Hurricane I 80 Squadron, Greece 1940

[leigh]

I'm looking for info on Roald Dahl's plane or any 80 squadron plane in Greece in 1940 for that matter. Every year I make my girls some kind of model for Christmas usually a pink plane, but this year my little one has been all excited that she knows that one of her favourite authors flew Hurricanes so I'd like to do a decent representation of that, the PRU Pink Spitfire I made her last year got her all interested in Spits so obviously it works in generating some interest in history and make learning fun for them.

All I can find is the basic history here

And this be the only image.

Now I'm assuming that as the plane was flown from Egypt to Greece it would have a tropical filter and desert scheme?

Anyone help?

[leigh]

DOH!

Well after getting the Hasegawa Hurricane I, I've now realised that their Tropical I comes with markings for 80 Sqn in Greece, guess I'm gonna have two Hase Hurris

[Dr Fester]

Look forward to seeing it Leigh,

Also been wandering around your website, very good

Doc

[agboak]

It might have a tropical filter and desert scheme, but it would be rare if it did. I think there is one view of such an example in Greece. The majority of the Hurricanes in Greece had standard Temperate Land Scheme, Dark Green/Dark Earth upper surfaces with possibly Sky Blue undersides.

One picture of a reinforcement flight does show an aircraft with the so-called "spaghetti" scheme - suggested as Sky Blue wrapping around the leading edges and lower engine cowling with darker "splashes" of camouflage colour. However, most photos just show the plain scheme with serials and no unit markings: presumably these were replacement aircraft delivered at busy times.

[Jay Chladek]

I've got a copy of Roald Dahl's book "Going Solo" and the grainy pictures it has show that the Hurricane 1s they had in Palestine didn't have tropical filters (I can't find a definative shot from Greece, but I don't think they had them there either). As far as being able to get any useable data off the pictures in terms of squadron markings, they aren't good enough for that as they are very low in contrast compared to one picture of a shot down 109 with very easy to recognize markings.

BTW, if the Hasegawa Hurrican Mk.1 trop kit you are referring to is the 1/48 kit, I have it and 80 Squadron is not one of the options on the decal sheet. Of course, the 274 squadron option they show indeed has a "YK" code like that web site you found. So indeed this could be the closest option available in kit form so far. During their time in Egypt, 80 Squadron were operating Gladiators, but transitioned to Hurricanes when they went to Greece in the spring of 1941. So who knows, maybe they got their Hurricanes from 274 squadron's stocks. At the time Dahl ferried his plane to Greece, they only had 14 planes left.

If there is an 80 squadron marking sheet out there, I would love got get my grubby paws on it as well (or references as to what the planes had). The only picture I've seen of an 80 Squadron Hurricane had I believe a "YE-Y" squadron code. But I think it was a shot taken after Dahl returned to England. He was getting blinding headaches when pulling out of attack dives in Palestine, more then likely the result of a Gladiator crash he suffered in Egypt. So he was essentially given a medical discharge from flight duty and returned home.

Edited October 24, 2006 by Jay Chladek

[atckyrre]

Dahl flew V7826 among others - no codes given. This according to Chris Shores "Air war for Balkan and Greece"

Not sure about the timeframe, been a while since I read up on this, but here are a couple of the Hurries used by 80 Sqn. Trop filter, standard camo, though one aicraft in the background appears to be in desert camo and one has got some mid stone overspray in front.

Edited October 25, 2006 by atckyrre