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Re: Billy Drake Kittyhawk III FR293 aircraft markings?
The sources are Drake & Shores Billy Drake, Fighter Leader as well as Aces High and History of the Mediterranean Air War, Vol.2. It would appear that although the first mentioned work lists EV165 as being flown on 1 Sep 42. The latter two sources say that it was in fact EV365. Indeed the Air-Britain book Royal Air Force Aircraft EA100-EZ999 does not even list EV165, skipping from EV162 to EV166! So your observation, Buzz, that EV165 was a SAAF based aircraft is informative. Obviously the listing in the Billy Drake bio is in error and I thank you for helping to clarify that.
There is a good side view photo of ET790 in the Drake book. The same one also can be found in History of the Mediterranean Air War, Vol.2 on page 263. I have not come across any photos of Drake's other GA-? marked Kittyhawks. In Shark Squadron: History of 112 Sqn. there is a photo of a Mk. IV (FX561) coded GA-?, but this dates from May 1944, long after Drake's time with the squadron. This is probably the one mentioned by PMoz99.
Cheers,
Tom
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