Markings for Spitfire Mk.Vb mid 1/48
COL A
BL336, W/Cdr Robert S. Tuck, CO of Biggin Hill Wing, RAF Biggin Hill, United Kingdom, December 1941 - January 1942
W/Cdr Robert Stanford “Bob” Tuck, with 29 confirmed kills, is one of the most successful RAF fighter pilots. He achieved his first kills with No. 92 Squadron over Dunkirk. By September 11, 1940, when he was appointed commander of No. 257 Squadron, he already had 14 kills to his credit. It is believed that one of his victims, on September 23, 1940, was the future Luftwaffe ace Hans-Joachim Marseille. In early December 1941, Tuck was appointed commander of an elite wing at Biggin Hill. However, on January 28, 1942, his Spitfire BL336 RS-T was hit by flak and Tuck had to make an emergency landing at Boulogne sur Mer, where he was subsequently captured. At Stalag Luft III in Sagan, he participated in preparations for the Great Escape, but just before it was carried out, he was transferred to the Belaria subcamp. On February 1, 1945, he escaped during the evacuation of the camp and joined the Russians. He left the RAF in the 1950s and devoted himself to farming. While filming the movie The Battle of Britain, he befriended Adolf Galland, whose son he was godfather to. He died at the age of 70 on May 5, 1987.
COL B
BM124, S/Ldr Brendan E. F. Finucane, CO of No. 602 Squadron, RAF Kenley, United Kingdom, April 1942
Spitfire s/n BM124 was a presentation aircraft donated to Britain by Queen Salote of Tonga and assigned to S/Ldr Brendan Finucane. It was delivered on March 14, 1942, and Finucane was flying with it continuously until June 18, 1942, when he hit the ground with the tip of the wing while landing at Redhill. The aircraft was severely damaged, and although it was returned to the unit after extensive repairs, Finucane did not fly it again. He scored his last victories in its cockpit. Finucane’s BM124, like his previous Spitfires, was repainted on the upper surfaces in Dark Slate Grey / Extra Dark Sea Grey naval shades. Under the front badge, he had his personal Shamrock emblem and the fuselage letter W painted on. For propaganda purposes, the inscription QUEEN of SALOTE was painted on the fuel tank cover in May. As it later turned out, the inscription was not written correctly, and the Air Ministry submitted an amendment requesting that the photographs taken be changed from QUEEN of SALOTE to QUEEN SALOTE. The word “of” was thus roughly scraped off the negatives. Out of respect for the origins and traditions of No. 602 Squadron, Finucane had the squadron’s emblem, a red Scottish lion rampant in a yellow shield, placed on the engine cowlings of the No. 602 Squadron Spitfires. During his wartime career, Finucane achieved 32 aerial victories, becoming the third most successful Spitfire pilot during World War II.
COL C
BL299, S/Ldr Michael G. F. Pedley, CO of No. 131 Squadron, RAF Lianbedr, United Kingdom, January - April 1942
Michael Pedley joined the RAF in 1935 and served with No. 2 (Army) Squadron until 1939, when he became an instructor. In November 1941, he took command of No. 131 Squadron. During Operation Jubilee (the Dieppe landing), he scored two aerial victories. In September, he was awarded the DFC and promoted to commander of No. 323 Wing, with which he took part in Operation Torch in Northwest Africa. During the war years, he scored five aerial victories and in 1956 was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work in directing and commanding offensive air operations against terrorists in Malaya. He retired in 1957. An interesting feature of the Spitfire BM420, which S/Ldr Pedley flew with No. 131 Squadron, is the non-standard size of the lower wing insignia and the fresh application of the type C insignia, under which the original type A insignia shines through. The inscription Spirit of Kent refers to the county of Kent in Great Britain, which paid for the entire Spitfire squadron. Lord Cornwallis was largely responsible for the collection of funds from the residents of Kent. He appealed to the people of Kent, and after a meeting of the War Emergency Committee, the Kent County Spitfire Fund was established. The residents of Kent and the surrounding towns soon began competing among themselves to see who could raise the most money, and by November 1941, they had managed to raise more than £100,000, which was enough for an entire squadron of Spitfires.
