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Old 27th Feb 2015, 23:50
  #6799 (permalink)  
Danny42C
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Jack,

Yes, it may well have appeared on one of the recognition posters, but was easily identifiable as it was the last bomber biplane in RAF service, although it was never used operationally, but only as a radar development target (Wiki).

I have some fellow feeling for it, having done the same job myself for a few months in early '45. 1580 Calibration Flight used the (prematurely IMHO) retired Vengeances at Cholaveram (Madras). Apparently their slab-sided fuselages gave good radar returns for the experimental radars on the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

What the memorial stone says is absolutely true. As I wrote in an Open "pep-talk" letter to our troops on an Auxiliary Fighter Control Unit at Thornaby: "It (Radar) enabled us to use our few precious Hurricanes and Spitfires only when and where needed, and not on the comparatively inefficient Standing Patrols of WWI". (Prior to Radar, the accepted doctrine was: "The Bomber will Always get through".

A wartime ACSEA poster blew our own trumpet (from memory):,

"And while we're about it, let us never forget
That Radar was British, and so was the Jet".

Cheers, Danny.