New Zealand bombers with 100 ops

[Glen T]

Hi guys, Thanks for your msgs. I'll see if Mel will let me post a picc of his print of NE181 asap. He has done so much great artwork for me, all the ties, scarves, lapelpins and the banner/flag all have his aircraft artwork, and will also be doing one of the Mosquito for Gerry Yagen.. and Gerry was very interested about this at Ardmore 'that day'.

Re Ballingall above.

Two brothers.... (from Colin Hanson's Sqn Nominal Roll).

Alexander Stewart Ballingall. NZ 2286. Sqn Ldr, Pilot and Flt Commander. 75(NZ)Sqn, 8May to 21 Jul 1945. RAF Mepal. DOD unknown.

Barry Gordon Ballingall. NZ4215138. W/O, WOAG. 75(NZ)Sqn 17Jul to 5Oct 1945, RAF Spilsby. Tiger Force. Lives in Wanganui. c/w O.J.T. Hodgson (as W/Op), who lives in Whangamata.

So it was Alexander Stewart who would have flown NE181.
Seems Alex and Barry only met up at Luffenham briefly, and maybe at Mepal for a day or so.
I'll give Barry a call and see if he remembers anything of NE181 or has Alex's logbooks!

[75nzsquadron.com]

Hi Guys
just as a follow up to my posting of the page from Dick Pickup's logbook showing the 100th op to Krefeld, the wonderful news is that his son, Tony, has passed to me pages of the entire logbook.

They can be viewed here;

75nzsquadron.wordpress.com/richard-pickup-rafvr-18888-wireless-operator-1944/

cheers

Simon

[fwx]

Thanks Simon, that is a really valuable piece of history.

The two entries that I most wanted to see were the 16 Feb 45 op' to Wessel and the 20 March op' to Hamm.

Both are recorded in the ORB (Form 541) as RF129 "M" (the replacement a/c coded JN-M after NE181's retirement), but they stood out as strong candidates for the two "missing" op's for NE181 JN-M that would fill the gap to the 104th op' on 24 April.

So frustrating but also intriguing that the entries in the logbook are both simply "JN-M". If the Bailey crew were flying a different JN-M than on all their previous op's, you would think they would differentiate somehow?

So no definitive answer on that count, but still lots more to learn from these pages, and fantastic to have access to a personal record of The Captain's Fancy and her exploits!

Thanks to Tony Pickup, and again to you Simon, your project is proving extremely useful already!

Cheers,
Chris

[75nzsquadron.com]

Glad to be of assistance Chris
In email discussions with Tony, he said a similar thing and based on discussions with John Wall regarding the Wessel op. John apparently thought that this was in NE181, though there is the theory that this might have been RF129. He feels that the Squadron records and the Air Ministry bulletin tend to suggest that NE181 was up to 101 before it was pulled out for a major overhaul.

Simon

[Dave Homewood]

Further to the Thomas Frederick Duck nose art discussed in this thread, I picked up a British magazine second hand yesterday called Combat Report, from 1986. It has an article in RAF Liberator bombers in Burma, and there's a photo of the nose art of Liberator EV921/D of No. 355 Squadron, and the nose art is practically identical to the nose art of the famous No. 75 (NZ) Squadron Wellington and Lancaster, Thomas Frederick Duck. It has Donald Duck in the same pose, smiling and looking skywards, with flying helmet and goggles, and the headset, flying jacket and scarf, sitting in the half egg shell, exactly like the 75 Squadron artwork(which is seen on this page rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/1241 ) however rather than the brevet wings it has a bomb superimposed over the shell. And it has the words "Dauntless Donald" beneath the artwork. I wonder, did a member of Thomas Frederick Duck's crew maybe get posted to Liberators and copy the old lucky artwork? Or was this image from a famous actual Disney cartoon?

Edit: Here is Craig's photo of Thomas Frederick Duck at Wigram again


And here's a scan of the one in the magazine - sorry they're not clearer, the old 1980's dot matrix printing in the magazine isn't too flash.

[Dave Homewood]

Aug 2, 2012 17:03:26 GMT 12 pjw4118 said:

I really love all the little crew position names on this aircraft, KELLY'S KITCHEN for the front gun turret, DUKE'S DEN for Jack Wright's cockpit, I think it says DEKKAR'S DIVE for the Navigator's station, and NICK'S something-or-other for Nick Carter's wireless station. I wonder if the rest of that name and what the others (mid-upper gunner, tail end charlie, etc) had written on the side. Do you know maybe Peter?

