1/48 Hobbycraft Hurricane MkI

Pat Pattle's last Hurricane

by Pablo Calcaterra

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Marmaduke St. John Pattle was born in South Africa in 1914. After joining the South African Air Force, he moved to the RAF in 1937. His first squadron was 80th, which had just been equipped with Gloster Gladiators. One year later the unit was transferred to Egypt, where his skill as a pilot was evident, for instance when he landed his plane minus a wheel without damaging more than the undersides of the lower wing tip. He was probably the most able pilot in his Squadron, something that is proven by the fact that he managed to land one Gladiator minus one wheel without damaging it.

During the first contact with the enemy, he shot down a Breda 65 and a Fiat 42, but all 4 of the outnumbered British planes except for one was shot down. Franco Lucchini may be the Italian pilot who shot down Pattle.

From that moment onward, the combat followed without rest. His score mounted steadily. One of the planes that was giving the British pilots a hard time was the SM 79 “Sparviero” as it was faster than their biplanes. Pat developed a system to shoot them down before they were out of range, which consisted in puncturing the fuel tanks and then firing into the leaking fuel. This would engulf the plane in flames.

In November 80 Squadron was transferred to the Greek front, to support operations in the Albania area. This meant renewed action for the pilots.

In February, with 15 kills awarded, Pattle received his first DFC and the Hurricanes started to replace the Gladiators. On February 20th he claimed the first Hurricane victory ever on this front.

His wingman, “Ape” Cullen, was shot down and killed in combat on March 4th. During this month, he was given the command of 33 Squadron and a Bar to his DFC was announced. His score stood at 23 victories.

As the Greek campaign was becoming a disaster for the Italian forces, and to secure his Southern Flank, Hitler decided to invade Yugoslavia and Greece on April 6th.

This new foe, better equipped and trained than the Italians, didn’t prevent him from scoring. In fact, on the first mission against the Germans in Bulgaria, he shot down 2 Me 109s of JG77.

The Blitzkrieg proved successful again in this theater, where the Allied forces did not have adequate warning and their planes were 'generally speaking" outclassed by the Germans. Strafing attacks followed without respite, and the RAF found that it was a struggle to survive. Reinforcements were thrown into the fray but there was nothing that could overcame the deficits the Allies had.

Pattle had influenza and was very weak after fighting in ever worsening conditions for more than 8 months without stop. Nevertheless, he led his men in this last combat. There are different accounts of it. Some say they were flying to give a moral boost to the Greek population when they found themselves jumped by the Germans. The most publicized version states that the last 15 Hurricanes in Greece (9 of 33 Sqn and 6 of 80 Sqn) took off in late afternoon of April 20th to face more than 100 German planes that were raiding Pireus Harbor in Athens.

One of his friends, Timber Woods, climbed to attack some Me110s from a position of  disadvantage and was jumped by a Messerschmitt. Pat went to his aid, while a couple of Germans swiftly jumped him to protect their mate. Another British pilot (Flight Lieutenant Kettelwell) rushed to his help. Another 110 latched to his tail. So a train of a Hurricane, Me 110s, Hurricane, 2 Me 110s, Hurricane, Me 110 was formed like it happened in other theaters (ie: Saburo Sakai). At the moment that Woods was being shot down in flames, Pattle was claiming Woods victor. A fraction of a moment later, his plane was caught by the fire of the 110s on his tail, and crashed in flames in the bay. One of these 110s was claimed by Kettelwell, who in turn was shot down by the last 110 and saved his life by parachute and was able (along with Vernon Woodward who had took off with Pattle) to tell us the last moments of the RAF pilot. Five German pilots claimed victories during this combat (Rossiwall, Baggoe, Schonthier, Muller and Pietchsmann) so one of these is the final victor of Pattle.

At the time of his death, his official score stood at 34 confirmed victories (there are no official records of him being 33 Sqn leader!), but his fitter’s and friends’ testimonies put his score in the 50s area. Records of 33 Sqn, with all his last claims, were destroyed during the retreat. Afterwards, in Egypt, a new 33 Book was written using the memory accounts of the survivors. Most of the authors placed him at the top the Western Allies list, with a number of claims that go from as low as 41 to 50. Nevertheless, recent research cast doubts on the claims. As a consequence, only 32 planes seemed to have been actually shot down by him as several of his last claims could not be verified with German and Italian surviving records. It must remembered that “Johnnie” Johnson is officially considered the top scoring British pilot of the war with 38 victories. Later studies like the ones carried out with Pattle and several other pilots downgraded his score to 34 and some shared.

Note: the official website of the British Ministry of Defense considers Pattle the unofficial top scoring pilot of the war and an article devoted to him was published for the 60th anniversary of this death (see References).

