As a side note to Dutch Military aircraft, attached photos are of the actual left and right aft fuselage skins from the restored RAAF DB-7B Boston A28-8 DU-J (RAF serial AL907) this was one of the 30 odd Bostons diverted from an RAF (originaly French) order to the NEI Navy as interim while they waited for there 48 DB-7C's to be build (all eventualy went to Russia) , AL904 was one of the Bostons that actually made it to Java captured by the Japanese and was flown in Singapore and japan it was recaptured in Japan at the end of the war.
The marking were originaly the standard RAF Yellow,Blue,White and Red, when a/c diverted to NEI Navy roundel painted out and Dutch orange triangle with black border applied when 22 of the Bostons arrived in Australia and went into RAAF service the Yellow,Blue,White and Red roundel was reapplied , the yellow and Red were painted out before the a/c went into combat to leave the standard RAAF Blue and White roundel, on close inspection some of the paint was 6 or 7 layers thick in the roundel area on the aircraft, amazing its lasted 70 years,
First picture is the R/H skin as removed from the a/c second picture is a cardboard triangle for referance to allow easier recognition of were the triangle went on the a/c (triangle should have black border on it but I had no black paint) second pair of pictures are of the L/H skins
gekho, do you have any pictures of the Douglas Bostons that made it to Java with the Dutch triangle? I have only seen the photos doctored by Douglas with orange triangles added. (I know they were going to Dutch navy )
The Fokker D.XXI was a low wing monoplane with a steel tube fuselage covered in large part by fabric. Following some of the standard Fokker design practice, it had wooden wings and a fixed spatted undercarriage. Power was provided by a Bristol Mercury radial driving a three-blade two-pitch airscrew. When it entered service in 1938 it was a quantum leap forward for the Dutch Army Aviation Group though. Until then its fighter force had consisted of aging biplanes with open cockpits. The new Fokker proved to be an extremely sturdy aircraft capable of attaining a speed of 700 km/h in a dive.
Although the order by the ML-KNIL was cancelled, the Luchtvaartafdeeling (Dutch Army Air Force before World War II) placed an order of 36 aircraft, which were all delivered in time to participate in the war against the Germans in May 1940. The Fokker D.XXI, although much slower and more lightly armed than the Bf 109, performed surprisingly well in dogfights, due to its maneuverability. It was also one of the few aircraft that could follow a Stuka bomber into its dive. Nonetheless, the numerical disparity of the Luchtvaartafdeeling compared to the Luftwaffe resulted in the destruction of most Dutch Fokker D.XXI fighters during the campaign. Some were captured during and after 15 May, but their fates, apart from their capture, are unknown.
In 1937, as it became apparent to the French Air Council that domestic manufacturers would not be sufficient to equip the Armée de l'Air with enough fighters, the Dutch were contracted to produce a cheap, high performance fighter to supplement French construction. As produced, the F.K.58 was rather better than the M.S.406 and comparable to the Bloch MB.151 but inferior to the D.520 and most of the German aircraft it faced. It was of composite construction like the British Hurricane with a body of wooden and steel tubing and a skin of metal plates and linen. The wings were made entirely of wood.
The prototype Koolhoven Model 1166 (later named F.K.58) first flew on 17 July 1938. The French placed an order for 50 F.K.58s in January 1939, and the Dutch also placed an order for 36 fighters based on the performance of the second prototype (the first having been destroyed in a crash) but powered by Bristol Taurus engines. Unfortunately, just 17 of the French order were completed at the Koolhoven works due to insufficient French-supplied engines and instruments, and they were subsequently sent to France fitted with Dutch equipment. Production was transferred to Nevèrs where just one more F.K.58 was produced. The completed fighters (7 F.K.58s, 11 F.K.58As) were fitted with French equipment and their loaner parts returned to the Netherlands. Even had the order of 50 aircraft been available for the Battle of France, it is unlikely that the small number of aircraft, outclassed as they were by German fighters, could have changed the outcome much. Had they been employed in their intended role as colonial fighters, they might have acquitted themselves well against the Italian aircraft in that theatre.
