"BW" serial number Husons in RAF Service

[Alex Smart]

Hello,

Details of service use of Lockheed Hudson's in RAF service wanted.
Those in question are the 150 odd aircraft in the "BW" serial number range.
I have both BA-BZ editions and The BAC & Lend-Lease books by Air Britain as well as Profile 253 and Andrew Hendrie's book.
The on line RAF serials website also gives the barest of info on this serial number range. Those used by Australia, New Zealand and Canada are well documented and on the WWW. those used by the RAF are almost unknown.

I have got the list down to the following.
BW774 retained by Lockheed, what became of her ?
BW636; BW637 both crashed before delivery, What happened to them ?
BW409; BW411; BW445; BW684; BW699, all used by 45 Group.What was their service history ?
and
BW385; BW420; BW422; BW424; BW425; BW426; BW427; BW428; BW429; BW435; BW440; BW446; BW455; BW459; BW615; BW714; BW721; BW769; BW773. What of these ?

All the rest in the BW361 to BW777 range are accounted for (US Navy; USAAF; RAAF, RCAF; China and RNZAF) .

Anything known of the RAF aircraft ?

Thanks
Alex

[Andrei Demjanko]

The Lockheed Twins published by Air Britain lists more detail on these airframes, but exact fate of some aircraft could be unclear. For example:

A-29 41-23576 USAAF del 2 Feb 42. Tf to
RCAF as BW714. Crashed Long Beach/CA 3 Feb 42 prior dely.

A-29 41-23583 USAAF del 13 Feb 42
BW721 ntu). Mod for Chinese AF, del 8 Jul 42. Fate uk

A-29 41-23631 USAAF del 12 Apr 42 to
Long Beach/CA. Tf to RAF as BW769 by Oct 42. To 45Gp in
Canada. Dam MontrealJPQ (alo Jul 43). Repaired & sold to
Canadian Pacific AIL, regd CF-CRJ 15 May 46. To The
Photographic Survey Corp May 49, cvtd survey acft. Lsd
Kenting Avn Ltd (alo Jun 56). WFU. Restored as RAF Hudson
"T9422", preserved N Atlantic Avn Museum display
Gander/Nfld since May 84.

A-29 41-23635 USAAF del 12 Apr 42 to
Long Beach/CA. Crashed in USA prior Jan 43, nfd (BW773 ntu).

A-29 41-23636 USAAF del 12 Apr 42 to
Long Beach/CA. sed for u"ansition flts. Crashed prior Oct 42 in
USA, nfd (BW774 ntu)

From AAIR web site databases:

A-29 41-23583 (BW721) - crashed in Puerto Rico 20.07.42

RA-29 41-23635 (BW773) - crashed on take-off from Long Beach Municipal Airport 11 March 1942

RA-29 41-23636 (BW774) - crashed on landing Long Beach Municipal Airport 16 March 1942

You can order full accident reports from their site

Hope, this would be of some help

[dp_burke]

You can also ask the Air Force Historical Research Office for the American crash reports for free.

www.afhso.af.mil

[Bill Walker]

Thanks for the information Andrei. Are you sure about BW714? I never found any record of this aircraft in RCAF documents. There are a few other RAF aircraft that crashed in North America and were transferred to the RCAF for accounting purposes. They do show up in RCAF records, usually as TOS and SOS on same day.

[Andrei Demjanko]

Bill, AAIR database also have entry for 41-23576 (BW714) accident, confirming the entry from mentioned Air Britain title that this aircraft crashed prior to delivery to RCAF

RA-29 41-23576 - ground looped on take-off from Long Beach Municipal Airport 3 February 1942

[Bill Walker]

Thanks for that Andrei.

[Alex Smart]

Hello Andrei, Bill and Dennis,

Many ,Many thanks for your replies, they are most welcome.
Looks like my first move now is to try the local library for a copy of "The Lockheed Twins".

Thank you,
Alex