6/JG51 Weeping Bird emblem 1940,

[dave wadman]

GH,

That 109 tailview (as you note) is from my old 1999 article on 109E camo. Although the aircraft is that of Illner it is not believed to be the one that he was s/d in on 5 November 1940. Interestingly, the remains of one of the emblems from this particular aircraft is (or was in 1993) on display in a UK museum. I have a colour photo of it around here somewhere - not that it would be of much use as Illner was from the 4./JG 51.

As for the Chamberlin/bird connection, there are a couple of authoritative published references to it but off the top of my head I couldn't tell you where with 100% certainty. I'll go through my files when I have time and find them for you though if you are interested.

Rgds

Dave

[dave wadman]

GH,

In addition to my post above, in the UK the officially recognised duration of the Battle of Britain is from 10 July until October 31 1940. The German view varies considerably depending on who you talk to or read.

Rgds

Dave

[David Walker]

Very, very interesting discussion all the way around. Thanks for educating me.

[Griffin]

Yes, very educationnal .

And I have a question :

As I'd like to build Hans Illner's Bf 109 E-3 "Gretel" ( Number 2 on fuselage and "red smoking Parisian mouth" nose art , on cowl underside ! ) , is somebody can tell the color of number and background insigna : white or yellow ???

Decal sheet says white but, not so sure from the rigth side picture in Model Art 375, p175 ...

Also, any picture of that interesting nose area ?

[dave wadman]

Griffin,

If you don't mind waiting until tomorrow I'll post some material for you and (if I can ever figure out this picture posting thing) some of my photos of this particular aircraft.

Rgds

Dave

[crazydon]

Griffin,

If you don't mind waiting until tomorrow I'll post some material for you and (if I can ever figure out this picture posting thing) some of my photos of this particular aircraft.

Rgds

Dave

If you have trouble with posting Dave relay them my way....Picture Trail is what I use and its easy as pie....(I invented the phrase "computer challenged" so you know it had to be simple to use ) might be worth looking into...easier than Photobucket from what I'm told..and there are 2 levels..free and the pay for which I think is $20.00 a year...(need to check into that)

Use my real name addy...donaldflynn@fuse.net

[dave wadman]

Thanks Don,

I'll forward them to you early tomorrow evening.

Cheers

Dave

[crazydon]

Thanks Don,

I'll forward them to you early tomorrow evening.

Cheers

Dave

Works for me..I'll post them when I get them Dave,

Nite Nite

[Touvdal]

I have been stitting and looking trough all what i have of books with II/JG 51, and all the sheilds with the "Chamberlain Rabe" (as it was taken into use in the autum of 1939) that i could find had the left corner cut ekcept the one on Beeck's.

I found in BOB by Francis K. Mason, among the crash report metioned here. see att.

Dave you have been involved in the Jagdwaffen series, you must surely during resersch seen some more of these ??

Edited December 26, 2005 by Touvdal

[dave wadman]

Touvdal,

Yes, you're correct, my colleague Martin Pegg and I wrote the four Battle of Britain Jagdwaffe titles.

As far as the Crashed Enemy Aircraft Reports for 1940 go I do have copies of all of them from July to December (but remember, they didn't really begin to compile them until July 1940). I also have copies of all of the interrogation reports for each Luftwaffe fighter pilot made P/W during the same period.

The CEAR that you quote is indeed for the 109E-1 (W.Nr.4828) of Uffz. Lenz which was just one of the five 109s lost by JG 51 that day.

Rgds

Dave

[Griffin]

Griffin,

If you don't mind waiting until tomorrow I'll post some material for you and (if I can ever figure out this picture posting thing) some of my photos of this particular aircraft.

Rgds

Dave

Sure, I can't wait !

My thanks in advance Dave and Don .

[dave wadman]

Four scans of Illner’s 109 will shortly be posted for me by Don although reprints of some of them may be found in the new thread posted on Illner.

When Martin & I selected one of Illner’s machines for a colour profile in our Jagdwaffe Battle of Britain series, the final artwork featured in vol.2, sect.2 (pp.110/111) was a composite based on the compilation of various photographs (all, we were told, were of the same machine), material and correspondence with the Illner family. The purpose being to show howthis particular machine might have looked during the mid-August period of 1940.

(Needless to say – and as is always the way - less than four weeks after the book had been published we received a very nice view of the port side of the aircraft which, although the under-nose ‘lips’ motif is not visible, appeared to match our interpretation fairly well and again, a greyscale comparison for the shield suggested yellow more than any other colour!)

In the original copy of the ‘deckchair’ photo (Illner 2 taken between the ninth & 20th of July), grey-scale comparisons strongly suggested that the background colour of the shield was, in all probability, yellow. However, in a similar unpublished photo of the ‘rear end’ of his Emil taken shortly after his third victory on 20th July, the background to the shield looks distinctly lighter but is thought to be more due to lighting that to an actual colour change. Even so, in a much earlier photo of ‘2’ the (greyscale compared) background colour of the shield bears no comparison whatsoever to yellow (nor to the apparently light-coloured spinner) but is a good to reasonable match for blue 65!

In all cases, the aircraft number ‘2’ was applied in the Staffel colour of white and outlined in red although in one photo it can clearly be seen that the white has been considerably ‘dulled down’ by mottling resulting in the red outline being more prominent than the colour it outlined.

Illner was eventually made P/W on 5 November 1940 when, while attempting to avoid the attentions of an attacking Spitfire, the starboard wing of his 109 (White 6) sheared off as he attempted to pull it out of a high-speed dive.

Rgds

Dave

[Griffin]

Hi Dave,

So, "Errormaster"did it somewhat right, this time, except the brown "raven" color .

But needs to have a look at good pics for the shield ...

And a big thanks to Jes Touvdal for his post on Illner . :D

Edited December 26, 2005 by Griffin

[dave wadman]

Yes, it's an interesting article and the updated one from 96 or thereabouts by the German guy is even more interesting.

I'm in fairly regular contact with him so will drop him a line and see if he'll give me the ok to scan/post some of his (different) photos of Illner & his 109s.

Rgds

Dave

[crazydon]

I'm getting them in now guys as Dave sends them, here's the 1st..I'll add them as they get here :D

Other pics on page 4 gang...someone we know should tidy up his picture hosting site once in a while :)

Edited December 27, 2005 by crazydon

[crazydon]

Here the rest gang :D

[David Walker]

Great photos! Thanks for getting them up.

[Griffin]

Yeees! :D

Didn't even think there was so much to find on this plane and his pilot .

[crazydon]

Great photos! Thanks for getting them up.

Dave did all the work Dave, all I did was play with the puter :D

[dave wadman]

Hi Don,

Thanks for posting them.

As you've probably noticed in the other Illner thread started by Jes, I finally figured out the photo-posting thing but managed to do it in stereo!!

Cheers

Dave

[crazydon]

I finally figured out the photo-posting thing but managed to do it in stereo!!

I've done the same thing Dave, don't feel bad :D

Interesting stuff the past couple days...nice to see

[dave wadman]

Seeing the interest about the bird & brolly emblem, here are a couple more views

Dave

No.1

[dave wadman]

And No.2

Note the differences between the two.

Dave

[crazydon]

COOL!!, yep, thats one of the things that I like about that Weeping Bird emblem, all the different versions you can get....makes for some interesting modeling ;)

[Griffin]

Wow, on the way to finish this year as an out-standing topic!

Funny to see none emblems are the same size and design .