Rafwaffe - Britain's Enemy Aircraft Squadron

[Music] 9th of February 1940 German Heinkel 8111 Bombers of come fresh vada 26 attacked British shipping in the Firth of Forth on the coast of Scotland aiming to damage the reside a vase a British pilot flying a Spitfire of number 602 city of Glasgow squadron pumps 625 rounds of machine gun fire at one of the Heinkel x' damaging its port engine the German pilot lowers his landing gear to signal he was surrendering and made a crash landing in a field southeast of the town of North Barrack the Heinkel tipped up onto its nose as who came to a halt Britain had just been handed an intact German bomber and they were not slow in seeing its potential the Heinkel was carefully disassembled put on a truck and sent south to the royal aircraft establishment at Farnborough in England for testing and evaluation at Farnborough technicians carefully reassembled the Heinkel and repaired it spares could be sourced from a number of crashed Heinkel 111 that have been recovered from all over Britain and sent to the facility they were cannibalized to keep the north barrack ehe 111 in the air main flight testing was conducted by the aerodynamic flight of the experimental flying department as more enemy aircraft types were captured the unit was formally established at RAF Duxford in November 1941 the roles of the unit were - to evaluate enemy aircraft and to demonstrate their characteristics to other allied units so that pilots would know how to combat these enemy planes in March 1943 the unit now called number one four to six flight will the enemy aircraft flight moved to raf Kaali Weston the unit was quickly christened the RAF fafa the single Heinkel 111 that was operated by the enemy aircraft flight was not allowed to fly more than five miles from raf Kaali Weston without a fighter escort for obvious reasons however on the 10th of november 1943 it crashed at pole Brook when landing ironically attending to avoid one of the enemy aircraft flights Yonkers eighty-eights that was taking off the pilot and six RAF ground crew were all killed in the crash and four more received serious injuries afterwards ground crew always traveled separately because of this accident as well as bombers German fighters fell into British hands in fact a total of seven captured Messerschmitt Bf 109 s passed through the unit in the war it began with a B 1:09 III that was captured by the French in November 1939 and given to the RAF a year later the second 109 held by the enemy aircraft flight an e4 be known as black 12 still exists today in RAF ownership on the 27th of November 1940 black 12 was shot down by a Spitfire of number 66 squadron over the Thames Estuary the German pilot belli landed the plane at RAF Manston in Kent the Royal aircraft establishment repaired it then Rolls Royce in Hudnall carried out engine performance tests next the plane passed to the controller of research and development at Hatfield for propeller tests before joining the enemy aircraft flight in March 1942 in 1943 the 109 was put into storage in 1969 it moved to Santa --then for refurbishment and in 1976 in German colours moved to the RAF Museum at Hendon in London where it remains to the present day the fourth of the seven Messerschmitt Bf 109 s captured by the British and used by the enemy aircraft flight also exists today built in Leipzig in September 1942 and sent to North Africa in October the bf-109 g2 was damaged the 109 was abandoned at gambits main airfield southeast of Tobruk the plane was discovered on the 13th of November 1942 by Australian fight left tenant Ken McRae an engineering officer who noted damage to the tailwheel tail plane canopy and one propeller blade the next day using parts from wreck 109s that littered the airfield the g2 was repaired and made air worthy it was the first gustav 109 to be captured by the british and tested delivered by ship to the UK in December 1943 he was further repaired using salvaged parts on the 27th of March 1945 it finally joined the enemy aircraft flight in April 1946 the aircraft was packed for future display use and between 1946 and 1965 it remained with the air historical branch in 1967 he was used in a static role in the film the Battle of Britain his long restoration to flying condition was completed in March 1991 unfortunately on the 12th of October 1997 he crash-landed in a field near Duxford gear down flipping over and buckling the rear fuselage crushing the fin and rudder and damaging the propeller restored as a static exhibit it is currently on display at the RAF Museum in London one example of the Messerschmitt Bf 1 1 o twin-engine fighter was captured by the RAF intercepted by British fighters on the 21st of July 1940 it was forced now near the Goodwood racecourse in Sussex repaired it remained in RAF service until 1945 and was then sadly scrapped two years later many people don't realize that the Italians took part in the Battle of Britain they're rather obsolescent aircraft were easy prey for RAF Spitfires and hurricanes a fiat cr.42 falco biplane fighter suffered engine failure the 11th of november 1940 and landed on the beach at Orford ness in suffolk it has been preserved that the RAF museum in London for Fokker Wolff fw 190 fighters fell into British hands intact this was because the pilots landed by accident at RAF bases the first an a3 model flown by oberleutnant arm in vada shot down an RAF Spitfire over Devon on the 23rd of June 1942 farber then became lost and landed at RAF Pembry in Wales where he was taken prisoner the second fw 190 an a5 u 8 model landed in error at raf Menston in kent on the 20th of june 1943 the third an a4 u 8 I've dealt with in one of my previous films so please see the end screen for a link and the last FW 190 also an a4 u 8 also landed by accident at Manston and was captured on the 20th of May 1943 and extensively tested unfortunately none of these aircraft survived today one of the RAF straightest coos during the war was the defection of a Yonkers Ju 88 a one-night fighter in May 1943 I've made a film about the fascinating incident so look at the end screen for a link this aircraft survives today at the RAF Museum in London another Ju 88 fell into British hands because its pilot defected the Ju 88 d 1 trop serving with the Royal Romanian Air Force was flown to the British colony of Cyprus on the 22nd of July 1943 renamed baksheesh an Arabic word for tipping it was test flown by the RAF in Egypt however as the British already had three yonkers eighty-eights it was given to the Americans was flown across the Atlantic to Wright Field in Ohio today it is on display the National Museum the United States Air Force in datum a single Henschel HS one to nine b-1 ground-attack aircraft was brought to england after capture in north africa in 1943 it was scrapped after the war and no examples of this rare aircraft exist today finally a single Messerschmitt Emmy Award in tact after landing at Monte Covino in Italy after the crew became lost this aircraft flew in the RAF until 1946 the aircraft was also rather predictably scrapped post-war thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also help support my channel at PayPal and patreon details in the description box [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 781,836

Rating: 4.9666653 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Felton Productions, Rafwaffe, Enemy Aircraft Flight

Id: bhXzFLpZ_Dc

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Millennium7history]

That was an interesting story.