Bristol Beaufighter

[brickhistory]

I'm the author of "Beaufighters in the Night: 417 Night Fighter Squadron, USAAF."

I'm curious if anyone here has read it and, if so, what did you think?

[Antipodean Andy]

Hi mate. I 'm afraid I haven't read it yet but it is on my list to buy one of these days. We would be interested to hear how you came to write the book and any interesting experiences/people you met as you went.

[brickhistory]

It originated as a sheer coincidence. Until about six years ago, I did not know the USAAF flew Beaus.

The Beaufighter has always been one of my favorite WWII aircraft, ever since reading "Night Fighter" by C.F. Rawnsley (Cunningham's R/O) and Robert Wright as a teenager long ago.

About six years ago I was bidding on a Beau book on e-bay. I won the book but had a competitor e-mail offering to buy it after I read it as his dad was mentioned in the book. I asked if his dad was RAF and imagine my surprise at learning he was US!

From that I wound up writing several magazine articles - I live in the Washington DC area so accessing the US National Archives is relatively easy - and after a year or two considered a book. As I'd never done one, I was intimidated. Then, from the now defunct WWII Night Fighters Association, I was put in touch with a very great gent who has served as an unofficial squadron historian for nearly sixty years.

He sent me several boxes of material/photos. When I received it, I knew I had a book.

I interviewed three surviving pilots, three surviving R/Os, some ground crew, some support guys, and gained access to the letters and personal papers of numerous other guys that had died but their families gave me access.

From those sources, the Archives, other references, I put together the book.

The pilots didn't like the Beau because they'd trained on US aircraft including, of course, the P-70 - conventional gear, toe brakes, etc. Transitioning to the Beau, they had to 'unlearn' the habits instilled - tail dragger, thumb brakes on the yoke, the different response and handling of the sleeve-valved Hercules engines, etc, etc.

The maintenance guys didn't like the airplane due to the high workload added to the lack of a spare parts system. With so few Beaus in the system, the USAAF did not set up a supply system, but left it to the Brits to supply both the aircraft and any support.

As would be expected (the US did the same at times to the RAF), the airplanes given to the US weren't always the best. Add in having to beg/borrow/steal parts to keep 'em flying and the dislike can be understood.

That said, everyone I interviewed was proud to have mastered the Beau.

I'll have to keep my day job, but I think it's a good book.

I'd be grateful for any feedback should anyone here read it.

[Antipodean Andy]

Hi Brick, thanks for the insight. As you may have noticed, we have a couple of other authors on here as well - the most regular poster being Nostalgair (Owen Zupp) who wrote Down to Earth. I have been toying with the idea of getting off my a*se and writing something but struggle for time.

I've read several books about flying the Beaufighter and, given it was a difficult aircraft to fly, am in awe of those who mastered her particularly if they flew at night or at very low level (pretty much every Beau crew!).

How crafty or imaginative did the ground crews have to get to keep the aircraft flying?

[brickhistory]

One example of 'being crafty' involves tires/wheels.

The thin rubber tires of the Beau were designed for the grass and smooth airfields of the UK.

The gravelly/stony fields most often encountered in North Africa/Corsica of the American Beaus punctured/wore out tires at a phenomenal rate. Remember I said there was no US supply system and if the squadron was not co-located with an RAF Beau squadron, there's a problem that would quickly ground the Americans.

The 417th NFS had a war-weary B-25 they used as a 'hack' for mail/booze/general duties runs. They also used it as a transport. In one case, the 417th found a refuse dump with numerous sets of cast-off RAF Beau tires (same as the Mossies) and loaded up the bomb bay of the B-25 with six sets of tires. That let the squadron keep flying for another week or so.

A crew chief told of having to change sparkplugs every 25 hours due to the high oil consumption of the Hercules. The TBO of the Hercules compared to the Pratt & Whitney's of the P-70 back in the States was also dramatically less.

Don't forget the specialized tools - gun cleaning bores, etc, that the Americans had to craft/'borrow' from the RAF for even simple, routine maintenance of the mighty Beau.

In other words, lots and lots of work.

[Antipodean Andy]

Thanks again, Brick, I think your book has climbed to the top of my list!

[Antipodean Andy]

I think we posted the first engine runs for this earlier in this thread but here she is doing taxi runs. About as close to a running Beau as you'll get for the time being, I reckon:

YouTube - Bristol Freighter - First Taxi In 20 Years

[Kyt]

Son salvages a link to father | The Australian

AN attempt to salvage Bob McColl's World War II Beaufighter aircraft from the depths of a Norwegian fjord has brought back bittersweet memories for his son, Dick McColl.

