Post by dade on Sept 23, 2018 20:19:43 GMT 12
Now that two Vultee Vengeance have been advertised as project aircraft in Australia and that they originally came from parts of three aircraft, where did they come from. Whaleworld and Wangaratta in Australia have both been mentioned constantly, but one organisation based in what is called one of the remotest cities in the world has always been missed and had a large part in collecting items for the projects survival . Over the years misinformation about these aircraft projects can be rectified through typed and handwritten letters and documents and original photographs by the persons involved, at the R.A.A.F.A. Aircraft Heritage Museum in Perth, Western Australia. Its a story that a lot of organisations throughout the world will recognise with the same tribulations that they have had collecting.
The Vultee Vengeance ended by being one of those unloved aircraft, one because it was a bomber with maintenance issues and two it was very big for a single engine aircraft, plus being obsolete as dive bombing was no longer an air forces tactic around the world, this was replaced by fast fighter/bombers that get in and out quickly near WW2s end. But thanks to an American General in the U.S.A.A.C. who had no faith in the aircraft and ordered the aircraft back to Australia from New Guinea as a second line aircraft. There was an abundance of Vultee Vengeance aircraft all over the country. No 25 Squadron (City of Perth ) R.A.A.F. at Pearce Air Force base, situated North of Perth in Western Australia, had been allocated these planes from August 1943 to January 1945. This squadron seems to have been the longest user of the Vultee Vengeance in the R.A.A.F. During the Vengeance service with this squadron, ten aircraft had been struck of charge up to 1944, all due to accidents. At the end of hostilities in the Pacific, the remaining aircraft were flown to Kalgoorlie/Boulder where thirty one aircraft were struck of charge between 1947 and 1949, but most were listed for sale on the 22/6/48, plus one other Vengeance A27-41 that had passed to the Albany Flight of the Air Training Corps, in Western Australia. Thanks goes to the web site of (ADF Serials team, R.A.A.F. Series Two) for the Vultee Vengeance information.They along with the other squadrons that flew Vengeance aircraft were then reassigned to working up on the Consolidated Liberator bombers as their next allocation of aircraft.
The Vengeance aircraft stored at Kalgoorlie/Boulder were then sold mainly to a scrap metal dealer called Bill Thomas for five pounds each, who bought nineteen aircraft on the 22nd June 1948. The engines were cut off just forward of the firewall and then dropped straight into the back of a truck, also undercarriages, plus canopies and various other parts were removed and the rest of the aircraft was cut up and dumped into a pit dug into the ground and set alight to melt down the metal. The locals in Kalgoorlie/Boulder also bought twelve of these aircraft, probably just like the Canadian farmers did for the nuts and bolts and even fuel in the tanks, or play things for their children. But unfortunately it is only speculation as the documents do not have these individual peoples reasons for buying these aircraft. By the early fifties the scrap dealer had done his job and his allocation had gone . But it is now about the twelve aircraft that we are concerned with as over the next few decades one by one they were being handed into the local scrap dealer after they were no longer needed or wanted and parts would be recovered from them for the two projects.
Moving forward to the 1960s and 70s in Western Australia.There was a pilot and aircraft enthusiast called John Bell of Albany, Western Australia. He found that a Vultee Vengeance aircraft that had been allocated to the Albany flight of the Air Training Corps from 6/11/51 to 9/07/58 and that was A27-41, MK 1a, R.A.F., EZ925. After the needs of the Air Training Corps were met it was struck off charge on the 12/12/58 and scrapped at Albany.
The following information comes from John Bell in a letter heading of Albany Aviation, Flying School, Aircraft Hire and Charter that was sent to Mervyn W. Prime of the Aircraft Historical Group in Perth on the 25/7/71. In this letter he states that on the parts he recovered from the Albany Vengeance A27-41, he could not find any constructors number and plus a lot of plates and small items had been removed, also the same applied to the serial number. The fuselage had been chopped in half and the tail section destroyed, he obtained a replacement from Kalgoorlie, presumably the one from A27-247. Everything forward of the firewall had been removed before it reached Albany and he assumed that they are the items he located at Perth Airport (Possibly the Wright Cyclone engine that is mentioned in one document as the one he obtained from the Midland Technical College). A search of the local area in Albany in the 1960s according to John Bells recollections that most of the airframe was still laying about backyards, plus farms and after a great deal of detective work, plus physical work, he managed to collect these items. Although one document did say that the tailplane went to the Midland Technical College. These aircraft parts of A27-41 look like it could have been the first aircraft that John Bell had found. In this letter he states that if a museum is built by the Air Force Association in Perth, that he would donate his Vultee Vengeance. This is the first letter to state his wishes in 1971. He then recovered the cockpit fuselage section, plus stub wings that belonged to a Vengeance A27-247, Northrop built MK IIa , R.A.F., serial AF929 from a Kalgoorlie scrap yard in 1966. A lot of parts were missing, which included the engine, propeller, wing flaps, undercarriage, tail wheel, canopies, bomb bay doors and a long list of various other parts. But this was the first recognised serial number of any frames. Now when you talk about recovering fuselages from these Vultee Vengeances it is not what you would call fuselages, but cockpit sections of hulks not properly unbolted but cut with an axe or metal grinder and also oxy-acetylene, but you will find in all cases of the section of fuselages found, that a section from the rear gunners cockpit to the tail of these aircraft was missing.
