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Big Daddy

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Posts posted by Big Daddy

  1. I'll be following this with quite some interest. That's an impressive array of AM goodies you're going to add.

    I really love the colour pic of the Malta Spitfire! Is it a trick of the light, or maybe the fact the photo is quite old, or are the camouflage colours a bit different from the line drawing in your post?

    Also, salutations to your father. One of the lucky surviving few from that war. And good choice of subject. Buzz Buerling is a legend among Canadian fighter pilots - you'll be happy to hear that I learned lots about him when on the CF-5 course at 419 Squadron in Cold Lake. The folks there are keeping the oral history alive, honouring our past greats.

    ALF

    Thanks, ALF!! I just spent about 4 hours cutting resin parts from casting blocks and sanding them. First time ever using the stuff....what a chore. :bandhead2:

    Regarding the Malta Spit pic...yeah, the actual colours appear quite a bit lighter. I have read that the sun was so intense that paint faded very quickly. And, the number of colour schemes used there is a topic of much debate.

    Thanks very much for your comments and interest.

    Cheers,

    Don

  2. A wonderful story and a great tribute by you, Mike. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

    I was really into modelling when I was a kid (in the '50's) and probably did at least one of every WWII aircraft that ever flew. I did my last model when I was about 12 and then I discovered the guitar, rock ' roll and chicks and that was the end of that, lol. Fast forward to Xmas 2009 when my lovely wife gave me a 1/72nd Hasegawa Lancaster kit after hearing me talk about how much I enjoyed modelling as a kid. Well, it languished in the box on a shelf in the basement until last March when, going to the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 18 with my dad, I met a crusty, witty old fellow by the name of Sam Dunseith at the "Bull's" table (where all the old vets sit). Sam was a rear gunner on a Lanc and was shot down over France. I have always had tremendous regard and respect for vets, but especially for the bomber boys and when he told me about being shot down, my jaw dropped and I blurted out, "You mean you baled out of a burning bomber???" He looked at me with a straight face and said, "Well, they didn't come with a staircase, sonny." After I finally stopped laughing, I tried to get more information out of him, but all he would say was that he flew with the 3oo RAF (Polish) Sqn, that his Lanc, LM179, was called U-Uncle and that they were shot down on July 24/25th, 1944.

    My interest was really piqued so, when I got home, I hit the net and started looking for anything I could find about Sam's last op. In fact, it became my mission to find out everything and build a replica of Sam's Lanc. I joined several different Lancaster and WWII forums (ARC included), googled 300 Sqn, Sam's name, everything. I started getting bits of information from WWII historians in Poland, England and Australia, found out the name of the German ace that shot them down from a WW2 forum, and finally, had a Polish fellow send me copies of the RAF loss report (filed by Sam when he returned to England) and the Evasion Report from the French resistance who harbored him for 4 weeks. When it is all put together it tells yet another amazing story of courage, determination and the will to survive.

    Sam's crew was made up entirely of RCAF boys, F.O. W.W. Robinson (pilot), F/O C.M. "Joe" Forman (navigator), Sgt. J. Rheubottom (mid-Upper gunner), Sgt. E. Morter (flight engineer), Sgt. L. Page (wireless op) and, filling in for their sick bomb aimer, replacement P.O. James Duguid. They were all on their 18th mission, except for Jimmy Duguid, who was on his third op. The entire crew, as well as Duguid's, had been transferred in to 300 (Polish) Sqn in June to bolster their numbers after heavy losses in the spring. They were some of the first non-Polish crews to join 300 Sqn and had already flown 8 missions of their eighteen with 626 Sqn.

    Sam recalls meeting James Duguid. "I was sitting in my turret preparing for the mission when Joe (Forman) came around the tail with a young guy behind him. He said, "Sam, meet our bomb aimer for the night, Jimmy Duguid." I said, "Pleased to meet you, Jimmy!" and reached through the turret (Sam had removed the center section of Perspex) to shake his hand. That was the last time I ever saw the guy."

    They had been assigned LM178 (not LM179 as Sam recalled), "Luck of the Irish", for this operation. It was the Sqn Leader's regular a/c and had arrived at Faldingwoth in June at the same time as Sam's crew.

