I have vivid memories of the Red Arrows coming in very low from the Solent at the start of their display. Legend has it a Blackburn Buccaneer once broke the sound barrier during its display, breaking windows all across the surrounding area. I do remember one year that the Buccaneer display was easily the loudest thing I’d ever heard…
The attack was successful, two bridges were destroyed and several huts were burned in the area. Only one aircraft failed to return, Flight Lieutenant Cullen’s Spitfire LF.VIII of 452 Squadron was missing. He was last seen recovering from a dive-bombing run having successfully released his payload.
Garvey immediately pushed his unarmed Spitfire over into a tight spiralling dive in a desperate evasive manoeuvre but at least one of the Fw190s was able to pursue him downwards. At the bottom of the turn, at zero feet and throttle wide open Garvey pulled his Spitfire’s nose up to avoid some trees…
While Gerald Anderson didn’t receive a Victoria Cross, nor is his loss particularly commemorated, ultimately the price he paid was fully equal to Robert Gray’s, and was indeed equal to all of those who died and so deserves an equal measure of commemoration. That is why the model below is Gerald Anderson’s Corsair, not Robert Gray’s.
Twenty years before the United States made Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut airport famous as its main point of entry to Viet Nam, the Royal Air Force’s No.273 Squadron found itself temporarily based there as an involuntary but active part of France’s attempt to reestablish its colonial control.
Like most disasters in conflicts, the catalogue of mistakes that led to the outcome is easily viewed in hindsight. What happened at Port Pleasant on 8th June 1982 was no exception…
…instead, it is modelled in the markings of one of its victors, one whose sacrifice in defeating the evil represented and defended by these aircraft and those who flew them, was without limit of effort or self-sacrifice. It is that above all else which is “cool” and we would do well to remember that.
Operation “Judgement”, carried out exactly 77 years ago on the 4th May 1945, was the final offensive operation mounted by the Royal Navy in World War Two’s European theatre. It resulted in the sinking of two German surface vessels and a submarine for the loss of two FAA aircraft. The war in Europe ended three days later.
Making-History 