In May 1971 aircraft enthusiasts called by the name of the Air Force Association, Aviation Historical Group had been formed to establish an aviation museum in Perth, Western Australia and are the forerunners of the Royal Australian Air Force Association. W.A., Aircraft Heritage Museum that is still at Bullcreek, Perth, W.A. today. This group was dedicated to preserve the diminishing heritage aircraft in Western Australia. They recovered a large amount of aircraft that were no longer flyable due to crashes, faulty glue and decaying wood and corrosion, plus in one case, the end of its military service life.
Donations in those years were the only way of building up a collection for a museum, as they had to charge membership fees as money was in short supply, so the people involved really had to be aircraft enthusiasts. Before this date the R.A.A.F.A. organisation had recovered a Supermarine Spitfire from Britain in 1959 and an Avro Lancaster NX-622, WU16, from the French Aeronatique Navale, Escadrille 9S, in New Caledonia in December 1962, and these two aircraft were the catalyst for this museum.
In early 1971 they had heard of the existence of the Vultee Vengeances in Albany and corresponded with John Bell about these aircraft parts and about his future intentions for the aircraft, as he always wanted it kept in a museum and preferably in Western Australia. You have to understand at this stage that this is at a time when there was was a working whaling station in Albany and John Bell was employed as a pilot spotting for these whales. He donated his Vengeance aircraft parts to the Aviation Historical Group as he had no workshop and was a one man collector and was short of time due to other commitments. Documents over the years have John Bell in his hand writing stating to the A.H.G. and others of his donation to that group. This donation happened on the 4th of December 1971. Also this is before Whaleworld in Albany opened as a museum on whaling after the whaling industry closed down in Albany in 1978. He eventually ended up in Geraldton as a pilot for the Fisherman's Co-operative there after this time.
The Aviation Historical Groups members branched out looking for the missing parts and they were quite successful. In 1972 a letter was sent to a Mr W.P. Thomas of Whippet Products, Bentley, a suburb of Perth, W.A. thanking him for the donation of the undercarriage assemblies, fairings and wheels and also the generous donation of Wright Cyclone engines on the 25th of January 1972. There is also a letter from a Mr A. Krasnostein on a company letter heading of J. Krasnostein & Co. Pty .Ltd . giving the authority for the Air Force Association to take free of charge, a few parts they require for the Vultee Vengeance fuselage, this was on the 26th of January 1972. Gaining these parts as donations from scrap dealers shows how the art of diplomacy must have been used as scrap dealers are not known to part with anything of value.
A group of members from the Aviation Historical Group, who were Messrs Mervyn Prime, Fred Cherry and Geoff Goodall departed Perth for Kalgoorlie between late July and early August 1971 to follow up leads concerning Vengeance parts. The distance from Perth to Kalgoorlie is not a packed lunch trip, but a two to three day adventure.They came across in a smelting yard in Hay Street, a section of the rear cockpit area, with a gun-mount and foot controls, plus armour plating. They then moved to another yard in Forrest Street owned by Krasnostein & Co, to find two fuselage centre sections, one with both wing stubs and the other only the port wing stub, plus a port wing and a panel section from the tail cone area. These fuselage parts had been from two aircraft bought by a Mr Sam Sheperdson in 1948, who had left them on a site owned by Mr Vic Fletcher who later claimed them as they were on his land over a number of years and then sold them in 1964 to the scrap dealer at that time, called Warman Pty. Ltd, who was then taken over by Krasnostein. An engine with its engine mounts, plus fuel tank was found in a yard off Netherscott Street. Two people then related to the group that they had bought three aircraft each at the sales in 1948, but they had been scrapped long before their visit. On a visit to a disused pig farm they found a port wing and various panels and wing ribs and a pilots seat. On a later visit before heading back to Perth they visited this farm and filled up their car with small Vengeance parts and left a note asking that the wing remain there as they would return later in the year.
A well known active member of the A.H.G. called Stan Gadja, made a trip with a car and trailer and called at the scrapyard of Mr Thomas at Bentley, Perth. On this visit he recovered a Vengeance forward cockpit section with half a bomb bay door on each side and a Vengeance wheel, plus an engine panel that was painted brown with an '' nose art '' of an Eagle with outstretched wings gripping a yellow diving bomb in its talons. He took these parts to his home at that time of Lancelin and stored them there, before later dropping them at the R.A.A.F.A. storage shed except for the cockpit section that remained at Lancelin. This storage problem will keep popping up as no museum had been built and members had to resort to storing aircraft parts at their own home premises, with even aircraft being restored in members garages and even John Bell looked after the Aircraft parts he had donated in Albany for a few years.
Now two possibly three Wright Cyclone aircraft engines were collected by other AHG members from the scrap yards. While another had been picked up from a council tip. How many of these engines in total cannot be found in the documents. One engine was still attached to the engine bearer and was stored vertically, while the other engine had cowl ring and panels. You will find one of the recovered engines stands out in photographs over the decades due to its non standard camouflage on the cowling ring. This engine was restored to static display condition by various groups of volunteers in Perth. It was displayed at Perth Airport as a museum promotional engine, then moved to Whaleworld in Albany, then moved back to the Museum in perth during the ownership issues and is still on display at the Aircraft Heritage Museum in 2018 along with another engine with no cowling. No original propellers were ever found, but a fibre glass propeller had been made up for the display engine and a DC-3 one was later found so that it could be fitted on the static aircraft when it was finished to go on display.
