Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
Mk. XVI - the exact same thing, but with the General Motors "Packard Merlin" replacing the Rolls-Royce.
In 1942, the Packard Motor Car Company converted to 100% war production.[31] During World War II, Packard again built airplane engines, licensing the Merlin engine from Rolls-Royce as the V-1650,
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You learn Something New Every Day.
Fareastdriver,
Caught me "bang to rights" again. Of course you're right.
Always thought Packard to be an upmarket division of General Motors Inc, not quite a Cadillac, but a long way up from the humble Chevvie.
How many long-held and cherished notions has Google/Wiki destroyed ! Ah, well.
Scrap of jingle from long ago:
♫..."Oh, you cain't git to Heaven in a Ford V-8 -
'Cos the Devil he drives - a Chev-ro-let"...♫
Danny.
Caught me "bang to rights" again. Of course you're right.
Always thought Packard to be an upmarket division of General Motors Inc, not quite a Cadillac, but a long way up from the humble Chevvie.
How many long-held and cherished notions has Google/Wiki destroyed ! Ah, well.
Scrap of jingle from long ago:
♫..."Oh, you cain't git to Heaven in a Ford V-8 -
'Cos the Devil he drives - a Chev-ro-let"...♫
Danny.
By a strange coincidence I was looking at a Packard Merlin last week, part of a small exhibition about a P51 lost locally on a delivery flight, engine and some other bits recovered a few years ago. Well worth a look if you're near Southport (Atkinson arts complex on Lord St).
http://imgur.com/a/OBvDh
http://imgur.com/a/OBvDh
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andytug,
Thanks for the link (sad story, why would he try to get back to Kilbride when there was Woodvale, Speke, Hooton Park and Hawarden in easy reach ?)
They can't have been all fogged-out, could they ?
Danny.
PS: Have a stroll down Lord Street on a bright morning for me - for I shall never see it again. Southport was my second home as a boy, my maternal grandfather lived there, I knew it (then) so well, and my parents lie in the Eastbourne Road [seems to be called "Cemetery Road" now] Cemetery.
Thanks for the link (sad story, why would he try to get back to Kilbride when there was Woodvale, Speke, Hooton Park and Hawarden in easy reach ?)
They can't have been all fogged-out, could they ?
Danny.
PS: Have a stroll down Lord Street on a bright morning for me - for I shall never see it again. Southport was my second home as a boy, my maternal grandfather lived there, I knew it (then) so well, and my parents lie in the Eastbourne Road [seems to be called "Cemetery Road" now] Cemetery.
andytug,
Thanks for the link (sad story, why would he try to get back to Kilbride when there was Woodvale, Speke, Hooton Park and Hawarden in easy reach ?)
They can't have been all fogged-out, could they ?
Danny.
PS: Have a stroll down Lord Street on a bright morning for me - for I shall never see it again. Southport was my second home as a boy, my maternal grandfather lived there, I knew it (then) so well, and my parents lie in the Eastbourne Road [seems to be called "Cemetery Road" now] Cemetery.
Thanks for the link (sad story, why would he try to get back to Kilbride when there was Woodvale, Speke, Hooton Park and Hawarden in easy reach ?)
They can't have been all fogged-out, could they ?
Danny.
PS: Have a stroll down Lord Street on a bright morning for me - for I shall never see it again. Southport was my second home as a boy, my maternal grandfather lived there, I knew it (then) so well, and my parents lie in the Eastbourne Road [seems to be called "Cemetery Road" now] Cemetery.
Was walking Lord St at lunchtime today, work just round the corner so do it often. Shadow of itself a bit now, high rates, empty shops and expensive parking / over zealous parking wardens are slowly taking the character out of the place, it's a shame.
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andytug (#9949),
So Lord Street has gone downmarket like all the rest ! I prefer to remember it in its heyday (interwar years). What elegance ! What style ! Did not Napoleon III model the Paris boulevards on it - or was it the other way round ? (ought to Google it - but prefer the legend).
A small boy remembers the wide pavements, the verandahs, the posh shops and all the women in their cloche hats and expensive furs......another world which will never return.
Now the Packard Merlin - any Merlin - note the "V-1650" (cu.in. swept volume). From that it put out 1,600 hp. My Wright Double Cyclone did the same - but from 2,600 Cu.in. (a 60% bigger engine !) "Horses for Courses", I suppose.
