Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary

Bernhard said:
Correction, a lone German bomber got lost early in the war, so dumped it's bomb load, which happened to be London and not a RAF airfield.
The next day Churchill ordered bombs to be dropped on Berlin which enraged Hitler, who ordered bombs to be dropped on London from then on, giving the RAF airfields a break. The rest is history.
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It was not a correction but an addition, I could add other elements going back to the invasion of Poland or back to 'Peace in our time' and on and on. The main point is the Bombers were working away in the background and would be flying over buildings next to airfields casting shadows.
 
going back to V1 and 2: last summer I visited Blockhaus d’Eperlecques, a fascinating military site nearish to Calais, where the Germans, using slave labour, built a launch site for V1s and 2s, near end of war. The Barnes Wallace Tallboy bomb did almost no damage to the enormous concrete block building, but it DID dissuade them from continuing with V2 launch plans, due to liquid oxygen explosion fears....
 
jan nelder said:
going back to V1 and 2: last summer I visited Blockhaus d’Eperlecques, a fascinating military site nearish to Calais, where the Germans, using slave labour, built a launch site for V1s and 2s, near end of war. The Barnes Wallace Tallboy bomb did almost no damage to the enormous concrete block building, but it DID dissuade them from continuing with V2 launch plans, due to liquid oxygen explosion fears....
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Using slave labour? No comment :-) !
 
oldmikew said:
Surely the aircraft in question would be bombers , neither spitfires nor hurricanes would cast much of a shadow...and if bombers , then surely not planes returning from a battle in which they took no part..
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Even an ultralight flying low over buildings would cast a visible shadow in the right conditions.
I'm not sure why it has to be a Shadow of a certain size in order to qualify for the name, so I'll just go with the maker's description of events.

Glen
 
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It has to cast a shadow of which PV was aware , slow and large will surely cast a larger shadow than small and comparatively fast, Does he say where he was?
 
oldmikew said:
It has to cast a shadow of which PV was aware , slow and large will surely cast a larger shadow than small and comparatively fast, Does he say where he was?
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No, it was just a passing mention in MPH many years ago.
It could have been a photo that gave him the idea.
In any case, it's a very evocative name and some brilliant marketing that is working better than ever today.
Who would have thought that buyers in 2020 would pay $50 k extra vs a same spec Rapide for some black paint and a name?
 
worntorn said:
No, it was just a passing mention in MPH many years ago.
It could have been a photo that gave him the idea.
In any case, it's a very evocative name and some brilliant marketing that is working better than ever today.
Who would have thought that buyers in 2020 would pay $50 k extra vs a same spec Rapide for some black paint and a name?
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Yes absolutely, and it is a very powerful image . As Kommando has kindly posted it seems PV was in Birmingham at the time , so unlikelyto be Spits or Hurricanes .
 
I was told (long ago) that the RAF once inadvertantly bombed Hendon (NW London). Apparently the aeroplane was in trouble and tried to dump its bombs in the Welsh Harp (a reservoir) but missed. Big hush up at the time. My mother told me this, she lived in the area during the war, and heard it from her uncle, a Met policeman. Dont know how much truth there is in the story, or if it could ever be verified.
 
I might have mentioned it here before but my parents were teenagers and Londoners during the BoB (Leyton & Leytonstone), both remember the V-1's flying overhead with there noisy engine sound - my dad said it was when you heard the engine stop that you had to worry. Mom was evacuated down to Devon but Dad being 13 or 14 said he wouldn't leave, and that he would "stand watch" on top of his school and crank the handle of the claxon when they were sighted. If it came up and was being discussed I remember he would also say that they'd dropped so much munitions on Dresden that the asphalt streets ignited and that those teenagers had it bad too. Kinda makes one think, when you hear folks comparing covid-19 to WWII. Seems apples and oranges to me.
 
Good point CJ, yes much is made of the Blitz and what happpened to London and some other cities. But, the reality is that the Germans and Japanese had it worse. The firestorms created in Dresden etc by the 1000 bomber raids must have been horror on another level.

I’m not judging as many do today, which is easy with hindsight, they were desperate times and it was a desperate struggle with a lot at stake.
 
oldmikew said:
Yes absolutely, and it is a very powerful image . As Kommando has kindly posted it seems PV was in Birmingham at the time , so unlikelyto be Spits or Hurricanes .
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Hall Green was in between RAF Elmdon and a short runway at Longbridge, at normal approach pattern neither would have a plane low enough. However a damaged plane or one avoiding low cloud cover would have been hedge hopping, there were a lot of plane movements out of Longbridge as it was making Hurricanes, so all were flown out direct to the squadrons plus flight tests. Any Hurricane on its first flight had potential for a fault appearing and losing height.
 
EstuaryBoy said:
A 27 litre V12 with open pipes sure makes a lovely noise..
For the engineers here, worth checking out the book: 'Negative Gravity.... A Life Of Beatrice Shilling'
Not only was she behind the Merlin modifications that allowed it to catch the ME109s in a dive (previously the engine would cut momentarily due to fuel surge in the float bowl, the ME being fuel injected had no such problem) BUT.. She also successfully raced her own modified Norton at Brooklands, Norton even using her photo in their 1935 catalogue...
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at R.A.E. Farnborough i might add;)
 
kommando said:
Hall Green was in between RAF Elmdon and a short runway at Longbridge, at normal approach pattern neither would have a plane low enough. However a damaged plane or one avoiding low cloud cover would have been hedge hopping, there were a lot of plane movements out of Longbridge as it was making Hurricanes, so all were flown out direct to the squadrons plus flight tests. Any Hurricane on its first flight had potential for a fault appearing and losing height.
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Sorry to appear obtuse.. Now't wrong with your comment, but again, Phil Irving was at Hall Green, not Phil Vincent... To whom the story is attributed. :)
 
jan nelder said:
going back to V1 and 2: last summer I visited Blockhaus d’Eperlecques, a fascinating military site nearish to Calais, where the Germans, using slave labour, built a launch site for V1s and 2s, near end of war. The Barnes Wallace Tallboy bomb did almost no damage to the enormous concrete block building, but it DID dissuade them from continuing with V2 launch plans, due to liquid oxygen explosion fears....
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They told us that it moved the building on its foundations and thats when they got nervous about the oxygen.

Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary


Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary
Battle of Britain 80 year anniversary
 
The V2s used mobile launchers as well to avoid detection and damage from allied air attacks... Awesome technology but so sad why it was developed (and how it was built)
The V1s were also tried 'air launched' from the Heinkel He111.
Also, as part of the 'war of deception' the British would broadcast reports of V1 strikes further inland than they actually were, in an attempt to make the Germans lessen the fuel load so subsequent attacks would fall short.
 
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