Unfortunately as Stans employment meant that he had to move away from Lancelin, he stored the forward cockpit section at a friends premises and on returning two years later found it along with some other parts of aircraft had gone missing and never found again. On behalf of the AHG group Stan was loaned a Dodge truck free of charge by his friends father and with his friend, they went on a trip to Kalgoorlie, he collected a fuselage section and inner wing stubs that had to have the bolts cut off by oxy-acetylene as they could not be unbolted, this occurred at the Simms Metal Yard. The fuselage and stub wings were taken to Lancelin, again for storage and later in 1978 at the same time as the cockpit section that was moved to the friends home, the Kalgoorlie fuselage and stub wings were moved to the Air Force Association shed at Bullcreek, Perth. No other Vengeance parts remained at Lancelin after this year and it was never an original site for scrapped aircraft only a storage place. Another active member called Geoff Goodall advised Mervyn W. Prime the A.H.G. research officer that this fuselage was of Vengeance A27-232. MK2A. R.A.F. serial AN555. But how this serial number was found is not explained.
From the date in 1971 when John Bell donated the Vengeance it had been stored at various places in Albany, plus the whaling station aircraft hangar at the airport was mentioned in one document, but the whaling station closed in 1978 and this was the same year that the Vengeance aircraft parts were brought to Perth by truck and stored at the Air Force Association shed.
Another two active members were Stuart Kirkham and Dave Saunders who travelled to Kalgoorlie in May and another trip in June 1986 to search for Vengeance parts. Various small parts and panels were recovered by Stuart and Dave, but no detailed description of these parts has been unfortunately made of what had been collected. Dave Saunders also refurbished some small items back in Perth but only because the budget was also small at that time too.
On thinking that the only other Vultee Vengeance in the world at Camden, New South Wales, was a complete aircraft and they may have spare parts. A letter was sent to Harold Thomas, but a surprise message came back to them, that advised that he had nothing, but he needed parts himself to finish off his aircraft and could the A.H.G. help. His list was a rudder, a tail cone including the fairing below the rudder, wing to fuselage fairings, navigation light perspex ,armour glass behind main windscreen, gill cowl hydraulic cylinder, tail wheel & axle, tail wheel components and flap shaft. Because the A.H.G. group had various duplicate parts they gave the tail wheel parts Harold needed, which was item 21 part no 72/46033 support assembly, and a tail wheel hub. One item was not available as a spare, a link assembly and that was allowed to be borrowed to be fabricated by the Camden Museum Of Aviation. Correspondence with Camden Museum of Aviation was between 1972 and 73. Closer to home a Vengeance oil cooler had been donated to the A.H.G. from a G.J. Clark in Como,Perth during 1976 and this is still being used in 2018 on a running Armstrong Whitworth Cheetah engine at the museum.
During this time offers came from interested people to the A.H.G. to either buy the Vengeance or swap it for a De Havilland Devon/Dove and in an interesting letter from John Bell in 1987, concerning a swap for the Vought Kingfisher held at Pearce Dunns museum in Mildura, Victoria. Pearce Dunn had wanted either P-40 wings or the Vultee Vengeance for the Kingfisher. These were all rejected as even though work on the Vengeance had taken a back seat to other aircraft and museum buildings, it was still accepted that they would still like to rebuild this aircraft eventually.
At sometime after the whaling station had closed as a working factory, an organisation called Jaycees Community Foundation. (Inc) got involved to open the whaling station as a museum, and a hangar was built to display the spotting planes and the by then Vought Kingfisher that John Bell had eventually bought from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, Victoria and the Consolidated Catalina that ended up by being owned by the foundation. This ownership of the catalina is mentioned twice in documents by the people involved in the foundation, who also leased what was now called Whaleworld based on the old whaling station premises, the aircraft museum hangar has also been called the Malcolm Green Aircraft Museum.
John Bell sent letters in 1987 requesting, that could he at his own expense collect the fuselage so that he could rebuild it in Albany and return it on finishing it to the museum in Perth as he was a member of the A.H.G. As the A.H.G. in Perth had so many projects at that time as another document by Mervyn Prime said that they had 18 aircraft and 50 engines, they accepted the offer that the fuselage would return to Albany to be rebuilt and the wings and tail plane would remain in Perth to be rebuilt by Philip Rose ( Ex Supermarine employee ) and this happened, with the wings being rebuilt in the workshop in Bullcreek, Perth, for static display.
In 1987 a set of only one lot of four Vultee Vengeance canopies is mentioned, that had been found by a A.H.G. member and these were sent on to John Bell at Albany for the fuselage rebuild. You can find in these documents that although three aircraft are involved, only enough parts that would build one static aircraft were usually recovered and only where there was damaged fuselage or tails, plus anything of a mechanical nature, like undercarriages or the engines, did extra parts need recovering. A search for other Vengeance items due to the fact that the places at Kalgoorlie/Boulder and Coolgardie had dried up for parts.The A.H.G. had to go inter state in Australia and were able to exchange a Transavia Airtruck aircraft that had crashed in Western Australia for some parts that included a Vultee Vengeance windscreen with frame and engine mount for this aircraft with Moorabin Air Museum in 1993, also John Bell on his travels to the eastern states of Australia while looking for parts for his Kingfisher, he managed to find for the Vengeance a rudder and gun cupola donated from Ian Whitney in Melbourne, plus from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, he received what was called a few Vultee items that included a rear seat with the mechanism for raising and swivelling. He stated that he hoped to have the fuselage at Albany finished by 1989 and returned to Perth, so that he could progress on to the Kingfisher.