The Merlin powered both Hurricane and Spitfire in 1940. It was the engine which saved Britain then.
Danny.
PS: My "Starwriter" is back - fettled ! Now to (a) relearn how to use it (DG, have kept Manual) and (b) dig into pile of Floppy Discs (remember them ?) in which is a lot of material on my time in the VV. Most of it will be on Post here already, but you never know. D.
So Lord Street has gone downmarket like all the rest ! I prefer to remember it in its heyday (interwar years). What elegance ! What style ! Did not Napoleon III model the Paris boulevards on it - or was it the other way round ? (ought to Google it - but prefer the legend).
A small boy remembers the wide pavements, the verandahs, the posh shops and all the women in their cloche hats and expensive furs......another world which will never return.
Now the Packard Merlin - any Merlin - note the "V-1650" (cu.in. swept volume). From that it put out 1,600 hp. My Wright Double Cyclone did the same - but from 2,600 Cu.in. (a 60% bigger engine !) "Horses for Courses", I suppose.
The Merlin powered both Hurricane and Spitfire in 1940. It was the engine which saved Britain then.
Danny.
PS: My "Starwriter" is back - fettled ! Now to (a) relearn how to use it (DG, have kept Manual) and (b) dig into pile of Floppy Discs (remember them ?) in which is a lot of material on my time in the VV. Most of it will be on Post here already, but you never know. D.
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My breath is bated, Danny. 
PS: I'm sure we used to have to tinker with a Merlin at BRNC as part of our 'Engine Test', in a shed down by the Dart below the College. Probably nothing very technical.
PS: I'm sure we used to have to tinker with a Merlin at BRNC as part of our 'Engine Test', in a shed down by the Dart below the College. Probably nothing very technical.
Danny, Wikipedia agrees with you re Paris being inspired by Southport. (Napoleon II I stayed there before he became Emperor and allegedly copied the layout).
I have a few historical pics of Southport cribbed from Facebook sites and so on that you might like to look at, probably off topic so will send you a pm with the link when I get a spare min to upload then to imgur.com.
I have a few historical pics of Southport cribbed from Facebook sites and so on that you might like to look at, probably off topic so will send you a pm with the link when I get a spare min to upload then to imgur.com.
Last edited by andytug; 5th Oct 2016 at 17:15.
Thought I was up for at least a carpeting, if not Court Martial.
You may remember I posted a few weeks ago about a former RAF Catalina pilot who was due to give a talk about his time during WW2 flying over [words missing - it turns out that he flew on the North Atlantic on anti-submarine patrols and Murmansk convoy escort duty].
I was away in the meantime, and when I got back I looked up the relevant website for details, only to discover that seating was limited and the event was fully booked. Aaargh!
My first, orderly civil service reaction was to send an email enquiring if there was a waiting list in case of cancellations. But then I realised a more direct "up the middle with smoke" approach was required. So I just turned up on the night, hoping there would be a spare seat, and bingo!
It took me 80 minutes battling my way across rush-hour Dublin to get there, to find that the room was almost completely full. However, there were still about five seats vacant, all of them in the centre in the front row (Danny will be familiar with this seating pattern from Mass). Bingo again!
The speaker, Ted Jones, was utterly delightful. Born in 1922, but you would take him for a sprightly 74-year-old.
I approached him after the talk, told him about this thread and asked him if he uses a computer. Unfortunately, he said no, which is really regrettable, as he is such a bright, lively character that he would be a wonderful asset here.
I thought of recording his talk, took out my phone, hesitated, then thought again and switched it on, not even sure if it would record an hour and a half's talk in one go. When I spoke to him I told him I had recorded most of the talk and asked if he would mind if I transcribed parts of it for this thread, and he immediately said "no problem".
It gets better. His talk was introduced/chaired by the Officer Commanding the Irish Defence Forces Archive, who expressed an interest in having Ted's memories properly recorded for an oral history project being carried out by the military section of the National Museum. Ted is actually English, and moved to Ireland in the mid-1940s because his wife was from Dublin, so it's not clear if his story would come within the terms of the history project, which concerns the Irish Defence Forces, but I'm hopeful the rules might be bent.
I'm travelling again shortly, but plan to try to follow up on this when I get back.
At the very least, I should be able to post some highlights of Ted's story here - the recording volume was low, but I think it should be usable.
