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
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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
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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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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)
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