[pjw4118]

Dave, After Nicks second tour he went onto 45 Atlantic Transport Group ferrying a variety of heavy types into Prestwick and a couple to Karachi. Posted to 246 Squadron he was W/op on mainly Liberators on the Karachi run until July 46.
Now Thomas has a twin as shown below. This one is held by the family of Nicks pilot Jack Wright and the artist has signed the back 1049752 LAC Mound HG, Hereford. England. It is painted on an old Holland blind canvas but wasn't glued to the aircraft.
There are small differences with the one at Wigram and the original sketch. Spot the difference.

[Dave Homewood]

Well that is odd because I went and saw Nick less than two weeks ago, and I asked him about this Liberator nose art, and I emailed him the photos, and he said he has absolutely no idea how his artwork came to be on the Liberator. He was happy to talk about his flying career when I interviewed him for the No. 75 Squadron series I'm working on, and he mentioned the Pathfinders tour he did and the Ferry Command flying, but he never mentioned anything about him going to India and flying in B-24's.

[pjw4118]

His Far East trips are in the copy of his Logbook I have. Maybe he thought Transport Command service wasnt of interest.
The Lib art looks so alike I wonder if there wasnt a genuine Disney cartoon published in one of the Forces magazines that spawned these look alikes.

[Dave Homewood]

I wondered that too about maybe it was copied from an actual Disney thing.

I specifically asked Nick about the artwork on the Liberator and emailed him a scan of the photos, and he had no knowledge of it.

[pjw4118]

To add to the story, here is a picture of Alf Drews crew of JT-F (Frederick. Alf is second from right.
]

[ianbw12]

Hi Guys,

Just a question for Glen regarding the fate of NE181 - you mention you have access to Alex Simpson's logbook - he mentioned to me in a letter that he flew NE181 off-station on the 17 February 1945... just wondering if this is recorded in his logbook at all?

Cheers,
Ian

[pjw4118]

The Captains Fancy has attracted a lot of interest.
Here are additional pictures.

This painting is the late Esmond Ware pilot of JN-M in 1945.







This group were found on Thursday, Alan Scott arrived at Mepal early April 1945.







The artwork looks much larger than what appears in the Ware/Eslie crew photo.
His log lists a flight with Skipper F/S Anderson in JN-M on 4 June 1945 but no serial is listed.

Regarding JN-M tally of ops, talking with Colin Emslie (the last surviving member of Ed Wares crew) he is quite sure they did three ops and tork over the aircraft as others found it a bit tempermental. They didn't and finished with two POW repatriation trips to Juvencourt. The last one they had engine trouble and were delayed. I will look up the appropriate log book page.

[baz62]

Aug 4, 2013 15:10:10 GMT 12 pjw4118 said:

Helllo we have some Lincolns here. I read on ADF serials that 75(NZ) Squadron actually took delivery of 3 Lincolns which were used until the end of 1945 (by then 75 and the Tiger Force had been disbanded. Amazing what you learn.

[pjw4118]

Hello Baz , the line up is at Juvencourt and multi squadrons were committed to repatriating POws.The 75 Lincolns AA A ,B and C did a flypast with these aircraft from their new base at Spilsby. I will put up some shots of the day.

[pjw4118]

75 Squadron Lincolns give the Andes a send off

[fwx]

Thanks Peter, great photos, and a piece of history! Quite exciting for us in The Captains Fancy Fan Club to see these new images of the most famous and obviously most-photographed Lancaster in 75 (NZ) Sqduadron. However, while the Lancaster could at a stretch be described as beautiful, you could really only describe the Lincoln as ugly ... must find out what they were trying to do with that front turret??
Really appreciate these, thanks again.
Cheers,
Chris

[pjw4118]

The Captain's Fancy
Here are copies of Esmond Ware's logbook for February to May 1945








and the matching ones from Eds Navigator Colin Emslie

[Dave Homewood]

I took this photo of the nose art behind a glass frame, sorry it's not such a good copy. Taken at Clive Estcourt's home when I recently visited him.

[skyhawkdon]

75 Sqn Navigator Ron Baker had a copy of this photo (and another of The Captain's Fancy) in his album and by coincidence I have just scanned it! I interviewed Ron on Sunday for the 75 Sqn oral history project Dave is working on.