As in all volunteer groups you will find the three disses, disharmony, disunity and disappointment over the years and it was no different to the A.H.G. when a few members broke away to start another museum group, so that this diluted the amount of volunteers that were active across all the aircraft that had been collected. Plus in one document you find a disclosure that would even be relevant today that most volunteers had an active aircraft attention span that only lasted three years and only a few carried on for decades, also natural causes diluted the membership.
During this time various locations for the museum in Perth were looked at but dismissed for a variety of reasons. Eventually land at Bullcreek, Perth, was offered and the first building was built in 1979 thanks to a contribution from the 150th Anniversary W.A. celebrations and another bigger building to the North of the first building was constructed in 1983 to take the bigger planes and that allowed the corrosion to be removed from the aircraft that had been outside for decades. Everyone that has a museum knows that construction of museum buildings is just possibly the easiest part, it is fitting it out with a display that can give you a revenue that is the hard part.The Aviation Museum of Western Australia, went on to order in 1991 four duplicate technical manuals for the rebuild of the Vultee Vengeance from the National Air and Space Museum, in the U.S.A. Two of these manuals are still in the library today.
John Bell who was now the manager at the Whaleworld museum, asked for the rest of the Vengeance parts to display the aircraft as a more complete aircraft at that location in Albany. He went on to explain, as he had donated the Vengeance aircraft parts to the R.A.A.F.A. with the knowledge that a museum was going to be built in Perth but still the plane at Perth had not been finished and displayed, he and his directors would like the aircraft parts back. But by then along with his Vengeance aircraft parts the volunteers at R.A.A.F.A. had collected their aircraft parts, it was then agreed that the aircraft parts could return on a loan basis only (And it was a loan only) and the rest of the parts held in Perth, were transported to Albany in 1992, this was even though the fuselage had still not been finished by him at that time. Unfortunately John Bell passed away along with one custom agent, one federal police officer and one local police officer in a tragic aircraft accident while on a charter in 1996.
Later a delegation from the museum in Perth travelled to Albany to see John Bells widow Mrs Jill Bell concerning the ownership of the Vengeance parts and a friendly meeting was stated as the outcome in documents. Between this time and in 2004 the management at Whaleworld decided that they needed the hangar that the aircraft were exhibited in. An article appeared in the Albany Advertiser of 9th of March 2004 concerning the sale of two of the WW2 aircraft and finalising details for the 3rd WW2 aircraft as there was an uncertainty as stated over the ownership of the Vultee. After producing documents that showed the Vengeance had been donated to the R.A.A.F.A museum in 1971, plus the various Vengeance parts gathered by the AHG members, and that it had been loaned back to Albany on request by John Bell. They had correspondence back and forward, all parties then realised that taking the legal route would be very expensive for all concerned and personally I do not think that R.A.A.F.A wanted to go to court against Mrs Jill Bell, as John Bell was a life member of the R.A.A.F.A. Aviation Museum of Western Australia, and well respected by former colleagues and enthusiasts in Australia and New Zealand. A three way compromise was achieved. The Vultee Vengeance aircraft parts would go to Precision Aerospace at Wangaratta to be used as pattern/copy aircraft parts and was signed by Murray Griffiths. Mrs Jill Bell would receive a financial benefit for the use of these parts and the CEO of R.A.A.F.A. in Perth, a Mr Bob Bunney then signed that they would get the returned Vengeance pattern/copy aircraft parts and would pay for the transportation of parts back to Perth at the end of their use by Murray Griffith. From 2004 until 2011 the Vengeance parts that were to be used as a pattern/copy remained at Wangaratta and nothing had happened to them as a pattern/copy to build an aircraft. Again an unfortunate thing happened and the well respected Murray Griffith passed away during the year of 2011.
After an amount of years these aircraft parts have now been found to have been moved to New South Wales, Australia, where the last known location was with a Mr Richard Greinert who is located at the HARS, Albion Park premises. There is a good possibility that they will finish the rebuild as they have experience on Republic P-47 Thunderbolt rebuilds and also the GAF/Bristol Beaufighter rebuilds. The fact that many parts will have to be constructed to make them fly and also the workshop that will be rebuilding them needs to be similar to a Vultee or Northrop Factory to achieve it. The search for Vengeance parts world wide would I think be an unlikely source, but I could be wrong. The chances of this rebuild happening look good, but only possibly after ten maybe twenty years and a vast amount of money from a well to do person will be needed. But it is now about fifty odd years since these parts have initially been recovered and still they are just projects.Who ever has the intention to have these aircraft rebuilt to fly, then I hope they have a line of succession in their family to see these projects finished.
So what recognition did the R.A.A.F.A. Aircraft Heritage Museum and volunteers achieve from the Vultee Vengeance aircraft parts that they recovered around W.A. and inter state, which was cockpit canopies, engines, engine bearers, undercarriages, fairings, wheels, cockpit fuselage, windscreen and mounting, numerous panels, tail wheel parts, bomb bay doors and actuators and the work on various parts and wings. Exactly nothing until this article. Well the moral of this story is if you have collected aircraft parts, keep them close to you and not let them out of your sight as you will find unlike a boomerang they will not return to you. I hope this clears up the misunderstandings and helps future posts about these two aircraft.