COL D
BL594, F/O Eugeniusz Horbaczewski, No. 303. Squadron, RAF Kirton-in-Lindsey, United Kingdom, June 1942
BL594 was delivered to No. 242 Squadron in April 1942, but was damaged in an accident in May, subsequently repaired and delivered to No. 303 (Polish) Squadron, which was operating from Kirton-in-Lindsey airfield at the time. Here it was given the code RF-G and became the personal aircraft of F/O Horbaczewski, who had his current score of four confirmed kills and a personal emblem of a somewhat wild-looking Pegasus painted on the fuselage. In early February 1943, No. 303 Squadron moved to Heston, but BL594 remained at Kirton-in-Lindsey airfield and became the personal aircraft of the commander of No. 2 Polish Wing, W/Cdr Alexander Gabszewicz, with the new code G-WX.
COL E
BL829, F/Lt John Plagis, No. 64 Squadron, RAF Coltishall, United Kingdom, March-September 1943
John Plagis was born on March 10, 1919, in Hartley, Southern Rhodesia. After the outbreak of war, he applied to join the Rhodesian Air Force but was rejected because he was officially a Greek citizen. He therefore joined the RAF in 1940. At the end of June, he first joined No. 65 Squadron, then transferred to No. 266 Squadron. At the end of January 1942, he was transferred to the Middle East, and on March 7, he became one of the first pilots to fly Spitfires to Malta from HMS Eagle during Operation Spotter. He initially flew with No. 249 Squadron, shooting down nine aircraft between March and May, two of which were shared. He was then transferred to No. 185 Squadron as commander of A Flight and shot down three more enemies by the end of June. In early July, he returned to Great Britain and was transferred to No. 53 OTU. He returned to operational duty in April 1943 with No. 64 Squadron, with which he participated in Operation Starkey in September and scored two more kills by the end of the year. In July 1944, he took command of No. 126 Squadron and scored three more kills during the Normandy landings. In December, the unit re-equipped with Mustangs and Plagis was promoted to Wing Commander. After the war, he commanded No. 234 Squadron and No. 266 Squadron flying Meteor Mk.III aircraft. He left the RAF in May 1948 and returned to Rhodesia. During the war, he shot down 15 aircraft solo and two in cooperation with others, becoming the most successful Greek pilot of the war.
COL F
BL547, F/O Rick R. Richards, No. 402 Squadron, RAF Horne, Great Britain, June 1944
On D-Day, No. 402 Squadron had a mixture of older Mk.Vb and Mk.Vc Spitfires in its armament and was led by the famous ace S/Ldr G. W. Northcott. The squadron was part of No. 142 Wing, which, under the command of another well-known Canadian ace, W/Cdr John Milne Checketts, operated as part of the air defense of Great Britain, albeit under 2 TAF operational control in the role of fighter-bombers. No. 402 Squadron was re-equipped with Spitfires Mk.IX in July, but their time with the unit was brief. Early August 1944 saw a move to Hawkinge, where the Squadron was rearmed with the new Spitfires Mk.XIV with which they immediately engaged in combat against V-1 flying bombs. In late September 1944 the squadron was transferred to 2 TAF in Belgium and joined No. 125 Wing. In December it then joined No. 126 Wing RCAF, where it flew alongside Mk.IX Spitfires. The end of the war found the unit on German soil at Wunstorf with a total score of 49.5 enemy shot down. One of the Spitfires Mk.Vb operating with No. 402 Squadron during D-Day was serial number BL547 which sported the fuselage codes AE-R. It was most often flown by F/O Rick Richards who had a drawing of Black Rufe, a character from the comic strip Li’l Abner, painted on the nose of his Spitfire. Under the cockpit, it bore the standard markings of most No. 402 Squadron Spitfires, a red Canadian leaf in a white crest with the City of Winnipeg in white lettering.
COL G
BL255, Lt. Don S. Gentile, 336th FS, 4th FG, 8th AF, Debden, United Kingdom, November 1942
No. 133 (Eagle) Squadron formed in July 1941 at RAF airbase Coltishall, was in 1942 the first American squadron re-equipped with Spitfires Mk.IX. However, the unit lost its twelve “Nines” in only three days before Eagle squadron was transferred under the USAAF command, during the B-17 escort over Morlaix. After its inclusion into 8th AF USAAF on September 29, 1942, it continued flying the good old Spitfires Mk.Vb as it was transformed from No. 133 (Eagle) Squadron RAF into 336th FS, 4th FG. The BL255 Spitfire, nicknamed Buckeye Don, was the personal aircraft of Don Gentile, the future most successful fighter pilot of the 8th AF with 19 kills, 3 damaged and 6 destroyed on the ground enemy aircraft. He was credited with two more kills during the combat over Dieppe on August 19, 1942, while he was still serving with RAF. The same nose art as on BL255 was later sported on the famous P-51B Shangri La and it was also incorporated into 334th FS insignia.