The F.K.58 was originally procured for use as colonial fighters. Instead, the 13 fighters operational by May 1940 were manned by expatriate Polish pilots of Captain Walerian Jasionkowski's improvised escadre, the patrouille DAT (Défense Aérienne du Territoire) based at Salon and Clermont-Aulnat. As delivered, the fighters were not armed and the Poles had to acquire machine guns and fit them. From 30 May 1940, they were used in the defence of French cities, patrolling in Avignon - Marseille area, then from Clermont-Ferrand, without any encounters with the enemy. The type's service life was short-lived with only 47 or so operational sorties recorded; the unit had no confirmed victories, but at least one F.K.58 was lost. After the fall of France, all surviving airframes were scrapped.
"Success is not Final, Failure is not Fatal, it is the Courage to Continue that Counts"
Sir Winston Churchill
"To him the People of the World Largely owe the Freedom and Liberties they Enjoy Today"
Enscription on Hugh Dowding's (AOC Fighter Command 1936-40) statue in London
The largest customer for the export Martin bomber was the Dutch East Indies. The first Dutch order was for 12 Model 139WH-1 bombers powered by 750 hp R-1820-F53 Cyclones. They were delivered between September 1936 and February 1937. 26 Model 139WH-3s, powered by 840 hp R-1820-G3s were delivered from November 1937 to March 1938. They were used in the Netherlands East Indies, where the planes gave a good account of themselves against the Japanese. The Dutch Martins reportedly made hundreds of sorties and were credited with sinking several Japanese troopships. Ultimately, all but one was destroyed in combat; the sole survivor made it to Australia, where it was used as a squadron hack, a utility plane.
The Dutch government finally decided to order at Fokker a modern warplane, following the philosophy of the ‘aerial cruiser’. Multi-engined and heavily armed and armoured it was intended to destroy incoming enemy bombers. In fact this idea totally failed and the new plane, designated as Fokker T.V, was not more than a medium-class bomber with a defensive armament falling more or less in the same class as the British Armstrong Siddeley Whitley. However, the T.V could hardly be regarded as a very modern type when it was introduced in the years preceding the outbreak of WW-II. The twin-engine bomber was of mixed construction with wooden wings, a light-alloy front fuselage and a rear fuselage made of welded steel tubes covered with fabric.
Front armament was a 20 mm Solothurn cannon. It carried further four 7,9 mm drum-fed Lewis machine guns at various positions including in the tail. In fact the tail gun position was the same as used on the Fokker G-1. The plane was not fitted with a heating system for the crew and since the gun openings were not perfectly sealed the crew had to fly under very draughty and very cold conditions. The T.V was introduced in a new bomber flight department (BomVa or Bomvliegtuigafdeling) and became operational in 1939. Including the prototype, a total number of sixteen T.V’s was built and supplied, carrying the registrations 850 – 865.
At 10 May 1940 only 9 out of 16 planes were ready for action. None of the other 7 planes could be successfully prepared for action during the May War. All these planes - with exception of 1 at Texel - were stationed at Schiphol AFB. The Fokker T.V was quite a capable medium bomber in 1940. Although obviously considerably slower than the German fighters, it did not under-perform in comparison to for example the British Wellington, the German Dornier Do-17 and Heinkel-111 or the French Potez 630. The obvious limitation of the improvised bomb-racks was a huge disadvantage though. The armament of the T.V outmatched all aforementioned competitors.
Obviously the T.V - that was active as a tactical bomber during the May War - was available in too little a number to make any difference. Still, the plane could be considered quite modern and capable in May 1940. The T-V's flew quite a considerable number of missions. The AFB's Waalhaven and Ockenburg were raided as well as the bridges in the heart of Rotterdam and at Moerdijk. In case of the latter it was the only mission where 300 kg bombs were used. Remarkable was the first scramble of the bomber squadron from Schiphol in the first hour of the German invasion. All bombers scrambled without bombs and with the assignment to assault the Luftwaffe strike planes. Quite a number of bombers and transporters were shot down against zero own losses (although one plane landed in Zeeland and got heavily damaged during landing on a barricaded runway). Especially the 20 mm gun proved a valuable weapon during these confrontations.
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Originally Posted by AARP Hurricane
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