The significance to Western Australia of the Vengeance is due to a wartime accident when a Pilot and his Observer/Navigator had parachuted from their Vultee Vengeance that had run out of fuel on a practice navigational flight over Western Australia. Although the pilot survived and was recovered days later, the Observer/Navigator Flt/Sgt C.L. King was never found after extensive searches in the bush that continued after the war, including a search by his father and still today he has never been found. He only has a cairn monument in an isolated spot in outback Western Australia to remind us.
The Vultee Vengeance ended by being one of those unloved aircraft, one because it was a bomber with maintenance issues and two it was very big for a single engine aircraft, plus being obsolete as dive bombing was no longer an air forces tactic around the world, this was replaced by fast fighter/bombers that get in and out quickly near WW2s end. But thanks to an American General in the U.S.A.A.C. who had no faith in the aircraft and ordered the aircraft back to Australia from New Guinea as a second line aircraft. There was an abundance of Vultee Vengeance aircraft all over the country. No 25 Squadron (City of Perth ) R.A.A.F. at Pearce Air Force base, situated North of Perth in Western Australia, had been allocated these planes from August 1943 to January 1945. This squadron seems to have been the longest user of the Vultee Vengeance in the R.A.A.F. During the Vengeance service with this squadron, ten aircraft had been struck of charge up to 1944, all due to accidents. At the end of hostilities in the Pacific, the remaining aircraft were flown to Kalgoorlie/Boulder where thirty one aircraft were struck of charge between 1947 and 1949, but most were listed for sale on the 22/6/48, plus one other Vengeance A27-41 that had passed to the Albany Flight of the Air Training Corps, in Western Australia. Thanks goes to the web site of (ADF Serials team, R.A.A.F. Series Two) for the Vultee Vengeance information.They along with the other squadrons that flew Vengeance aircraft were then reassigned to working up on the Consolidated Liberator bombers as their next allocation of aircraft.
The Vengeance aircraft stored at Kalgoorlie/Boulder were then sold mainly to a scrap metal dealer called Bill Thomas for five pounds each, who bought nineteen aircraft on the 22nd June 1948. The engines were cut off just forward of the firewall and then dropped straight into the back of a truck, also undercarriages, plus canopies and various other parts were removed and the rest of the aircraft was cut up and dumped into a pit dug into the ground and set alight to melt down the metal. The locals in Kalgoorlie/Boulder also bought twelve of these aircraft, probably just like the Canadian farmers did for the nuts and bolts and even fuel in the tanks, or play things for their children. But unfortunately it is only speculation as the documents do not have these individual peoples reasons for buying these aircraft. By the early fifties the scrap dealer had done his job and his allocation had gone . But it is now about the twelve aircraft that we are concerned with as over the next few decades one by one they were being handed into the local scrap dealer after they were no longer needed or wanted and parts would be recovered from them for the two projects.
Moving forward to the 1960s and 70s in Western Australia.There was a pilot and aircraft enthusiast called John Bell of Albany, Western Australia. He found that a Vultee Vengeance aircraft that had been allocated to the Albany flight of the Air Training Corps from 6/11/51 to 9/07/58 and that was A27-41, MK 1a, R.A.F., EZ925. After the needs of the Air Training Corps were met it was struck off charge on the 12/12/58 and scrapped at Albany.
The following information comes from John Bell in a letter heading of Albany Aviation, Flying School, Aircraft Hire and Charter that was sent to Mervyn W. Prime of the Aircraft Historical Group in Perth on the 25/7/71. In this letter he states that on the parts he recovered from the Albany Vengeance A27-41, he could not find any constructors number and plus a lot of plates and small items had been removed, also the same applied to the serial number. The fuselage had been chopped in half and the tail section destroyed, he obtained a replacement from Kalgoorlie, presumably the one from A27-247. Everything forward of the firewall had been removed before it reached Albany and he assumed that they are the items he located at Perth Airport (Possibly the Wright Cyclone engine that is mentioned in one document as the one he obtained from the Midland Technical College). A search of the local area in Albany in the 1960s according to John Bells recollections that most of the airframe was still laying about backyards, plus farms and after a great deal of detective work, plus physical work, he managed to collect these items. Although one document did say that the tailplane went to the Midland Technical College. These aircraft parts of A27-41 look like it could have been the first aircraft that John Bell had found. In this letter he states that if a museum is built by the Air Force Association in Perth, that he would donate his Vultee Vengeance. This is the first letter to state his wishes in 1971. He then recovered the cockpit fuselage section, plus stub wings that belonged to a Vengeance A27-247, Northrop built MK IIa , R.A.F., serial AF929 from a Kalgoorlie scrap yard in 1966. A lot of parts were missing, which included the engine, propeller, wing flaps, undercarriage, tail wheel, canopies, bomb bay doors and a long list of various other parts. But this was the first recognised serial number of any frames. Now when you talk about recovering fuselages from these Vultee Vengeances it is not what you would call fuselages, but cockpit sections of hulks not properly unbolted but cut with an axe or metal grinder and also oxy-acetylene, but you will find in all cases of the section of fuselages found, that a section from the rear gunners cockpit to the tail of these aircraft was missing.
In May 1971 aircraft enthusiasts called by the name of the Air Force Association, Aviation Historical Group had been formed to establish an aviation museum in Perth, Western Australia and are the forerunners of the Royal Australian Air Force Association. W.A., Aircraft Heritage Museum that is still at Bullcreek, Perth, W.A. today. This group was dedicated to preserve the diminishing heritage aircraft in Western Australia. They recovered a large amount of aircraft that were no longer flyable due to crashes, faulty glue and decaying wood and corrosion, plus in one case, the end of its military service life.
