Kiwi SB2C Helldiver pilots

[Dave Homewood]

Back in October 2009 I met Euan Jones and his wife Barbara at the Fleet Air Arm Reunion in Wairakei. With them was Mrs Fenwick, who was the widow of pilot John Fenwick. Both Euan and John had flown the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver in the RN FAA in No. 1820 Squadron.

Sadly Euan is unwell with Alzheimers so he was not able to tell me much at all. The ladies filled me in with a little background and from what I can gather this was the only FAA Helldiver squadron ever formed.

Anyway I did a search tonight and discovered an interesting piece here that was actually written by Euan himself a few years back, which fills in a lot more details. i thought it was well worth sharing here. With two kiwis (at least) in the squadron it makes for an interesting connection to this divebomber, and would make an interesting modelling subject for some out there.

www.fleetairarmoa.org/pages/images_pages/page8.htm

[ianbw12]

Thanks for that Dave, sad to hear about Euan.
I've been gathering bits together to build a Helldiver in 1820 markings and thought I'd display it wheels-up as per Euan's story... maybe one day!

[Dave Homewood]

Hi Ian, that would be a great idea for a model. Please post the progress photos here when you do it. Did you see that superdetailed Helldiver done last year on a long series of posts on Hyperscale? It was incredible the lengths the guy went to, a bit like Anthony's amazing helicopter.