As Mr McColl, 61, himself a Vietnam veteran, commemorates Anzac Day, he will cast his mind back 64 years to the air battle historians call "Black Friday", when the fighter-bomber flown by his father, RAAF pilot Robert McColl, was shot down during a daring raid on German warships in a Norwegian fjord.

McColl, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and his navigator, Warrant Officer Les MacDonald, escaped the crash only to be taken prisoner.

The Black Friday attack, on February 9, 1945, led to the war's largest aerial dogfight over Norway. Fourteen allied airmen died and nine Beaufighters -- so quiet they were known as the Whispering Death -- were shot down.

Members of RAAF 455 Squadron, McColl and MacDonald took off after British radio operators alerted them to the presence of German warships in Fordefjord.

True to the squadron motto, "Strike and Strike Again", McColl dived in, strafing a destroyer below. Soon after, their plane was attacked by a German Focke-Wulf 190 fighter.

Diving his Beaufighter down the steep cliffs of the fjord, the young farmer from Koorawatha in central western NSW took fire before being hit again by a shore-based flak battery.

With his fuel lights flashing empty, McColl pushed his battered aircraft for another 30km before making a flawless belly landing in icy waters.

The two men spent about 30 minutes in a dinghy before being picked up by a Norwegian fishing boat. Sensing imminent capture, McColl gave his pistol to the Norwegians to stop it falling into enemy hands.

Once captured by the Germans, the pair were taken to a prisoner of war camp.

Back in England, McColl's friends sold his 1936 Ford, presuming he and MacDonald to be dead. But Katie Ward, nee Ivatt, the WAAF (Woman's Auxiliary Air Force) driver McColl proposed to the day before the crash, never gave up hope.

A few weeks later, the phone rang at her home in Surrey, southern England. It was McColl.

"It was the most happy and wonderful day of my life," the 86-year-old, who has since remarried, told The Weekend Australian from her home in Tamworth yesterday. "Nobody was optimistic. They told me he'd gone down in flames and there was no way he could be alive."

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the ordeal, father and son rarely talked about it.

In 1970, as a member of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, Dick McColl had only been in Nui Dat in Vietnam a week when he learned his father had died of a heart attack.

"I knew exactly what was coming," he said, after being told by his commanding officer. "It was surreal. I had no reaction at all. It was just the wrong context. But then I wanted to go home straight away.

"I imagine (Black Friday) is one of things that buggered dad's heart," said Mr McColl, who runs an agricultural machinery firm in Armidale, in northern NSW.

After the Vietnam war, Mr McColl would see his father everywhere. "For the first 20 years after I came home I kept seeing my father walk across parks, and other places. I never heard him, I just saw him."

In 1980, Mr McColl's family discovered his father's log book and diary, in which they were stunned to find poetry.

During his three months in captivity, a third spent in solitary confinement, Robert McColl's thoughts turned to his comrades:

"For all my comrades on the line tonight," he wrote, "Out there among the crags and tempestry/I breathe a soldier's prayer."

In 2000, Norway built a memorial to commemorate the battle. Mr McColl visited the site last July to witness a salvage effort begun in 2006 which aims to bring to the surface aircraft lost in the battle, including his father's Beaufighter.

And he saw for the first time the pistol his father had given the Norwegians after being shot down. "I held dad's gun in my hand," he said.

While it will be too costly to salvage the whole Beaufighter, which is deeper and heavier than first thought, salvage experts will in July try to secure some key elements from the wrecked aircraft, including McColl's boots, his identification, and a panel from the plane, all of which will be handed over to the Australian War Memorial. "There's also a gun camera, which may potentially have footage in it," Mr McColl said.

[Antipodean Andy]

Amazing stuff. I knew I should have bought The Weekend Australian on Saturday - most likely had pics.

Don't necessarily agree with piecemeal recovery of the Beau but...it's not my money!

[spidge]

Originally Posted by Antipodean Andy

Amazing stuff. I knew I should have bought The Weekend Australian on Saturday - most likely had pics.

Don't necessarily agree with piecemeal recovery of the Beau but...it's not my money!

No bodies in it so I do not have a problem with the salvage.

By the way Andy, I watched "Beyond Kokoda" again last night and must have missed the beau's flying at 20 feet dropping supplies to the Aussies as they had no parachutes.

The site of them trimming the top of the grasses was unbelievable!

Do you know if this documentary is available on DVD?