You may remember I posted a few weeks ago about a former RAF Catalina pilot who was due to give a talk about his time during WW2 flying over [words missing - it turns out that he flew on the North Atlantic on anti-submarine patrols and Murmansk convoy escort duty].
I was away in the meantime, and when I got back I looked up the relevant website for details, only to discover that seating was limited and the event was fully booked. Aaargh!
My first, orderly civil service reaction was to send an email enquiring if there was a waiting list in case of cancellations. But then I realised a more direct "up the middle with smoke" approach was required. So I just turned up on the night, hoping there would be a spare seat, and bingo!
It took me 80 minutes battling my way across rush-hour Dublin to get there, to find that the room was almost completely full. However, there were still about five seats vacant, all of them in the centre in the front row (Danny will be familiar with this seating pattern from Mass). Bingo again!
The speaker, Ted Jones, was utterly delightful. Born in 1922, but you would take him for a sprightly 74-year-old.
I approached him after the talk, told him about this thread and asked him if he uses a computer. Unfortunately, he said no, which is really regrettable, as he is such a bright, lively character that he would be a wonderful asset here.
I thought of recording his talk, took out my phone, hesitated, then thought again and switched it on, not even sure if it would record an hour and a half's talk in one go. When I spoke to him I told him I had recorded most of the talk and asked if he would mind if I transcribed parts of it for this thread, and he immediately said "no problem".
It gets better. His talk was introduced/chaired by the Officer Commanding the Irish Defence Forces Archive, who expressed an interest in having Ted's memories properly recorded for an oral history project being carried out by the military section of the National Museum. Ted is actually English, and moved to Ireland in the mid-1940s because his wife was from Dublin, so it's not clear if his story would come within the terms of the history project, which concerns the Irish Defence Forces, but I'm hopeful the rules might be bent.
I'm travelling again shortly, but plan to try to follow up on this when I get back.
At the very least, I should be able to post some highlights of Ted's story here - the recording volume was low, but I think it should be usable.
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Huzzah ... fresh meat!!
Looking forward to whatever you can extract from your phone.
Looking forward to whatever you can extract from your phone.
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Some general observations on the Burma war in WWII might be helpful - not that I hold myself to be any kind of a military authority - In the first place, references to being "behind enemy lines" need qualification.
Burma and Siam (the old name was in use during WWII) are big places (combined land area 458,487 sq. mi.) Over this the warring armies roamed, much as in the medieval wars in Europe, with scant regard for the inhabitants. We had observed Siamese neutrality (as with Goa in India), but the Japanese invaded it on their 1942 advance North, so Siam was fair game after that. The ordinary Burmese and Siamese had no dog in this fight: I suppose they looked on it as simply White Sahibs fighting Yellow Sahibs for control of their lands and devoutly wished "a plague on both your Houses !"
It follows that there would be on the (southern) Japanese side large areas where there were no Japanese troops, and on the (northern) Allied side large areas where there would be no Allied ones. As you approached the battle areas, the numbers of combatants per sq. mi. would build up until you reached the "Front Lines" where troops were actually engaged.
These "Front Lines" were not contiguous. Arakan was a level, narrow coastal plain between the mountains and the Bay of Bengal up which the Japanese pushed: it was obviously the way to Chittagong (deep water port and a paved runway). Control of Chittagong would greatly simplify the Jap supply problem and it was one obvious springboard for the invasion of India (with Calcutta (on the other side of the bay), ripe fot taking - if you could get across the "Sunderbans" - the vast tidal delta of the Ganges and Bramahputra rivers.
Further North and East; the state of Manipur (Imphal and Kohima) in Assam, the geography offered another way of attack fom the central plain of Burma West into the Silchar valley.
Google: ...war map of the Manipur region in WWII...(scroll down to) ...Battle of Imphal-Kohima | World War II Database... (scroll down to).....Battle of Imphal-Kohima Interactive Map...
You can see the high road into (present) Bangladesh (then) "The North East Frontier Province" - and as it's well North of the Sunderbands, it's a straight walk to Calcutta (and there were railways).
Further North still, there were the Americans (General "Vinagar Joe" Stilwell) and "Merrill's Marauders" and Chennault with the "Flying Tigers", but they were less concerned with keeping the Jap out of India than of keeping Chaing Kai Shek and China going in their war with Japan.