 

Conversion of the Hobbycraft Hurricane MkII 

into a Hurricane MkI Tropical

 

When I was given this kit, I had already decided that I wanted to modify it to be Pattle’s plane. This, I already knew, implied the modification of the nose and wings.

For the nose, I had the option of cutting it through the panel line immediately before the cockpit and sanding it to make it shorter, or doing the same around the spinner area. None of these would give me a satisfactory nose profile.

For the wings, covering the C type wing panel lines and rescribing them was one of the options, probably the most difficult and time consuming one.

Finally I decided to make a copy in resin of the nose and the gun muzzles using the Hasegawa kit as template.

First I put the 3 nose pieces in a plasticine base with walls made of cardboard covered with plastic (that came from the bag of diapers of my newborn son!). Once properly secured, I dropped the fluid rubber into it and left it cure for a couple of days.

The base was taken off and the rubber+pieces were turned upside down. The rubber was covered with Vaseline and more rubber was dumped into the box (I had little rubber left so I used whatever piece of rubber – even dried – I could use). When dried, the pieces were taken out from the mold and were ready to be used.

The nose of the HC kit was cut along the panel line before the cockpit, so all the engine area was removed. On the wings, using Richard Caruana’s plans in SAMI, a cutter was used to open up a rectangle were the muzzles go.

Click on image below to see larger image

Click on images below to see larger images

Fuselage:

I carved the hole of the handhold handle below the cockpit because the retracting foothold was going to be displayed extended. When this is extended, a cover opens to allow the pilot to get a hold of the fuselage and climb to the plane. The interior of the cockpit was basically built OOB, with the exception of the seat belts that were added (Airwaves), the head pad that was sanded off and the position light hole under the fuselage that was opened up. To make this light, I used on ejector pin of a transparent tree, which is perfectly round and flat. Once painted silver inside, it was glued to the fuselage once it’s halves were glued, using pliers to correctly place it. The panels in this area were scribed

Click on image below on left to see larger image

 

Wings:

 

The bulges for the 20 mm cannons were sanded and most of the panel lines to access them were covered with putty and sanded to oblivion. As I had in my spares box the photoetched gun panels of the HC Hurricane MkI Night Rider, I decided to use them. One thing I immediately noted is that they are too wide and long, so using Caruana’s plans again I sanded them to the correct size. Placed on the wings, new panel lines around these panels were scribed using a cut photocopy of the plans of this area. Once finished, I gave it a coat of interior green (I was painting the parts of the plane that go in this color at this stage…the fuselage had not been closed yet) to check if there was some work needed for these lines.

The wing tip lights were cut out as I wanted to put transparent plastic here to better represent them.

Upper and lower wing halves and wheels bay (weathered with brown chalk and dry brushed silver paint) were glued together and putty was used in the joint areas when needed. Slowly and carefully I opened up the muzzles area that had already been cut to be able to accommodate the resin copies. Fit proved to be not bad at all. They were attached using two-part epoxy glue, which was also used, as a filler where needed. After a couple of sessions, a decent surface was achieved.

The five strengthening bars and the oil tank cup of the front left wing (close to the fuselage) were scratchbuilt and glued.

The taillight was cut out as I wanted to have a transparent piece glued here.

Now the wings were ready to be mated to the fuselage.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Putting all together:

One thing I found is that the Hasegawa nose is slightly wider than the HC one. After sanding a little bit of the joint area, both halves were glued together with epoxy. To strengthen the joint, I used pieces of plastic inside the halves. It took me several sessions of patience, sandpaper and putty to achieve a decent and smooth union of the halves. The panel in contact with the wing had to be sanded as Hasegawa has a different approach to this area.

The panel under the nose is shorter than needed because HC’s lower wing halve does not go as far forward as Hasegawa's does. So I could already see that a gap of aprox. 3 mm. was going to appear between the wings and the underside of the nose. After bending the panel resin piece a little bit, it was successfully attached to the nose. Again some puttying and sanding was required (my resin copies were not as good as they could have been).

With the fuselage / wings and the engine ready, it was time to put them together. Again, the joint between both fuselage halves (front and back) was problematic. As the front part of the plastic fuselage was missing, the area immediately in contact with the engine was a little bit wrapped inwards, provoking more fitting problems with the wings and the nose. To overcome this, I had to keep it open with a couple of plastic strips that kept them pushed outwards. The instrument panel was glued to the resin nose.

With lots of two-part epoxy, the plastic and resin parts were attached. Some gaps were still present in the main areas and the left side of the fuselage had a little step that I had to smooth with putty. Some of the panel lines were lost and rescribed.

