Invasion Stripes / Flight 19 Bristol Beaufighter TF Mk X 236 Squadron RAF, Tamiya 1/48

This is a kit I have had in the stash for about 15 years or more.

I jumped at the opportunity to build it as a part of our D Day / Invasion stripe group build as a part of Flight 19 group.

Previously I had wanted to build this kit for another excellent group build that we had, hosted by none other than Paul Barber.

It was called the 100 Years of the Royal Air Force. Unfortunately, I became bogged down with a slew of Spitfire and Hurricane builds. Sadly this Beaufighter never made the cut. This is why I jumped at the opportunity this time.

This is the most excellent 1/48 scale Tamiya model. It was built entirely out of the box, including the decals. No accessories were used to enhance the model, with one minor exception which was made after the build was completed. Once I studied the original pictures something caught my eye.

If you look really close under the horizontal tail section, you can see that a radio altimeter antennae is present under each stabilizer.

I nabbed a set of these from a 1/48 Tamiya F4U-1 "Birdcage" Corsair, since these parts were included if you wanted to make your Corsair a night fighter.

So technically it's still all out of a "Tamiya" box... just from another kit that's all.

I have read online that the Beaufighter would occasionally have the wing roots "patched up" with a Red Oxide type primer when the screws became loose after firing the quad 20 MM's under the nose. This Red Oxide paint was used in various locations when repairs or alterations were made.

So I chose to use it around the radio altimeter antennas, since this area has a darker appearance in the original Black and White photos.

The fit was typical Tamiya and can best be described as "Superb". The cockpit and rear gunner stations are a bit sparse, but in the end it still looks like a Beaufighter to me... so I am very pleased with the outcome.
This one was painted using my ever dwindling supply of Model Master enamels, and supplemented by the little square Testors bottles of enamel for the Invasion stripes, which I elected to paint on using my air brush.

Once I had done the needed research, I found an excellent color photo showing a worn and rather tattered looking Beaufighter. I knew right then and there this was the plane I wanted to make mine look like.

I was also very fortunate to have found several excellent photos of this very same aircraft online, including a few air to air shots.

This became invaluable later on when it came time to add the decals and "dirty her up" some.

The weathering was done with a mixture of Windsor and Newton oils, (which were used to replicate oil leaks on the main landing gear tires and inside the gear wells. I used some pastel powders to make it look grungy elsewhere. Final shading was done using all htree of the Tamiya weathering decks, A,B and C.

I then located a photo showing what I believe is this very same aircraft parked on the ground in a 236 Squadron lineup photo.

In this picture, it does appear that it could be possible the upper surfaces were not a solid color as depicted on the instructions. It looks as if some patches of what was likely RAF Dark Green was added to this color.

I am not 100 percent certain about this. It could also just be some fresh paint that was applied to certain areas on the aircraft. It's next to impossible to know for sure without having a time machine...

But as usual, pictures like this often show up once I complete a model and have declared it finished. Not wanting to take a chance of messing it up, I think I was wise to let sleeping dogs lie, and leave this model alone.

After finding the information about this particular aircraft, I realized it met it's end on October 3rd, 1944... Both crew men were killed.

Ironically this is the EXACT same day that one of my Dad's cousin was killed while flying in a B-25 over Italy as a top turret gunner. Talk about the irony and sadness of war. It seems like such a waste of good men and valuable resources.

But there are times when we must stand up for what is right, in an effort to remove perceived wrongs. Unfortunately this is in our DNA and is part of our human nature. After all, one of the first brothers killed the other. The Bible states that Cain slayed Able. They were the children of Adam and Eve. Sadly this leads me to believe this sort of behavior has been going on as long as mankind has existed.

Meanwhile, here is what I have found out about the actual 236 Squadron. Being a self proclaimed "History Geek", I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from this group.

This Squadron information was obtained from Wikipedia.

Please follow along, as I have also uncovered a fascinating account of how this same unit taunted the Gestapo in Paris, during a parade at that !

I think you will find it interesting, as well as the photographed the Beaufighter crew snapped as it was flying LOW over Paris... just as it dropped a large "Tri Colored" French flag which boosted the morale of the French and the underground.

This is a summary of the eventual fate of this machine and it's crew.

