jay hammond
Airman
- 26
- Sep 11, 2021
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What is meant by production cohorts? And what information is wanted?
According to the serial registers and contract cards Halifax III LW682 was Taken on Charge on 28 February 1944 then delivered direct to 432 squadron and listed as missing on 31 March 1944. W.R. Chorley notes it could have been LW687 lost that night, the serial registers say it went missing 30 March 1944. Chorley lists LW682 as one of 7 shot down that night by Oblt. Martin Becker. Nachtjagd War Diaries does not match LW682 to a night fighter claim, it does match 7 losses to Becker's claims.
LW682, 686, 687 were all delivered direct to 432 squadron 28 February to 6 March 1944. The squadron was re-equipped with mark III during February 1944. From about LW426 on the Halifax almost all cease being allocated to usually 48 Maintenance Unit and instead are allocated direct to a squadron.
A Query on contracts. The contract cards say 450 aircraft in the first order from English Electric and 710 in the second order but the summaries have various conbinations of order number and requisition for the block of 350, the cards listing the deliveries say
Order B982938/39 requisition 116/E1/39 for 450 aircraft, built as mark II, V9976 to 9994, W1002 to 1276, DT481 to 808
Order AC 1808 requisition 116/E1/39 for 350 aircraft, built as mark II, JB781 to 974, JD105 to 476
Order AC 1808 requisition HA1/E1/42 for 360 aircraft, built as 100 II, LW223 to 345 and 260 III, LW346 to 724.
Thank you very much for your reply to my query. The cohorts I was referring to were the other aircraft in the specific contract that included Halifax LW682. One source said that it was one plane in a batch of 180 aircraft. Can you tell me if it was at Salmesbury that all the pieces were put together and then the finished Bomber rolled out? Any idea how big the factory for this stage of production was? As I said I'm looking for any information on LW682 that I can find. My uncle was the pilot of this plane when it crashed while returning from a raid on May 12/13, 1944 to Louvain. Thanks again.What is meant by production cohorts? And what information is wanted?
According to the serial registers and contract cards Halifax III LW682 was Taken on Charge on 28 February 1944 then delivered direct to 432 squadron and listed as missing on 31 March 1944. W.R. Chorley notes it could have been LW687 lost that night, the serial registers say it went missing 30 March 1944. Chorley lists LW682 as one of 7 shot down that night by Oblt. Martin Becker. Nachtjagd War Diaries does not match LW682 to a night fighter claim, it does match 7 losses to Becker's claims.
LW682, 686, 687 were all delivered direct to 432 squadron 28 February to 6 March 1944. The squadron was re-equipped with mark III during February 1944. From about LW426 on the Halifax almost all cease being allocated to usually 48 Maintenance Unit and instead are allocated direct to a squadron.
A Query on contracts. The contract cards say 450 aircraft in the first order from English Electric and 710 in the second order but the summaries have various conbinations of order number and requisition for the block of 350, the cards listing the deliveries say
Order B982938/39 requisition 116/E1/39 for 450 aircraft, built as mark II, V9976 to 9994, W1002 to 1276, DT481 to 808
Order AC 1808 requisition 116/E1/39 for 350 aircraft, built as mark II, JB781 to 974, JD105 to 476
Order AC 1808 requisition HA1/E1/42 for 360 aircraft, built as 100 II, LW223 to 345 and 260 III, LW346 to 724.
Geoffrey, do you by chance have a list of the serial batches for the 260 Mk III's from LW346 to 724. Minutiae I know but I'm looking to see which batch suffered the most. Thanks. JayWhat is meant by production cohorts? And what information is wanted?
According to the serial registers and contract cards Halifax III LW682 was Taken on Charge on 28 February 1944 then delivered direct to 432 squadron and listed as missing on 31 March 1944. W.R. Chorley notes it could have been LW687 lost that night, the serial registers say it went missing 30 March 1944. Chorley lists LW682 as one of 7 shot down that night by Oblt. Martin Becker. Nachtjagd War Diaries does not match LW682 to a night fighter claim, it does match 7 losses to Becker's claims.
LW682, 686, 687 were all delivered direct to 432 squadron 28 February to 6 March 1944. The squadron was re-equipped with mark III during February 1944. From about LW426 on the Halifax almost all cease being allocated to usually 48 Maintenance Unit and instead are allocated direct to a squadron.