    They took off from Faldingworth at 2130 hours. Their target was Stuttgart. They were carrying one 2000 lb H.E. "cookie" and incendiaries. It was a clear but hazy night with no moon. As they were passing over Chateaudun region shortly after midnight, they were suddenly attacked from the starboard rear quarter by a JU88, flown by Major Paul Semerau, of NJGII. Sam got off one long burst before his turret was disabled. The German nightfighter's 20mm cannons and machine guns raked the Lanc from tail to nose and also struck the starboard fuel tanks. It is thought that the mid upper turret may have returned fire briefly before it was struck and the gunner killed.

    The starboard wing was blazing as well as the fuselage behind the main spar, where it is likely that the photoflash had been ignited. The pilot signalled the crew to bale out. Joe Forman handed the pilot his chute and prepared to exit through the front escape hatch. Sam's turret had been disabled at the worst possible angle. He couldn't open the doors and fall out backwards as he would have liked and had barely enough room to squeeze back into the fuselage, activating his Mae West as he did so. He then had to crawl forward towards the starboard escape hatch, back into the burning fuselage, open the door and jump out. As he did so, the door slammed on his leg and left him dangling in the burning slipstream. He managed to wriggle out of his flying boot and fall away from the aircraft. As he did so, the starboard fuel tanks exploded, blowing P/O Robinson and Navigator Forman out of the stricken bomber. LM178 dove into the ground 2 miles north of St. Laurent-des-Bois taking the rest of her crew with her.

    Sam, blinded from his burns, and Joe Forman, unhurt, landed in the same field. It was 0015 hours on July 25th. They hid in a nearby forest all night and, in the morning decided that Sam needed to get medical attention. Joe helped him to the nearby farmhouse of Francine LeSerre, where they agreed that Sam would count to 100 before knocking on the door, while Joe made his escape. She hid him in her barn while she went for a doctor. A member of the Maquis (French resistance) then took him to a forest near Marchenoir. He was hidden from the Germans, still blind from his badly infected burns, until August 15th when he was liberated by American troops and returned to England 3 days later. He was in hospital until September 21st.

    Sam recalled an incident while he was hiding out in the forest of Marchenoir; "We used to go down to this stream in the woods where we could wash up. So they led me down there, took my clothes off and helped me wash myself and clean up my burns. It was a sunny day so they laid me on my back in the grass to dry off in the sun, jaybird naked. Well, son of a *****, but didn't they put me right on top off an ant-hill!"

    On July 27th, 2012, almost 68 years to the day that LM178, BH-U "Uncle" and four of her crew were lost, I presented this to Sam. There were a few toasts, a few beers and a few tears.

    7550960782_69f3038b28_b.jpg

    7550961464_7a4741b60c_b.jpg

    7844893704_b1050e8cfd_c.jpg

  3. Big Daddy,

    Should be a good build. Looking forward to seeing the results. I have a Spitfire Mk.IXc reserved for my Buzz Buerling build... sometime in the future. - So many models so little time :)

    Another great book on the Canadian Malta operations is "Hell Island" by Dan McCaffery. The story of the islands survival against great odds is a remarkable one.

    Cheers to you dad and "all the other veteran "erks" who kept the planes flying." :cheers:

    David

    Thank you, David. I hope I can do it justice.

    Cheers,

    Don

  4. My father, who will be 94 in October, was an aero-mechanic with the RCAF during WWII. He was stationed in Moncton, New Brunswick in the summer of 1943 when George "Buzz" Buerling was doing his Victory bonds tour and met him briefly when he lent him a Harvard trainer to "go for a tilt". When I asked him what he was like, Dad said he seemed like a "nice-enough" fellow, but "there was something about his eyes....he had the eyes of a ....." and then he didn't say anything more. I finished his sentence by saying "a killer?" and he just nodded. You have to know my Dad, he refuses to speak poorly of anyone and has been that way his whole life. He also laments the fact that he never saw combat, or went to Europe, or as he puts it, "made any real contribution to the war". I get all over him for that but I know it bothers him. So, I want to dedicate this to my Dad and all the other veteran "erks" who kept the planes flying. Without them, we couldn't have won it.

    I am building a 1/32 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk. Vb which I will do up in Malta colours. The a/c was designated T/L and was s/n EP706. According to records I have found, Buerling flew it on several ops and is said to have made his 19th-22nd kills in this aircraft. For those of you who don't know about Buzz (aka "Screwball") Buerling, he was the top Canadian ace in WWII, credited with 32 1/2 kills. Twenty-six of these came while he was stationed on Malta in the summer of 1942 and he scored them in a mere 14 days of flying. He also scored numerous "Probable" and "Damaged" while there. As they had no gun cameras, they relied solely on eye-witness accounts from other pilots as verification.

