AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 53 / 152

Plate 53 of 152 · Second World War · Light bomber

Fairey Battle Mk I

Battle Mk I, painted as L5343, the RAF Museum’s Fairey Battle Mk I, built by Austin Motors at Longbridge and delivered in September 1939 with a Rolls-Royce Merlin III, flown with No. 98 Squadron from July 1940, when it led the squadron’s A Flight to Kaldadarnes in Iceland, force-landed near a glacier after an engine failure on 13 September 1940, recovered in 1972, restored with the centre and rear fuselage of L5340 and displayed at Hendon since 2010: Marcel Lobelle’s three-seat light bomber of 1936, a stressed-skin low-wing monoplane of 54 ft span with a chin radiator, a long glazed canopy over the pilot, observer and gunner, rearward-retracting main wheels and four bomb cells in the wings, shown as it is displayed there: Dark Earth and Dark Green upper surfaces over black undersides and chin, type A1 roundels on the fuselage, type B roundels above the wings and type A beneath, a red, white and blue flash on the fin, ‘L5343’ in black on the rear fuselage, the split flaps and bomb crutches lowered, the gunner’s hood raised over a Vickers K gun and a black three-blade propeller with yellow tips.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as L5343, the RAF Museum’s Fairey Battle Mk I, built by Austin Motors at Longbridge and delivered in September 1939 with a Rolls-Royce Merlin III, flown with No. 98 Squadron from July 1940, when it led the squadron’s A Flight to Kaldadarnes in Iceland, force-landed near a glacier after an engine failure on 13 September 1940, recovered in 1972, restored with the centre and rear fuselage of L5340 and displayed at Hendon since 2010: Marcel Lobelle’s three-seat light bomber of 1936, a stressed-skin low-wing monoplane of 54 ft span with a chin radiator, a long glazed canopy over the pilot, observer and gunner, rearward-retracting main wheels and four bomb cells in the wings, shown as it is displayed there: Dark Earth and Dark Green upper surfaces over black undersides and chin, type A1 roundels on the fuselage, type B roundels above the wings and type A beneath, a red, white and blue flash on the fin, ‘L5343’ in black on the rear fuselage, the split flaps and bomb crutches lowered, the gunner’s hood raised over a Vickers K gun and a black three-blade propeller with yellow tips. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.3 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Battle Mk I modelled here.

History

The Battle

The Battle was designed by Marcel Lobelle at Fairey to Air Ministry specification P.27/32, for a single-engined day bomber to replace the Hawker Hart and Hind biplanes. It was a modern aircraft for its day: an all-metal, stressed-skin monoplane with a low wing, a retractable undercarriage, split flaps and a variable-pitch propeller, powered by the new Rolls-Royce Merlin. Its crew of three, pilot, observer and wireless operator-gunner, sat in tandem under a long glazed canopy, and its bombs were carried in four cells inside the wing. Chris Staniland flew the prototype, K4303, on 10 March 1936, and the RAF had ordered it in quantity before that first flight.

No. 63 Squadron received the first Battles in May 1937, and as the RAF expanded they were built by Fairey at Stockport and by Austin Motors at Longbridge, 2,185 in all. By 1939 the Battle was already outclassed: it carried only 1,000 lb of bombs internally, had one forward-firing Browning and a single Vickers K for defence, and was far slower than the German fighters. Ten squadrons went to France with the Advanced Air Striking Force in September 1939. On 20 September a Battle gunner of No. 88 Squadron shot down a Messerschmitt Bf 109 near Aachen, the RAF’s first air victory of the war.

When the Germans attacked in May 1940 the Battles were thrown against bridges and columns at low level, and losses were terrible. On 12 May five volunteer crews of No. 12 Squadron attacked the bridges over the Albert Canal near Maastricht and only one aircraft returned; Flying Officer Donald Garland and Sergeant Thomas Gray were awarded the RAF’s first Victoria Crosses of the war, both posthumously. Two days later, of the 63 Battles sent against the bridges at Sedan, 35 did not return. The survivors attacked the invasion barges in the Channel ports that autumn, then were withdrawn from the front line and used as trainers and target tugs, many of them in Canada, Australia and South Africa.

This airframe

Battle Mk I L5343

L5343The airframe modelled

L5343 was built by Austin Motors at Longbridge and delivered in September 1939 with a Merlin III. After a spell with No. 266 Squadron and in storage it joined No. 98 Squadron on 13 July 1940, and on 27 August it led the squadron’s A Flight of nine Battles from Wick to Kaldadarnes in Iceland, where they were to patrol against a German landing. On 13 September 1940 its engine failed and it force-landed near a glacier, the first RAF aircraft lost in Iceland. Its remains were recovered in 1972 and brought to Britain, and the RAF Museum restored it with the centre and rear fuselage of another Battle, L5340, which had served in Canada; the work was finished in 2008 and it has been displayed at Hendon since 2010, now in the Bomber Command Hall. The model shows it as it is displayed there: Dark Earth and Dark Green above, black beneath and round the chin, yellow-ringed roundels on the fuselage, blue and red roundels above the wings and red, white and blue ones beneath, a fin flash, “L5343” in black on the rear fuselage, the flaps and bomb crutches lowered, the gunner’s hood raised over his Vickers K gun and a black propeller with yellow tips. No photograph shows squadron codes on it, so none are painted, and the camouflage on top of the starboard wing, which no photograph shows, is a guess.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Battle in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 152 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.