Donations in those years were the only way of building up a collection for a museum, as they had to charge membership fees as money was in short supply, so the people involved really had to be aircraft enthusiasts. Before this date the R.A.A.F.A. organisation had recovered a Supermarine Spitfire from Britain in 1959 and an Avro Lancaster NX-622, WU16, from the French Aeronatique Navale, Escadrille 9S, in New Caledonia in December 1962, and these two aircraft were the catalyst for this museum.
In early 1971 they had heard of the existence of the Vultee Vengeances in Albany and corresponded with John Bell about these aircraft parts and about his future intentions for the aircraft, as he always wanted it kept in a museum and preferably in Western Australia. You have to understand at this stage that this is at a time when there was was a working whaling station in Albany and John Bell was employed as a pilot spotting for these whales. He donated his Vengeance aircraft parts to the Aviation Historical Group as he had no workshop and was a one man collector and was short of time due to other commitments. Documents over the years have John Bell in his hand writing stating to the A.H.G. and others of his donation to that group. This donation happened on the 4th of December 1971. Also this is before Whaleworld in Albany opened as a museum on whaling after the whaling industry closed down in Albany in 1978. He eventually ended up in Geraldton as a pilot for the Fisherman's Co-operative there after this time.
The Aviation Historical Groups members branched out looking for the missing parts and they were quite successful. In 1972 a letter was sent to a Mr W.P. Thomas of Whippet Products, Bentley, a suburb of Perth, W.A. thanking him for the donation of the undercarriage assemblies, fairings and wheels and also the generous donation of Wright Cyclone engines on the 25th of January 1972. There is also a letter from a Mr A. Krasnostein on a company letter heading of J. Krasnostein & Co. Pty .Ltd . giving the authority for the Air Force Association to take free of charge, a few parts they require for the Vultee Vengeance fuselage, this was on the 26th of January 1972. Gaining these parts as donations from scrap dealers shows how the art of diplomacy must have been used as scrap dealers are not known to part with anything of value.
A group of members from the Aviation Historical Group, who were Messrs Mervyn Prime, Fred Cherry and Geoff Goodall departed Perth for Kalgoorlie between late July and early August 1971 to follow up leads concerning Vengeance parts. The distance from Perth to Kalgoorlie is not a packed lunch trip, but a two to three day adventure.They came across in a smelting yard in Hay Street, a section of the rear cockpit area, with a gun-mount and foot controls, plus armour plating. They then moved to another yard in Forrest Street owned by Krasnostein & Co, to find two fuselage centre sections, one with both wing stubs and the other only the port wing stub, plus a port wing and a panel section from the tail cone area. These fuselage parts had been from two aircraft bought by a Mr Sam Sheperdson in 1948, who had left them on a site owned by Mr Vic Fletcher who later claimed them as they were on his land over a number of years and then sold them in 1964 to the scrap dealer at that time, called Warman Pty. Ltd, who was then taken over by Krasnostein. An engine with its engine mounts, plus fuel tank was found in a yard off Netherscott Street. Two people then related to the group that they had bought three aircraft each at the sales in 1948, but they had been scrapped long before their visit. On a visit to a disused pig farm they found a port wing and various panels and wing ribs and a pilots seat. On a later visit before heading back to Perth they visited this farm and filled up their car with small Vengeance parts and left a note asking that the wing remain there as they would return later in the year.
A well known active member of the A.H.G. called Stan Gadja, made a trip with a car and trailer and called at the scrapyard of Mr Thomas at Bentley, Perth. On this visit he recovered a Vengeance forward cockpit section with half a bomb bay door on each side and a Vengeance wheel, plus an engine panel that was painted brown with an '' nose art '' of an Eagle with outstretched wings gripping a yellow diving bomb in its talons. He took these parts to his home at that time of Lancelin and stored them there, before later dropping them at the R.A.A.F.A. storage shed except for the cockpit section that remained at Lancelin. This storage problem will keep popping up as no museum had been built and members had to resort to storing aircraft parts at their own home premises, with even aircraft being restored in members garages and even John Bell looked after the Aircraft parts he had donated in Albany for a few years.
Now two possibly three Wright Cyclone aircraft engines were collected by other AHG members from the scrap yards. While another had been picked up from a council tip. How many of these engines in total cannot be found in the documents. One engine was still attached to the engine bearer and was stored vertically, while the other engine had cowl ring and panels. You will find one of the recovered engines stands out in photographs over the decades due to its non standard camouflage on the cowling ring. This engine was restored to static display condition by various groups of volunteers in Perth. It was displayed at Perth Airport as a museum promotional engine, then moved to Whaleworld in Albany, then moved back to the Museum in perth during the ownership issues and is still on display at the Aircraft Heritage Museum in 2018 along with another engine with no cowling. No original propellers were ever found, but a fibre glass propeller had been made up for the display engine and a DC-3 one was later found so that it could be fitted on the static aircraft when it was finished to go on display.
