Brewster Buffalo on Crete

[g-1reaper]

This ebay lot contains a picture of a wrecked Brewster Buffalo in RAF colors.
The seller mentions the pictures were taken on Crete.
I thought it might be of interest to you.

http://cgi.ebay.de/K-NL-Kreta-Flugze...item27b7847d38

mods; please feel free to move this topic to the proper subboard...

[Muscateer]

What was a Buffalo doing in Crete?

[Buckeye30]

The Fleet Air Arm took over a few from an ex-Belgian order and 805 Sqn. FAA based them on Crete; this may be AX814 ( 7Y).
For short history see

www.fleetairarmarchive.net/squadrons/805.html

Nick

[Brian]

Hi guys

May I humbly suggest you have a look at AIR WAR YUGOSLAVIA, GREECE and CRETE by Shores, Cull & Malizia (published by Grub Street) for more information.

Cheers
Brian

[rpeck350]

Brian,
I have the old Squadron version of AIR WAR YUGOSLAVIA, GREECE and CRETE and was wondering if there is a new AIR WAR YUGOSLAVIA, GREECE and CRETE out?
I have been wanting to build a Crete Buffalo model and is there any other info on the colors used on these planes?
Any one else have other comments?
Those photo's went for a large price.
Thanks Rick

[Buckeye30]

Rick the Buffalos (B339s) supplied to Britain (with 28 ex-Belgian models) were delivered in the Temperate Land Scheme for land-based aircraft rather than the Naval Temperate Sea Scheme ie. Dark Earth-Dark Green above; undersides were a blue shade rather than the paler "Sky", confirmed by squadron members. Maybe Brewster's interpretation of the colour.
A good clear photo of AS417 shows the fuselage band (and spinner in this case) several shades lighter than the underneath. Buffalos sent to the Far East ( RAF, RAAF, RNZAF) also in these colours.
The 3 Buffalos from Egypt and sent to Crete had the band painted out, and a photo of a line-up in the Desert shows the 805 Sqn. badge under the cockpit. It's very unlikely that they were re-painted considering the situation , but the one in the E-Bay photo has the Naval symbols 7Y possibly applied on the carrier.
Most British Buffalos were F2A-2s , the Belgians were F2A-3s. The Crete ones didn't last long .
Regards
Nick

[rpeck350]

Thanks again on the input.
Yes the contrasts of the codes is interesting.
Code are not yellow because the yellow in the roundel is real light so can't claim "its the film used" topic.
When they painted out the fuselage band maybe it was repainted all over.?
Like you said "assumptions" ,well said.
The "early " part of the war is hard to find facts because of loss of men and records.
But this is why I find it interesting, you have to keep digging to find the answers.
Rick

[Muscateer]

Thanks all!
Buffaloes on Crete, I've never come across that before!
Rgds, Muscateer

[Buffnut453]

There's some confusion here. I'll try to correct some of the incorrect comments.

The UK used 2 types of Buffalo, the B339B which were the ex-Belgian airframes and the B339E which were RAF-ordered. Both the B339B and B339E were based on the Brewster F2A-2 (it wasn't called a Buffalo - that was the RAF's name) as used by the US Navy but with the maritime equipment removed and some customer-specific modifications.

Three of the B339Es were used in the UK for testing, the remainder being sent to Singapore. The B339Bs were originally intended for 71 Sqn but were refused by the unit's CO and ended up being used primarily by the FAA. The Buffalos used on Crete were all ex-Belgian airframes. They were delivered to the RAF in the Belgian scheme which was dark brown and dark green on top with aluminium lacquer underneath. During the assembly process in the UK, the undersides were repainted with Sky. It's unclear whether the upper surfaces were repainted in MAP Dark Earth and Dark Green but photos of B339Bs assigned to test and evaluation duties show a low contrast scheme which may indicate that the Belgian upper-surface colours were retained.

The main front-line operator of the B339B was 805 Sqn which also flew Gladiators and Fulmars in North Africa and Crete. The wrecks on Crete show "codes" 'ZZ' and 'ZY' but they have an odd appearance, looking poorly applied. It's unknown when or where they were applied but similar codes are not seen on other pics of B339Bs in use with 805 Sqn.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Mark

[kaki3152]

Here's a picture of a wrecked Buffalo, with British markings that I downloaded from a German album on E-Bay. The markings on the fuselage look like 7Y