Satisfied with this area, I moved to the lower part of the nose. Here I glued a piece of plastic to cover part of the gap between resin and plastic parts, and then covered it with epoxy that was sanded to smoothness.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Tropical filter:

I used the HC one which I glued again with epoxy. The union was treated with putty and sandpaper when necessary. But then I read that the shape was wrong (profile) and after verifying it with several pictures and scale plans, I decided to correct it. The difference is too great (looks like a Spitfire filter) to be left aside.

I carefully cut out the intake itself and sanded the new joint areas. When the filter had the correct depth, the intake was glued back in place and putty and sandpaper finished the profiling work.

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Miscellaneous parts before painting:

No problem was found with the fit of the tail horizontal surfaces.

The photoetched gun bays doors (painted in black and can be seen in some of the previous pictures) were curved a little bit to follow the wing shape and glued with cyano. Some filling was required where the photoetched parts had a small gap with the wings.

The spinner came from the spares box. It was the Airfix MkI De Havilland one. Some sanding was required to improve the shape and size. Backplate and spinner itself were glued together.

The legs were attached.

I masked everything with wet tissue paper and the fun begun!

 

Painting:

Undersides were painted sky (the light under the fuselage was protected with Maskol). Upper surfaces received the usual Humbrol 30, including the wing leading edges both under and above the wings and the spinner.

When dry, these edges were masked and the Humbrol 29 (Dark Earth) completed the basic upper camouflage.

To make the wavy lines of the spaghettis, I used rolls of plasticine that were applied over the green on the leading edges, nose and spinner. The rest of the cammo was masked and the coat of Humbrol 84 + white (Stone) was spayed. When all the masking was removed, the leading edges and nose had green lines over a light sand/brown backgroun The vents for the fuselage of the tropical planes was scratch built (two on each side in the cockpit area).

The propeller blades were painted in black with yellow tip.

A silver pen was used to simulate chipped paint in the gun bays area, walk ways on the fuselage and some engine areas. Black chalk made the guns streaks.

All the paint was given several light hands of Future (first time I used it).

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Decals:

Again, pictures show that in the chaotic situation that the Allied forces faced in Greece and Crete, little time was available to paint the squadron letters. So I only applied the standard roundels (from Techmod), the serial numbers (decals from Carpena) and some stencils from Classic Airframes fabric wings Hurricane. The gun muzzles covers came from the spare decals box.

 

 

Finishing the plane:

A coat of Humbrol matt coat was given to all the surfaces.

The propeller blades were glued to the spinner, which in time was attached with epoxy to the nose.

 The step was glued in the deployed position and the scratch build cover of the hand hold was painted and placed over the hold itself in a 90 degree.

I punched holes in the muzzle covers to show the holes of the resin pieces (if not, what would have been the use for copying this part?)

The exhausts came for the Classic Airframes Hurricane (I will build the version with Kidney exhausts later so I did not need these). They were painted with Humbrol 113 and drybrushed with copper color. The holes in the exhausts were painted black.

The internal and external handles of the canopy were scratchbuild, as were the bead gunsight and the tail support for the antenna. As I am not good at building the antennas, my plane does not have the one that it should carry.

Using transparent sprue, I manufactured the wing tip lights (hollowed to paint the green and red bulbs), the light before the cockpit and the tail position one.

The reflective gunsight was glued and the kit was finished when I added the canopy to the fuselage.

After 6 months of work my Hurricane Trop to remember Pat Pattle was finished.

Pablo

 

Click on images below to see larger images

 

 

References (book and author/owner)

1. PattlePattle, ace of aces - ECR Baker

2. Gloster Gladiator home page - Alex Crawford

3. Military History Journal Vol 1, No3 - The South African Military History Society - Douglas Tidy

4. Aces high volume 2 - Christopher Shores

5. Commonwealth biplane fighter aces - Intenet (www.dalnet.se)

6. IPMS Stockholm web site (for Rick Kent's profiles and detailed pictures of a Finnish Glad)

7. www.1000pictures.com (yet another aces list)

8. Going solo - Roald Dahl

9. Pictorial History of the Mediterranean Air War Volume One, RAF 1940-1943 - Christopher Shores

10. Met.open.ac.uk/group/jwl/glad.htm (detailed picture of the engine)

11. Hurricane aces 1939-40 - Chris Holmes

12. Bristol Blenheim - Theo Boiten

13. Me 110 aces of WWII - John Weal

14.  Spitfire - J.A. Guerrero

15.  Air war for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete – Shores, Cull, Malizza

16. Hurricane aces 1941-1945 – Andrew Thomas

17. http://news.mod.uk/stories/2001/apr/010419a1.htm (MoD website) 

Photos and text © by Pablo Calcaterra