Date: Tuesday, 3 October, 1944
Aircraft type: Bristol Beaufighter TF Mk X
Owner/operator: 236 Sqn RAF
Serial Number: NT950
Fatalities: Fatalities: 2
Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage: Completely Destroyed
Location: Missing - North Sea - Netherlands
Phase: En route
Nature: Military combat mission
Departure airport: RAF North Coates, Lincolnshire
Destination airport:

Narrative:
Beaufighter NT950/T: Took off at 00:25 hrs for Rover 06 patrol. OCT /03/1944 Missing.
Crew: Two men on board
S/Ldr (103.498) Stanley Rowland MULLER-ROWLAND (pilot) RAFVR - killed
F/O (151.864) Alan James KENDALL (nav.) RAFVR - killed

On 03 October 1944, the British Beaufighter TF.X NT950 was hit by Flak in starboard engine and crashed in the North Sea, 11 km northwest from Terschelling. The aircraft had departed from North Coates. All 2 crew members on board died.

Beaufighter TF Mark X, NT950 ‘MB-T’, of No. 236 Squadron RAF based at North Coates, Lincolnshire, banking away from the camera, showing the rocket rails. NT950 was shot down off the Dutch coast on 3 October 1944.
This is one of the air to air pictures of this exact same Beaufighter that I found on Wiki.

History of the 236 Squadron:
No. 236 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron, which served during the First World War in the anti-submarine role, and for most of Second World War employed on anti-shipping operations.

The squadron was formed on 20 August 1918 from No's 493, 515 & 516 Flights at Mullion, in Cornwall. Equipped with DH6s, it carried out anti-submarine patrols along the coast until the end of the war, disbanding on 15 May 1919.

Reformed as a fighter squadron at RAF Stradishall on 31 October 1939, the squadron was equipped with Blenheims. It took them to Bircham Newton in February 1940, where the unit was transferred to Coastal Command.

In April it moved to Speke, rejoining Fighter Command and the following month moved to RAF Filton to fly defensive patrols over the English Channel; in July a move to Thorney Island saw it back in Coastal Command, where it stayed for the rest of the war.

From August 1940 it operated from bases in the south-west of England, carrying out anti-shipping patrols over the Channel, and Irish Sea, having re-equipped with Beaufighters in October 1941.

On 12 June, a Beaufighter flown by a volunteer crew of Flight Lieutenant A. K. Gatward and Sergeant G. Fern made a solo sortie to Paris intending to disrupt a noon parade of German troops down the Champs-Elysees. On arrival it was seen that there was no parade but dropped a French tricolor over the empty avenue and shot up the secondary target of the Gestapo headquarters in the Ministry of Marine on the Place de la Concorde before returning.

I have found a written account of this event, and included it a few paragraphs below. It's definitely worth the read !

236 Squadron was transferred to RAF Wattisham in February 1942 and reduced to a cadre. It received new Beaufighters in March and resumed its previous duties, although these were now flown over the North Sea, with detachments in the south-west who undertook similar duties over the Bay of Biscay. In September 1942 the squadron moved to North Coates and in April 1943 became a part of the strike wing formed there, operating as such until the end of the war. The squadron disbanded on 25 May 1945.

This is the account of the low level mission as written by the people who were there and witnessed it. These guys had big ones ! I'm talking full on solid brass ones at that... Talk about being ballsy...

This story is a part of Chapter 8 in this book, which I found fascinating... I can now see myself pulling out a 1/48 Lancaster, (and possibly a Lysander too) and adding them to the "to do" pile...

CHAPTER VIII
The Pressure Grows
The bombardment of Germany by night was not our only means of increasing the pressure on the enemy. When the end of the winter policy of 'conservation' was announced in March 1942 our fighters and light bombers were once more unleashed in full force against objectives on the other side of the Channel.

For the Air Staff still hoped to inflict heavy casualties on the German fighters; and the Russians, soon to suffer the shock of another German summer offensive, were certainly in dire need of any help that we could give.

From March to the end of June we waged this cross-Channel offensive with relentless vigor. By day our fighters and light bombers flew the combined sweeps known as 'Circuses', by night they 'intruded' against enemy airfields. Altogether during these four months some 22,000 fighter sorties, or an average of 180 a day, penetrated the German defenses in France and Belgium. Over three hundred--three a day--did not return.

In the same period the Bostons and Blenheims of No. 2 Group, without whose company our fighters were completely unable to sting the enemy into action, flew some 700 cross-Channel sorties by day for the loss of eleven aircraft. As against a total loss of 314 fighters and bombers, we thought we had destroyed at least 205 of the machines which came up to meet us; but in fact the Germans lost only 90.

The balance of casualties thus swung in favor of the enemy even more markedly than in 1941, doubtless because he took care to deploy his latest and fastest fighters--the F.W.190's--on this front. Even so the offensive had the cardinal merits not only of keeping two of Germany's best fighter Geschwader at full stretch but also of preserving for us in Western Europe all the moral and other advantages of the initiative.

