Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

Interesting picture of a distressed Hurricane with polka dot camouflage.
Vokes filter, one tire gone, it is in pretty poor shape.

Any ideas on the camouflage? In the first "Fighters over the Desert", there is a picture of a Hurricane with spaghetti camouflage painted in a similar manner. The Hurricane is from 208 Sq.

Any ideas as to the unit or anything else?

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

Many Hurricanes from different units used the dot or squiggle frontal camouflage. They involved in staffing missions and the thought was it would be a distraction to German flak gunners.

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

That is a captured hurricane. Picture taken by wehrmacht soldier

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

Here are a couple more pics from old e-bay's I thought these were from greece...

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

The common suggestion that it was meant to be confused with Italian camouflage to benefit strafing attacks is rather defeated by the observation that Italian camouflage wrapped darker colours down around the leading edge not lighter colours up. I suspect that this became popular because the first published photos were of FR Hurricanes, and the scheme became associated with Hurricanes in ground attack roles. It was actually introduced when the Hurricane was the top British air-superiority fighter in the desert. The scheme was also seen on carrier-borne Fulmars, which further suggests that the scheme was originally intended to reduce head-on visibility in air-to-air engagements. Which in itself wouldn't hurt in air-to-ground operations, but the scheme is rarely seen on later Hurricanes, where air-ground was more common and better air superiority fighters were present.

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

Thanks to all for their observations, especially Graham for his detailed explanation. I assumed the Hurricane was in the Desert, but it could very well be in Greece. Different Air Forces have used polka dot camouflage, including the Japanese Army Air Force which had various Ki-43s with all kinds of interesting camouflage.
I guess the idea that this type of camouflage would reduce head on visibility is similar to the Luftwaffe's use of the striped nose on its fighter in the latter part of 1944.

Re: Desert Hurricane with Polka Dot Camouflage
 

One of the photos says Maleme, which is Crete. I know of one other example of such a scheme on a Hurricane in Greece, but it was not common there. It is seen on Hurricanes in temperate colours as well as desert colours, both RAF and FAA (NB not Sea Hurricanes). Perhaps surprisingly it is not seen on P-40s nor Martlets. Photos to the contrary would be delightfully received!

Some information has recently been unearthed from ME records and thus the light colour is reportedly V.84 Aluminium, although the photos don't always appear as bright as might be expected. I had assumed Sky Blue, but either way it is certainly significantly lighter than the underside colour (likely to be either Sky or Azure Blue, but could be Sky Blue according to some reports). The mottle colours look to have the same tones as the upper surface camouflage, but some rather odd ones have been reported/suggested. There may of course have been some variations, and few if any other examples appear to be quite so polka dotted but more short streaks.