Civil Airlines in WWII
Aug 18, 2022 14:18:19 GMT
Post by mickywest on Aug 18, 2022 14:18:19 GMT
In WWII, until the fall of France, airlines from neutral Denmark, Holland and Belgium used Shoreham on the UK South Coast to serve London. Charles E Brown photographed the operations on the grass field which had to be closed temporarily in December 1939 due to its watrlogged surface. The photographs were researchable online in the RAF Museums Navigator collection as an invaluable photo index of several thousand Charles E Brown images ( thumbnails about 400 pixels wide ) but Navigator has been scrapped !!
The line of the river Arun and the deep ruts in Shoreham's surface were useful in Photoshop-stitching-together this panorama of PH-ALU and OO-AUH together, from 2 separate shots by Brown from the balcony beside the tower, probably on the same day but not necessarily the same moment.
The civil registered Blenheims( incl. G-AFXG) parked by the river behind OO-AUH were being delivered to the Greek Air Force, reportedly without military equipment installed.
However 3 of the Charles E Brown phoney war Shoreham session do survive online in the RAF Museums photographic 'shop'
www.rafmuseumphotos.com/dmcs-search.html?search=Shoreham
Perhaps Fokker sprayed all these neutral airliners from the same barrel of orange paint at Schiphol in 1939?
Lightly restored from an original early colour slide photo of 3 KLM DC-3s at Schiphol in1940 in 'neutrality' orange via Paul van der Horst/Dutch Dakota Association
4 KLM DC-3s and a DC-2 avoided the German occupation of Holland ,escaping to England where they were contracted by BOAC to fly the Whitchurch toLisbon route with British registrations in camouflage, but retaining their Dutch bird-names,crews and interiors
Note behind: 2 BOAC Whitleys and to the rear a DH Albatross...did Charles E Brown photograph them as a large format Kodachrome transparency like this one of a KLM/BOAC Wright engined DC-3?
EI-ACA the last DC-3 supplied via the Fokker pre-war Douglas sales agency was delivered to Aer Lingus via Shoreham in orange neutrality paint in May 1940
The line of the river Arun and the deep ruts in Shoreham's surface were useful in Photoshop-stitching-together this panorama of PH-ALU and OO-AUH together, from 2 separate shots by Brown from the balcony beside the tower, probably on the same day but not necessarily the same moment.
The civil registered Blenheims( incl. G-AFXG) parked by the river behind OO-AUH were being delivered to the Greek Air Force, reportedly without military equipment installed.
However 3 of the Charles E Brown phoney war Shoreham session do survive online in the RAF Museums photographic 'shop'
www.rafmuseumphotos.com/dmcs-search.html?search=Shoreham
Perhaps Fokker sprayed all these neutral airliners from the same barrel of orange paint at Schiphol in 1939?
Lightly restored from an original early colour slide photo of 3 KLM DC-3s at Schiphol in1940 in 'neutrality' orange via Paul van der Horst/Dutch Dakota Association
4 KLM DC-3s and a DC-2 avoided the German occupation of Holland ,escaping to England where they were contracted by BOAC to fly the Whitchurch toLisbon route with British registrations in camouflage, but retaining their Dutch bird-names,crews and interiors
Note behind: 2 BOAC Whitleys and to the rear a DH Albatross...did Charles E Brown photograph them as a large format Kodachrome transparency like this one of a KLM/BOAC Wright engined DC-3?
EI-ACA the last DC-3 supplied via the Fokker pre-war Douglas sales agency was delivered to Aer Lingus via Shoreham in orange neutrality paint in May 1940