So what's all this leading up to ? First, it explains how many of our "bale-outs" over Jap held territory walked back out without even seeing a Jap. And (without belittling their achievements in any way) how Orde Wingate and his Chindits, Force 136, (and John Dunbar et al) were able to achieve what they did. (Could a 'Chindit' style operation have been mounted in Europe ? - Impossible !)
Danny.
Burma and Siam (the old name was in use during WWII) are big places (combined land area 458,487 sq. mi.) Over this the warring armies roamed, much as in the medieval wars in Europe, with scant regard for the inhabitants. We had observed Siamese neutrality (as with Goa in India), but the Japanese invaded it on their 1942 advance North, so Siam was fair game after that. The ordinary Burmese and Siamese had no dog in this fight: I suppose they looked on it as simply White Sahibs fighting Yellow Sahibs for control of their lands and devoutly wished "a plague on both your Houses !"
It follows that there would be on the (southern) Japanese side large areas where there were no Japanese troops, and on the (northern) Allied side large areas where there would be no Allied ones. As you approached the battle areas, the numbers of combatants per sq. mi. would build up until you reached the "Front Lines" where troops were actually engaged.
These "Front Lines" were not contiguous. Arakan was a level, narrow coastal plain between the mountains and the Bay of Bengal up which the Japanese pushed: it was obviously the way to Chittagong (deep water port and a paved runway). Control of Chittagong would greatly simplify the Jap supply problem and it was one obvious springboard for the invasion of India (with Calcutta (on the other side of the bay), ripe fot taking - if you could get across the "Sunderbans" - the vast tidal delta of the Ganges and Bramahputra rivers.
Further North and East; the state of Manipur (Imphal and Kohima) in Assam, the geography offered another way of attack fom the central plain of Burma West into the Silchar valley.
Google: ...war map of the Manipur region in WWII...(scroll down to) ...Battle of Imphal-Kohima | World War II Database... (scroll down to).....Battle of Imphal-Kohima Interactive Map...
You can see the high road into (present) Bangladesh (then) "The North East Frontier Province" - and as it's well North of the Sunderbands, it's a straight walk to Calcutta (and there were railways).
Further North still, there were the Americans (General "Vinagar Joe" Stilwell) and "Merrill's Marauders" and Chennault with the "Flying Tigers", but they were less concerned with keeping the Jap out of India than of keeping Chaing Kai Shek and China going in their war with Japan.
So what's all this leading up to ? First, it explains how many of our "bale-outs" over Jap held territory walked back out without even seeing a Jap. And (without belittling their achievements in any way) how Orde Wingate and his Chindits, Force 136, (and John Dunbar et al) were able to achieve what they did. (Could a 'Chindit' style operation have been mounted in Europe ? - Impossible !)
Danny.
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However, one wonders how Japan could really sustain operations so far from home, with an ever-extending supply chain (viz: Burma Railway) and with the sea lanes under increasing pressure from both US and UK/Commonwealth naval forces. And would they have had the manpower to impose an Army of Occupation on anything as vast as India (or large parts thereof)? By 1943 they were already becoming over-extended, and losing command of the seas post-Midway.
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andytug (your #9453),
Nothing seems to be "Off Topic" in this most wonderful and popular of all Threads ! (pace our long-suffering Moderators, whose infinite forebearance has made if so). If it's not sensitive, put it on Open Post. If they strike it down, then PM me - but my Inbox is always up against the buffers.
Thank you ! Whenever it's convenient to you. There is a good Youtube about Southport somewhere, but no idea how to get back to it.
So I had the story right - but the wrong Napoleon (can't win 'em all).
Danny.
Nothing seems to be "Off Topic" in this most wonderful and popular of all Threads ! (pace our long-suffering Moderators, whose infinite forebearance has made if so). If it's not sensitive, put it on Open Post. If they strike it down, then PM me - but my Inbox is always up against the buffers.
Thank you ! Whenever it's convenient to you. There is a good Youtube about Southport somewhere, but no idea how to get back to it.
So I had the story right - but the wrong Napoleon (can't win 'em all).
Danny.
Bolitho is wearing a "lunghi" (Burmese wraparound sleeping kit - much cooler than pyjamas) as we all did.
Now we know where the actress Cherie Lunghi's name comes from - or do we?
So I had the story right - but the wrong Napoleon (can't win 'em all).
Neither did he!
Jack
Now we know where the actress Cherie Lunghi's name comes from - or do we?
So I had the story right - but the wrong Napoleon (can't win 'em all).
Neither did he!
Jack