The Man
Harry Hardy was born on May 30, 1920 in Timmins, Ontario and died just recently on May 21, 2020, just 9 days short of his 100th birthday.
After being checked out on Typhoons between June and July, 1944, Hardy joined 440 Squadron on August 10, 1944 and flew the first of 96 ops in Typhoons on August 12. During his tour, he was hit by flak 6 times, force landed once, and bailed out once.
Hardy was an active promoter of the role played by Typhoon pilots in WW2 and took an active part in establishing memorials and in the Typhoon Pilot's Association.
Hardy's autobiography of his wartime experience, including snippets from his log book, can be found here and is well worth reading:
http://www.nightlitepictures.com/photolab/H.J. Hardy-The War years.pdf
If you'd rather see a video presentation of the same, see here:
Hardy was awarded the DFC and the Legion of Honour for his service during the war.
The Airplane
Hardy's relationship with the "Pulverizer" name began with his 10th op when he flew Typhoon I8-P "Pulverizer". He didn't know the fate of the previous pilot but the first Pulverizer, coded I8-P became his regular mount after he "hit it off" with the rigger and fitter who were assigned to the airplane. Hardy was flying Pulverizer on September 6, 1944 when he force landed the airplane wheels up in a pasture. The squadron had been flying up with the moving front to relocate to Brussels when it ran into bad weather and got lost. The pilots were ordered to steer 270 and land where they could. Hardy ran out of fuel before he could find an airfield.
After returning to his squadron on Sept 9, Hardy flew his first op, his 14th overall, on September 11 in "Pulverizer II", s/n MP149, the subject of this build. Though he flew other aircraft on ops periodically, including a period in November when 6 flak holes in her were patched, "Pulverizer II" carried Hardy through to his 58th op on Christmas Day, 1944 when he was once again hit by flak. This time, the aircraft was uncontrollable at low speeds and Hardy had to bail out.
I know of 4 period pictures of "Pulverizer II" and all reveal some good details for the purpose of modelling. Other "Pulverizer" pictures are out there but they depict either I or IV.
The most commonly seen picture of II is this one and shows to good effect the camouflage pattern and a hint of the reworked paint to obscure the fuselage AEAF stripes. (Source
The Modelling News: A new look for your big typhoon? Eaglcals 24th scale Hawker Typhoon Part I in Review )
These two close-ups (Sources
THE GHOSTS OF THE TIFFY BOYS: Mrs. Muir Tells The Story Of Canada's Typhoon Pilots — espritdecorps and
http://www.nightlitepictures.com/photolab/H.J. Hardy-The War years.pdf) confirm placement of the nose art including the operation tally, name, and "Vargas Girl" art. They are also great for weathering study.
This final picture, cut from Hardy's autobiography link above, is an excellent study of the fuselage stripe over-painting which shows some extreme wear near the bottom. I like my models to look battle hardened where appropriate so this is a feature that I'll try to replicate.
It's clear form the above pics that MP149's production block incorporated the 4 blade propeller and larger tail plane.
The replacement, Pulverizer III, was flown as of January 16, 1945 on Hardy's 67th op. It was with him until February 22 when it was removed from ops for an undisclosed reason, repaired, and transferred to 438 squadron. "Pulverizer IV" became Hardy's mount through to the end of his tour on March 24th.
The Model
The base kit is Hasegawa's Typhoon Mk Ib with Tear Drop Canopy. This particular kit does not include a 4 blade propeller, nor does it have the enlarged tail plane needed to represent my subject. For this reason, I will be raiding a second kit, Hasegawa's "Shark Teeth" version of the Typhoon kit, which has the 4 blade prop and the larger tail plane. This kit also has a resin "cuckoo door" style dust filter for the air intake but I'll need to verify if it will be necessary. None of the above pics are a help in this regard but a preliminary look at period photos of other 143 Wing Typhoons indicates that these may have been dispensed with by the time they operated out of Eindhoven, when my bird arrived on the scene.
I will be using Aviaeology's excellent decal set AOD48008 "143 Wing Typhoons" which, as always, has excellent reference information included. However, this set specifies that the tropical air filter needs to be carried on this aircraft and they point to a picture which other references identify as a completely different aircraft. More research will be needed for that.