    I highly recommend the book "Malta Spitfire" written by Buzz and Leslie Roberts, first published in 1943. It is an amazing first-hand account of this offbeat but extremely gifted fighter pilot and of the battle over Malta.

    The obligatory boxshot...

    7788168196_46f889c168_b.jpg

    A representation of EP706's paint scheme...

    7788167230_37bfdc7526_o.jpg

    An actual colour shot of a Malta Spit Vb.....

    7788167386_91e4b64d16_b.jpg

    I have an Aries resin cockpit set, two Barracuda cockpit detail sets and pilot's door, as well as G-Factor Spitfire 20mm Cannons and Quickboost Spitfire Mk V Exhausts on the way. Oh yeah, and some Aircraft Conversions metal landing gear! Still looking for decals. This will be a fun build!!

  5. My father, who will be 94 in October, was an aero-mechanic with the RCAF during WWII. He was stationed in Moncton, New Brunswick in the summer of 1943 when George "Buzz" Buerling was doing his Victory bonds tour and met him briefly when he lent him a Harvard trainer to "go for a tilt". When I asked him what he was like, Dad said he seemed like a "nice-enough" fellow, but "there was something about his eyes....he had the eyes of a ....." and then he didn't say anything more. I finished his sentence by saying "a killer?" and he just nodded. You have to know my Dad, he refuses to speak poorly of anyone and has been that way his whole life. He also laments the fact that he never saw combat, or went to Europe, or as he puts it, "made any real contribution to the war". I get all over him for that but I know it bothers him. So, I want to dedicate this to my Dad and all the other veteran "erks" who kept the planes flying. Without them, we couldn't have won it.

    I am building a 1/32 Hasegawa Spitfire Mk. Vb which I will do up in Malta colours. The a/c was designated T/L and was s/n EP706. According to records I have found, Buerling flew it on several ops and is said to have made his 19th-22nd kills in this aircraft. For those of you who don't know about Buzz (aka "Screwball") Buerling, he was the top Canadian ace in WWII, credited with 31 1/2 kills. Twenty-six of these came while he was stationed on Malta in the summer of 1942 and he scored them in a mere 14 days of flying. He also scored numerous Probables and Damaged while there. As they had no gun cameras, they relied solely on eye-witness accounts from other pilots as verification.

    I highly recommend the book "Malta Spitfire" written by Buzz and Leslie Roberts, first published in 1943. It is an amazing first-hand account of this offbeat but extremely gifted fighter pilot and of the battle over Malta.

    The obligatory boxshot...

    7788168196_46f889c168_b.jpg

    A representation of EP706's paint scheme...

    7788167230_37bfdc7526_o.jpg

    An actual colour shot of a Malta Spit Vb.....

    7788167386_91e4b64d16_b.jpg

    I am currently looking for aftermarket parts, whatever is available as well as a good decal sheet for this project. Any comments, pos or neg, are welcomed!

    Edit: I have ordered the Aires Spit V Cockpit set & Aircraft Conversions landing gear set.

    Thanks,

    Don

  6. We have done that before. I have added a temporary GB thread for the two overdue GBs in the calander section. Lets keep everything for each GB in those two until Steve makes them official. Hopefully he will notice the extra stuff in the calander and make it happen.

    Yay! Thanks, phantom! :thumbsup:

    Don

  7. Maybe I'm missing something here, but all of us start threads all the time for our works-in-progress, tech questions, etc., etc. Why can't one of us just start a thread in one of the general forums and call it the "insert-GB-name-here" thread? :whistle:

  8. BD: A 1:1 Scale "Clunk" is a full size CF-100.."Clunk" was the name given to the old bird but it's origine is lost in time

    Barney

    OK, I got the 1:1 scale part...just didn't know what a Clunk was. Thanks!!

    Now back to our regularly scheduled model build.. :rolleyes:

    BD

  9. Good progress Mike on a rather sparse kit. I built that one many years ago and it is still in the case. I was a GCA controller at Zweibrucken during that fun time and probably ran the !:1 scale Clunk many times.

    Big Daddy...I'm a Windsor product as well..although many years ago.

    Barney

    OK, Barney, I have to ask....what the heck is a "1:1 scale Clunk"??

    BD

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