One of the fighter sorties flown during this period--an individual mission aside from the main operations--has become almost legendary. We had discovered that a company of German troops paraded each day at noon down the Champs-Elysees. Someone at once conceived the idea of sending over one of our aircraft to brighten up this depressing ceremony.

Only a fighter stood any chance of getting there, shooting up the parade, and getting back again; among the fighters only the Beaufighters of Coastal Command had the necessary qualities of long range and no secret radar equipment; and among the Beaufighters of Coastal Command a volunteer crew was readily found in the persons of Flight Lieutenant A. K. Gatward and Sergeant G. Fern of No. 236 Squadron.

When volunteering, these two men knew only that they were offering to fly 'a hazardous and out of the ordinary single-aircraft mission'. Had they known the nature of the operation and the fact that the original plan of shooting up the parade had now been supplemented by the inspired notion of throwing out a tricolore as a parting gesture, their keenness to participate would, if possible, have been even greater than it was.

On 5th May Gatward and Fern learned the details of their mission. They were to carry out the attack only if good cloud-cover extended the whole way from the French coast to Paris. The two men at once began their preparations, making feint attacks each day on an old wreck in the Channel and poring for many hours over maps of Northern France and photographs of Paris.

Very soon came the next step. 'One day', records Gatward, 'we went down to the naval dockyard at Portsmouth and drew a very new and grand-looking Tricolor for which we signed several forms. Back at Thorney Island we cut the flag into two and got the parachute section to sew iron bars on to each. In the evenings when few people were around we made tests with the flags, throwing them as high up as the hangar roof to see how they would unfurl when dropped from the air. We soon discovered the best way to fold them. ..."

On 13th May the weather for the first time promised well. Half an hour before noon the Beaufighter took off. But it had no sooner crossed the French coast than the clouds cleared, and in obedience to their instructions the two men turned back. Two days later they tried again, with the same result. Twice more in the next fortnight they were again baulked; on each occasion the skies cleared when they were well over French territory. Gatward's patience was by then exhausted. As he took the Beaufighter up for the fifth time, on 12th June, he was determined to get through at all costs. How he did so he has himself related:

The forecast was for cloud but it had broken up when we got there [i.e. to the French coast]. This time we carried on. We flew close to the deck all the way, rarely more than a hundred feet up and often as low as thirty feet. We cruised in at about 220 m.p.h., hedge-hopping over trees and buildings and navigating with a map. Fern did a difficult job magnificently and guided me straight into Paris on course.

The parade was timed for midday. Just before noon we picked up the shape of the Eiffel Tower and at 1202 we were over the Champs-Elyses. I climbed up to 300 feet and banked for the attack. But there was no parade. The boulevards were almost deserted. Somehow the Germans had learned of our mission.

Filled with rage and frustration we dived on to the Champs-Elysees, roared along at below roof-top height and climbed over the Arc de Triomphe. As we flashed past the Arc, Sergeant Fern flung the flags out through the flare chute. They went out rather like harpoons and that was the last we saw of them. By now we were approaching the Place de la Concorde and the Gestapo headquarters in the Ministry of Marine building. This was my secondary target and as we passed I sprayed the place with cannon. We got a glimpse of terrified sentries running for their lives and then we were on our way home. We flew back to the coast as low as we had come but met no ack-ack or enemy fighters. We got away with the whole operation scot-free. The only incident was a minor collision with a big crow which crashed into our starboard radiator. Apart from that our only opposition came from swarms of small flies which, low flying, we had collected in a solid mass on our wind-shield. By the time we got back to Northolt it was getting quite difficult to see through them ...

This tonic for French morale, administered by a single aircraft, was at one extreme of our cross-Channel offensive.
[pic000]
SOUVENIR OF A LOW-LEVEL FLIGHT TO THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE
The Grand Palais, in the Champs Elysees, photographed from Flight Lieutenant Gatward's aircraft

I sincerely hope that you have found this to be as interesting as I found the model to be a relaxing an joyful build. This is one of those kits that went together without a single hiccup.






The rockets have not yet been added. The aircraft was dirtied up using pastel chalks and a Tamiya weathering deck. I used an oil wash to bring out the details inside the gear wells. I also used it to make it look as if engine oil had leaked onto the tires while the plane was parked on the ramp.

I can't praise it enough, and have another similar version in "Ye Olde Stash" left to someday build.

As always, comments are encouraged.

Thanks for stopping by.

2 additional images. Click to enlarge.