Airfix 1/72 bf109e-4 Franz von Werra

[Lee Drennen]

I agree with Andy Brilliant

 

[yak face]

Tony, the Crashed Enemy Aircraft Report noted, "Starboard wing showed many .303 strikes". That doesn't mean that there were none elsewhere, but that is where they were most noticeable to an observer standing next to the aircraft on the ground.

P/O Stapleton's Combat Report notes that, "I attacked him [von Werra] from the low quarter, he dived vertically towards the ground and flattened at ground level. I then did a series of beam attacks from both sides, and the e/a was turning into my attacks. He finally force landed. He tried to set his machine on fire by taking off his jacket, setting fire to it, and putting it into the cockpit. He was prevented by the L.D.V." Stapleton would have fired several hundred rounds in those attacks, though unhelpfully, Stapleton did not fill that in when he made his report. He didn't fill much in, but I suppose he and his squadron were a bit busy.

See below:

View attachment 507662

View attachment 507663

Excellent info steve ,thanks . I’ll look at drilling some holes in the starboard wing and maybe a few in the cowling . Cheers tony

 

[vizenz]

I think you can see some of the bullet holes in this picture. On the standing wings on the far right behind the British Air Force soldier.

 

[stona]

Andreas is correct. Those are bullet strikes, the small holes with a larger area of missing paint are typical of the damage caused by the .303 bullets that Stapleton would have been firing at von Werra.

Also, just a caution about taking to literally some of the information in reports like Stapleton's Combat Report. Remember that he was flying over von Werra's crash site and could only have had a glimpse of what von Werra was up to. His assertion that the German pilot attempted to burn his aircraft is almost certainly second hand, and is definitely incorrect.

Von Werra was not initially apprehended by members of the L.D.V. but by men from a nearby searchlight battery. As the soldiers entered the field they saw von Werra take some items from his jacket pocket, replace one which he wanted to keep, and then squat down to set them on fire. The soldiers may well have thought that he was attempting to destroy his aircraft because they shouted and began to run towards von Werra. It was papers that von Werra was burning, and he was seen to spread them out to destroy them more quickly, something he had succeeded in doing as the first soldier, an unarmed cook, arrived. Hard on his heels came fellow gunners with rifles and von Werra surrendered without any resistance.

The men from the search light battery had fired their Lewis gun at von Werra as he came in to land and believed it was they who had shot him down! The local papers all credited the gunners with bringing down a 'leading Nazi fighter ace'.

The aircraft 'diving vertically with no tail unit' was Spitfire X4264 and the man in a parachute seemingly circled by von Werra was its pilot P/O Robin Rafter, who survived. Rafter had been wounded by a small piece of shrapnel in the leg and, more seriously, had suffered head injuries when he was thrown through the canopy of his Spitfire as he unbuckled and prepared to abandon the aircraft. He later wrote:

"The next part of my experience was rather a miracle. The machine's nose dropped violently thus having the effect of throwing me forward, the force so great that I went through the canopy thus injuring my head. You can't imagine my surprise. I was then at about 15,000 feet and floating about in the air rather like a cork."