Unfortunately as Stans employment meant that he had to move away from Lancelin, he stored the forward cockpit section at a friends premises and on returning two years later found it along with some other parts of aircraft had gone missing and never found again. On behalf of the AHG group Stan was loaned a Dodge truck free of charge by his friends father and with his friend, they went on a trip to Kalgoorlie, he collected a fuselage section and inner wing stubs that had to have the bolts cut off by oxy-acetylene as they could not be unbolted, this occurred at the Simms Metal Yard. The fuselage and stub wings were taken to Lancelin, again for storage and later in 1978 at the same time as the cockpit section that was moved to the friends home, the Kalgoorlie fuselage and stub wings were moved to the Air Force Association shed at Bullcreek, Perth. No other Vengeance parts remained at Lancelin after this year and it was never an original site for scrapped aircraft only a storage place. Another active member called Geoff Goodall advised Mervyn W. Prime the A.H.G. research officer that this fuselage was of Vengeance A27-232. MK2A. R.A.F. serial AN555. But how this serial number was found is not explained.
From the date in 1971 when John Bell donated the Vengeance it had been stored at various places in Albany, plus the whaling station aircraft hangar at the airport was mentioned in one document, but the whaling station closed in 1978 and this was the same year that the Vengeance aircraft parts were brought to Perth by truck and stored at the Air Force Association shed.
Another two active members were Stuart Kirkham and Dave Saunders who travelled to Kalgoorlie in May and another trip in June 1986 to search for Vengeance parts. Various small parts and panels were recovered by Stuart and Dave, but no detailed description of these parts has been unfortunately made of what had been collected. Dave Saunders also refurbished some small items back in Perth but only because the budget was also small at that time too.
On thinking that the only other Vultee Vengeance in the world at Camden, New South Wales, was a complete aircraft and they may have spare parts. A letter was sent to Harold Thomas, but a surprise message came back to them, that advised that he had nothing, but he needed parts himself to finish off his aircraft and could the A.H.G. help. His list was a rudder, a tail cone including the fairing below the rudder, wing to fuselage fairings, navigation light perspex ,armour glass behind main windscreen, gill cowl hydraulic cylinder, tail wheel & axle, tail wheel components and flap shaft. Because the A.H.G. group had various duplicate parts they gave the tail wheel parts Harold needed, which was item 21 part no 72/46033 support assembly, and a tail wheel hub. One item was not available as a spare, a link assembly and that was allowed to be borrowed to be fabricated by the Camden Museum Of Aviation. Correspondence with Camden Museum of Aviation was between 1972 and 73. Closer to home a Vengeance oil cooler had been donated to the A.H.G. from a G.J. Clark in Como,Perth during 1976 and this is still being used in 2018 on a running Armstrong Whitworth Cheetah engine at the museum.
During this time offers came from interested people to the A.H.G. to either buy the Vengeance or swap it for a De Havilland Devon/Dove and in an interesting letter from John Bell in 1987, concerning a swap for the Vought Kingfisher held at Pearce Dunns museum in Mildura, Victoria. Pearce Dunn had wanted either P-40 wings or the Vultee Vengeance for the Kingfisher. These were all rejected as even though work on the Vengeance had taken a back seat to other aircraft and museum buildings, it was still accepted that they would still like to rebuild this aircraft eventually.
At sometime after the whaling station had closed as a working factory, an organisation called Jaycees Community Foundation. (Inc) got involved to open the whaling station as a museum, and a hangar was built to display the spotting planes and the by then Vought Kingfisher that John Bell had eventually bought from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, Victoria and the Consolidated Catalina that ended up by being owned by the foundation. This ownership of the catalina is mentioned twice in documents by the people involved in the foundation, who also leased what was now called Whaleworld based on the old whaling station premises, the aircraft museum hangar has also been called the Malcolm Green Aircraft Museum.
John Bell sent letters in 1987 requesting, that could he at his own expense collect the fuselage so that he could rebuild it in Albany and return it on finishing it to the museum in Perth as he was a member of the A.H.G. As the A.H.G. in Perth had so many projects at that time as another document by Mervyn Prime said that they had 18 aircraft and 50 engines, they accepted the offer that the fuselage would return to Albany to be rebuilt and the wings and tail plane would remain in Perth to be rebuilt by Philip Rose ( Ex Supermarine employee ) and this happened, with the wings being rebuilt in the workshop in Bullcreek, Perth, for static display.
In 1987 a set of only one lot of four Vultee Vengeance canopies is mentioned, that had been found by a A.H.G. member and these were sent on to John Bell at Albany for the fuselage rebuild. You can find in these documents that although three aircraft are involved, only enough parts that would build one static aircraft were usually recovered and only where there was damaged fuselage or tails, plus anything of a mechanical nature, like undercarriages or the engines, did extra parts need recovering. A search for other Vengeance items due to the fact that the places at Kalgoorlie/Boulder and Coolgardie had dried up for parts.The A.H.G. had to go inter state in Australia and were able to exchange a Transavia Airtruck aircraft that had crashed in Western Australia for some parts that included a Vultee Vengeance windscreen with frame and engine mount for this aircraft with Moorabin Air Museum in 1993, also John Bell on his travels to the eastern states of Australia while looking for parts for his Kingfisher, he managed to find for the Vengeance a rudder and gun cupola donated from Ian Whitney in Melbourne, plus from Pearce Dunn at Mildura, he received what was called a few Vultee items that included a rear seat with the mechanism for raising and swivelling. He stated that he hoped to have the fuselage at Albany finished by 1989 and returned to Perth, so that he could progress on to the Kingfisher.
As in all volunteer groups you will find the three disses, disharmony, disunity and disappointment over the years and it was no different to the A.H.G. when a few members broke away to start another museum group, so that this diluted the amount of volunteers that were active across all the aircraft that had been collected. Plus in one document you find a disclosure that would even be relevant today that most volunteers had an active aircraft attention span that only lasted three years and only a few carried on for decades, also natural causes diluted the membership.