A Query on contracts. The contract cards say 450 aircraft in the first order from English Electric and 710 in the second order but the summaries have various conbinations of order number and requisition for the block of 350, the cards listing the deliveries say
Order B982938/39 requisition 116/E1/39 for 450 aircraft, built as mark II, V9976 to 9994, W1002 to 1276, DT481 to 808
Order AC 1808 requisition 116/E1/39 for 350 aircraft, built as mark II, JB781 to 974, JD105 to 476
Order AC 1808 requisition HA1/E1/42 for 360 aircraft, built as 100 II, LW223 to 345 and 260 III, LW346 to 724.
Perfect Geoffrey. Thanks a million. JayInitial production of Halifax III from English Electric,
3 aircraft from LW346 to LW348
37 aircraft from LW361 to LW397
35 aircraft from LW412 to LW446
23 aircraft from LW459 to LW481
28 aircraft from LW495 to LW522
23 aircraft from LW537 to LW559
27 aircraft from LW572 to LW598
46 aircraft from LW613 to LW658
26 aircraft from LW671 to LW696
12 aircraft from LW713 to LW724
Perfect. Now I know I'm really stretching it here but do the letters and numbers in the following mean anything?Haalifax LW682 was built by English Electric Co Ltd at Salmesbury, Lancs and was listed in the serial batch of LW671-LW696 to Contract No. ACFT/1808, requisition HA1/E11/42, for 360 aircraft in total. In asking who delivered the aircraft to the squadron, do you mean the Maintenance Unit?
Online sources might not be able to help with much more, but you could try the RAF Museum Department of Research, which has copies of Aircraft Movement Cards (Air Ministry Form 78) on microfilm, which should list the MU.
Someone on RAF Commands might be able to help…or Geoffrey.Perfect. Now I know I'm really stretching it here but do the letters and numbers in the following mean anything?
No. ACFT/1808, requisition HA1/E11/42
Geoffrey, are you out there?Someone on RAF Commands might be able to help…or Geoffrey.
Jim
Thanks Geoffrey, very much appreciated. JayBusy trying to avoid Olympus Mons.
Pre war the RAF order system system was usually a 5 or 6 digit contract number often prefixed with the letter B which is often dropped when listing the contracts, with the numbers after a slash showing the year, against this contract a single requisition was made with the final two digits again denoting the year. During wartime contracts often used 4 digits prefixed Aircraft, again usually one requisition, but note the carry over of the requisition on the first two English Electric contracts. The other main alternative was to continue the existing contract by making further requisitions.
So for the Hawker Hurricane, contract B62305/39 with Hawkers
Requisition 7/E1/39, Qty 2100, Notes V7200 to V7862 (496 a/c), Z2308 to Z4018 (1,000 a/c), AS987 to AS990 (4 a/c), BD696 to BE716 (600 a/c)
Requisition 11/E1/40, Qty 1638, Notes BM898 to BP772 (1,250 a/c), HL544 to HM157 (388 a/c)
Requisition 13/E1/41, Qty 1000, Notes HV275 to HW881 (1,000 a/c)
Requisition 13/E1/41, Qty 1500, Notes KW696 to LA144 (1,500 a/c)
Requisition 13/E1/41, Qty 1961, Notes LB542 to LF774 (1,961 a/c), no requisition number on cards from LD serials onwards
English Electric built Halifax
Contract B982938/39, Requisition 116/E11/39, Qty 450, Notes All mark II, 200 V/W serials, 250 DT serials
Contract ACFT 1808, Requisition 116/E11/39, Qty 350, Notes All mark II, JB/JD serials
Contract ACFT 1808, Requisition HA1/E11/42, Qty 360, Notes 100 mark II and 260 III, LW serials
Contract ACFT 2553, Requisition HA15/E11/42, Qty 560, Notes All mark III, 360 MZ serials, 200 NP/NR serials
Contract ACFT 3362, Requisition HA5/E11/43, Qty 400, Notes 80 mark III, 300 VI, 20 VII, RG serials
Contract ACFT 3860, Requisition HA9/E11/43, Qty 25, Notes All mark VI, originally for 350 aircraft, ST serials
Contract ACFT 4418, Requisition HA7/E11/44, Qty 0, Notes Contract cancelled.
As far as I am aware the requisition decodes to ID number (reset to 1 at the start of the new year) / E number meaning is unclear, all Halifax and Stirling requisitions were E11 but Hurricane and Lancaster were E1 for example / year. Pre war it looks like the requisition numbers did not have the middle field, using a single numeric sequence. The first Hurricane order requisition number was 26/36, the second order 56/38, the third order 195/38. When 20 from the first order were built for Canada they were given their own contract number with requisition number 215/38. The order placed for production in Canada was requisition 239/38. It does not give the exact date but it does help sort out the sequence.