered for the RNZAF) After three months with them flying coastal patrols he was able to return to NZ and after some leave joined 3 Squadron.
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Post by nuuumannn on Jul 23, 2019 15:59:19 GMT 12
Has anybody consulted the big book ("the Bible", the title of which I cannot recall at the moment) on naming conventions for British military aircraft, by Gordon Wansbrough-White? Yes, Dave, I have a copy of Names With Wings, the Names and Naming Systems of Aircraft and Engines flown by the British Armed Forces 1878 - 1994. There is specifically a section devoted to the Wellington that contains the following: "The first flight of the Wellington was in 1936, making it subject to the 1939 naming system which specified 'an inland town of the British Empire or associated with British History'. There are three towns with the name, one in Somerset, another in Shropshire and a third in New Zealand (although this last is a 'seaside town'). That deals with the geographical aspect, but note that Sir Arthur Wellesley was to become the Duke of Wellington, the Iron Duke. Thus Vickers could assure the Air Ministry that they had complied with not only the rules, but with both alternatives. Wellington the general was the choice, although his association with either of the two English towns is not clear." Just a note about the 'seaside town' reference, the British naming system allocated flying boats names of coastal towns and ports. In Vickers Aircraft since 1908, by Andrews and Morgan (Putnam, 1995) is the following: "The name Crecy was originally chosen for B.9/32 in June 1936, just before it was publicly shown in the new-types park at the RAF Display at Hendon; but in September the name was changed to Wellington. In a later explanation, Pierson said that it had been correctly named after a town according to Air Ministy nomenclature, but the name Wellington also perpetuated the memory of the Iron Duke and followed tradition in that its geodetic predecessor bore the Duke's family name, Wellesley. Moreover it established the practise of using the initial letter W for Vickers aircraft with Wallis geodetic structures."
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jul 23, 2019 17:17:22 GMT 12
Thanks Paul, that is a slightly different account of events from what he told me, but I won't dispute it.
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Post by tbf25o4 on Jul 24, 2019 9:00:11 GMT 12
Hi Dave, I went back through my notes in George's interviews, and I note that he completed his conversion training onto Beauforts at the Fisherman's Bend (Melbourne) where the Beauforts were manufactured.
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Post by fwx on Jul 29, 2019 21:22:29 GMT 12
I need to make an apology and retract a statement I made in a post above (Page 1):
"The thirty Wellingtons ordered by NZ were all Mark 1s - there were no Mark 1as in the order. "
Wrong!
It appears that the first five Wellingtons delivered were Mark 1s, but they were to stay in England to be used for training the subsequent Flights.
In fact the next six, NZ 306-311, the aircraft to be flown to New Zealand with the 1st Mobile Flight, were to have been the superior Mark 1As. Although never delivered, they were to have come from a Weybridge order of 120 Mk 1A a/c, serial no.s N2865-2914, 2935-2964 and 2980-3019.
The next six to be delivered after that, NZ 312-317 for the 2nd Flight, were also allocated from that same batch of Mark 1As.
Beyond those, it looks like a prior set of RNZAF-allocated Mark 1 serial numbers had been diverted to another customer, and I can't find any indication of what Mark or Marks the balance of the order (13 more a/c) was to be made up of.
So it's possible that the RNZAF may have ended up with as many as 25 Mark 1As, plus the original 5 Mark 1s.
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Post by davidd on Jul 30, 2019 11:39:21 GMT 12
The last TWELVE aircraft (NZ318 - 329, not thirteen, remember the serial number allocations started at NZ300) were almost certainly never specified by serial number, as the NZ Govt had given up its rights to them in late August 1939. So far as the pre-war planning went, they were not due to leave for NZ until about Sept or Oct 1940 (and that was predicated on belief that war would not break out in Europe prior to that date). Thus, long after the Battle of Britain, this would all have been forgotten, the World had moved on. By this time, New Zealand was attempting to get Hudsons to fulfil generally the same role which the Wellingtons were to have undertaken, although under somewhat different international circumstances. David D
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Post by fwx on Jul 30, 2019 12:48:05 GMT 12
Thanks David, the reason I said thirteen was assuming that another a/c would be tacked on somewhere to make up for the non-delivery of NZ 300 - it had not been delivered by 4 September when the balance of the order was cancelled. Cheers, Chris
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