During this time various locations for the museum in Perth were looked at but dismissed for a variety of reasons. Eventually land at Bullcreek, Perth, was offered and the first building was built in 1979 thanks to a contribution from the 150th Anniversary W.A. celebrations and another bigger building to the North of the first building was constructed in 1983 to take the bigger planes and that allowed the corrosion to be removed from the aircraft that had been outside for decades. Everyone that has a museum knows that construction of museum buildings is just possibly the easiest part, it is fitting it out with a display that can give you a revenue that is the hard part.The Aviation Museum of Western Australia, went on to order in 1991 four duplicate technical manuals for the rebuild of the Vultee Vengeance from the National Air and Space Museum, in the U.S.A. Two of these manuals are still in the library today.
John Bell who was now the manager at the Whaleworld museum, asked for the rest of the Vengeance parts to display the aircraft as a more complete aircraft at that location in Albany. He went on to explain, as he had donated the Vengeance aircraft parts to the R.A.A.F.A. with the knowledge that a museum was going to be built in Perth but still the plane at Perth had not been finished and displayed, he and his directors would like the aircraft parts back. But by then along with his Vengeance aircraft parts the volunteers at R.A.A.F.A. had collected their aircraft parts, it was then agreed that the aircraft parts could return on a loan basis only (And it was a loan only) and the rest of the parts held in Perth, were transported to Albany in 1992, this was even though the fuselage had still not been finished by him at that time. Unfortunately John Bell passed away along with one custom agent, one federal police officer and one local police officer in a tragic aircraft accident while on a charter in 1996.
Later a delegation from the museum in Perth travelled to Albany to see John Bells widow Mrs Jill Bell concerning the ownership of the Vengeance parts and a friendly meeting was stated as the outcome in documents. Between this time and in 2004 the management at Whaleworld decided that they needed the hangar that the aircraft were exhibited in. An article appeared in the Albany Advertiser of 9th of March 2004 concerning the sale of two of the WW2 aircraft and finalising details for the 3rd WW2 aircraft as there was an uncertainty as stated over the ownership of the Vultee. After producing documents that showed the Vengeance had been donated to the R.A.A.F.A museum in 1971, plus the various Vengeance parts gathered by the AHG members, and that it had been loaned back to Albany on request by John Bell. They had correspondence back and forward, all parties then realised that taking the legal route would be very expensive for all concerned and personally I do not think that R.A.A.F.A wanted to go to court against Mrs Jill Bell, as John Bell was a life member of the R.A.A.F.A. Aviation Museum of Western Australia, and well respected by former colleagues and enthusiasts in Australia and New Zealand. A three way compromise was achieved. The Vultee Vengeance aircraft parts would go to Precision Aerospace at Wangaratta to be used as pattern/copy aircraft parts and was signed by Murray Griffiths. Mrs Jill Bell would receive a financial benefit for the use of these parts and the CEO of R.A.A.F.A. in Perth, a Mr Bob Bunney then signed that they would get the returned Vengeance pattern/copy aircraft parts and would pay for the transportation of parts back to Perth at the end of their use by Murray Griffith. From 2004 until 2011 the Vengeance parts that were to be used as a pattern/copy remained at Wangaratta and nothing had happened to them as a pattern/copy to build an aircraft. Again an unfortunate thing happened and the well respected Murray Griffith passed away during the year of 2011.
After an amount of years these aircraft parts have now been found to have been moved to New South Wales, Australia, where the last known location was with a Mr Richard Greinert who is located at the HARS, Albion Park premises. There is a good possibility that they will finish the rebuild as they have experience on Republic P-47 Thunderbolt rebuilds and also the GAF/Bristol Beaufighter rebuilds. The fact that many parts will have to be constructed to make them fly and also the workshop that will be rebuilding them needs to be similar to a Vultee or Northrop Factory to achieve it. The search for Vengeance parts world wide would I think be an unlikely source, but I could be wrong. The chances of this rebuild happening look good, but only possibly after ten maybe twenty years and a vast amount of money from a well to do person will be needed. But it is now about fifty odd years since these parts have initially been recovered and still they are just projects.Who ever has the intention to have these aircraft rebuilt to fly, then I hope they have a line of succession in their family to see these projects finished.
So what recognition did the R.A.A.F.A. Aircraft Heritage Museum and volunteers achieve from the Vultee Vengeance aircraft parts that they recovered around W.A. and inter state, which was cockpit canopies, engines, engine bearers, undercarriages, fairings, wheels, cockpit fuselage, windscreen and mounting, numerous panels, tail wheel parts, bomb bay doors and actuators and the work on various parts and wings. Exactly nothing until this article. Well the moral of this story is if you have collected aircraft parts, keep them close to you and not let them out of your sight as you will find unlike a boomerang they will not return to you. I hope this clears up the misunderstandings and helps future posts about these two aircraft.
The significance to Western Australia of the Vengeance is due to a wartime accident when a Pilot and his Observer/Navigator had parachuted from their Vultee Vengeance that had run out of fuel on a practice navigational flight over Western Australia. Although the pilot survived and was recovered days later, the Observer/Navigator Flt/Sgt C.L. King was never found after extensive searches in the bush that continued after the war, including a search by his father and still today he has never been found. He only has a cairn monument in an isolated spot in outback Western Australia to remind us.
