Battle of Britain Bf109E found in India a few years ago?

[Andy Saunders]

Peter - Just to satisfy curiosity, did you photograph the port front in the firewall area, above wing root and just ahead of cockpit? I recall there was evidence here of the removed data plate - ie rivet holes and witness marks to show original configuration. Would be interesting to compare this to Steve Polyak's data plate images he has posted in another thread.

[PeterA]

Originally Posted by Andy Saunders

Peter - Just to satisfy curiosity, did you photograph the port front in the firewall area, above wing root and just ahead of cockpit? I recall there was evidence here of the removed data plate - ie rivet holes and witness marks to show original configuration. Would be interesting to compare this to Steve Polyak's data plate images he has posted in another thread.

Andy,

Here?

PeterA

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

Peter et al.

The octane triangle was a factory markings, so it would have been applied before any tactical numbers. I think that the Yellow or ? 8 was next. The real question is whether the 5 or the 6 was next, with the other one of those two being the last application that it carried the day it was shot down. This a/c looks to me like it originally carried the 1939-style markings pattern, which was subsequently updated to the 1940-style, with a mottle added in the later summer of fall of 1940.

Regards,

Larry

It should be perfectly possible to remove all the original paintcoat, preserving it for the posterity, and to analyse it. It is being done by art preservation institutes, just instead of fabric with Mona Lisa it would be the real skin.

[stephen f. polyak]

Another wonderful picture! It clearly shows the outline where the main plate was (just aft of the firewall, just above the upper wing joint line; it appears as if both rivets remain there. The outline formed by the (green) paint reflects the compact six-sided plate shape I showed earlier. It also seems that the area beneath the plate was painted RLM grey (primer) or was simply unpainted aluminum skin. The airframe top coat camouflage color(s) came later.

Back to the paint work speculation . . . wouldn't a hands on, careful examination of the fuselage numbers (i.e., the associated paint layers) positively reveal the order of application? Is that possible via the owner?

[RolandF]

So in case we assume "8" as being the first tactical number applied to our 109, I´d like to point out the two odd rectangular areas positioned on both fuseage sides just aft of the shadow of "8". On the port side this area begins just at the end of the fuel triangle and is just in the correct position where the narrow early ´39 Balkenkreuze had been positioned before being moved further aft ( one frame exactly) later that year. Oddly the shape of both paint areas remotely resemble two crossed arms of a Balkenkreuz.

If we take this grey area the real position of a Balkenkreuz, then the red disc fits into a scheme of an early 1939 Bf 109E marked as "Red 8 + o" similar to Trautloft´s 109 with a standard RLM 70/71 splinter camo down to the fuselage´s bottom.

The grey colour might have been a primer to cover the obsolete cross before the camo scheme was altered and the fuselage sides were completely sprayed over with RLM 65 with hellblau going far up the fuselage and the new Balkenkreuz moved 1 frame aft.

This would have left enough space to move the new tactical numbers ( be it 5 or 6) further aft, and thus partially cover the (maybe already oversprayed) fuel triangle.

It seems to me also the 2nd Balkenkreuz first was applied as the smaller, narrow variant until this one was replaced by the standard size. Watching the paint traces and paint cracks it would appear to me that according to Wick´s last Bf 109 there had also been the attempt to reduce the white areas by painting the outer parts partially black.

This would go with an intense mottling down the fuselage sides. This would mean this plane, as bad the condition is, in which it is preserved, carries the complete set of early 1939 to late 1940 markings and colours.

I hope the investigation and restoration work will be very carefully to reveal he history of this unicate.

Can somebody unveil the secret of the two letterblocks on both sides of the fuselage´s end? Seems to me one in red letters, the other in white?

Regards

Roland

[PeterA]

Roland,

Does this help you?

PeterA

[RolandF]

That´s an excellent overwiew concerning the plane´s markings.

Interesting at first sight is the 3rd Gruppe vertical bar (or part of a fuselage band?) which appears as a vertical paint crack at the same position on the starboard side, parts of the splinter camo on the port side just behind the cockpit and some more red colour particles within the "yellow" area of "8".

It´s difficult to distinguish white from RLM 65 because hellblau seems to lose the blue pigments during weathering and withers to an almost light grey. I´ve seen several original examples having changed that way.

But no photograph can replace the personal view of paint cracks, the different thickness of colour layers and the personal observation which colour layer covers the other.

Professional examination of facade and wooden parts covering create some kind of "stairway" beginning with the younger layers as "upper stairs" and ending with the basic material as last - deepest step. It´sjust important to find a representative point where all layers are still preserved to show the succession of paint processes.
An eventual proof for an early-39 cross can only be gained by carefully sanding down parts of the grey paint - though some rectangular strructures beneath the strbordside cross may indicate this predecessor.

Regards

Roland

[Andy Saunders]

Peter

What I hadn't noticed before was the apparent vertical bar (showing as a white stripe) aft of the fuselage cross. Not much doubt about Roland's view that the grey primer is the evidence of a repositioned cross. When you stand back and look at this, the overwhelming view is that the fuselage numeral was "6". If you look in isolation, and for too long, at the 8, 5 and 6 you end up convincing yourself that the 5 and 8 are also possible contenders for the final fuselage numeral....but it may just be me!

Again - excellent photos! I am seeing things here that I didn't see when I crawled all over it!!!

PS - I must have been writing this as Roland was making his post but we both concur about the the vertical Gruppe bar marking. I also agree with his earlier comments about the helblau RLM 65 and am convinced that the white patches above the wing root on Peter's earlier posts must be helblau. I should imagine that with what we have so far it will be quite easy for someone to soon come up with a profile view of what it must have looked like when it sat down in that Kent field in November 1940.

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

I agree with Andy that this is Black 6+I, as it is reported to be. It obviously was built in 1939, with the old-style camouflage, and may well have previously flown with I./JG77. Not much left of the 1940-style camouflage paint, which has apparently mostly weathered away.

A very productive discussion here, due in no small measure to the wonderful photos by Peter Arnold. We all thank you Peter for your willingness to share these.

Regards,

[Pierre Lessard]

Originally Posted by Larry Hickey

The "odd" inscription on this aircraft was one put on some aircraft back in 1939, before the war, giving a location and telephone number of the home base in case the aircraft was forced down somewhere.

Compared to the latest picture , the inscription certainly appeared readable in earlier photograph available here.

This site goes on saying

"...it was determined that I./JG77 under Hptm. Johannes Janke was based at Breslau-Schöngarten between 1 May and 28 August 1939, which coincides with the service entry of the E-1. In addition, the data block was only present on prewar aircraft, for obvious reasons."

Pierre