REBUILDING A HAWKER TYPHOON TO FLYING STATUS

[manuel]

"As an aside, Closterman was involved with politics all his life, and despite being a highly proficient pilot, he was turned down by the pre-war politically cloistered French Armee d' la Air. He was readily accepted by the RAF after France surrendered, although Free French politics kept him as a sergeant pilot for years, only begrudgedly commissioning him as Lieutenant late in the war, but not beyond. The RAF had no such compunctions, and assigned him as a Wing Commander."
Totally false. Born in 1921 Closterman is not part of Armée de l'air. Born in Brazil and make studies in USA. I goes to England to train pilot in march 1942. In the late part of is life it goes to politics in extreme right party, not as young man. In other part it's book is not an account of true stories but, as he says himself, a "roman" book.

 

[fannum]

"As an aside, Closterman was involved with politics all his life, and despite being a highly proficient pilot, he was turned down by the pre-war politically cloistered French Armee d' la Air. He was readily accepted by the RAF after France surrendered, although Free French politics kept him as a sergeant pilot for years, only begrudgedly commissioning him as Lieutenant late in the war, but not beyond. The RAF had no such compunctions, and assigned him as a Wing Commander."
Totally false. Born in 1921 Closterman is not part of Armée de l'air. Born in Brazil and make studies in USA. I goes to England to train pilot in march 1942. In the late part of is life it goes to politics in extreme right party, not as young man. In other part it's book is not an account of true stories but, as he says himself, a "roman" book.

It seems to me there is some translation issue here. What I posted is based on Closterman's book and personal conversations in the '70s and 80s.
Closterman had said he was turned down for entry in Armee de l'air, relating that to his family's diplomatic/political activities. He flew with the Free French administered by the British, not the Armee de l'air. Same as Polish, Czech, Dutch, Belgian and other over run countrymen in military WWII service.
French Politics have been fragmented and contentious all my life, and "extreme right" would seem to be a personal opinion. Especially with his avowed dislike of Nazism.
I stand by what I posted, and they are not my opinions or beliefs, but just what I read in his book and was related to me by Closterman.

 

[Snautzer01]

Clostermann . Kind of important to get at least the name right. Then discuss.

 

[Snautzer01]

politics in extreme right

what party please. Sure as hell it isnt the NSDAP. Because he did shoot a lot of them.


Now, for people in the know, dont answer for manuel plse

 

[Mainly28s]

Maybe he's thinking of Bruno Klostermann, cousin of Pierre Clostermann. Bruno Klostermann was killed in action on January 14th, 1945, flying for the Luftwaffe- which was right-wing politics.

 

[pbehn]

Clostermann . Kind of important to get at least the name right. Then discuss.

Maybe important to get the book right too, Le Grande Cirque in French published in English as The Big Show and reprinted in expanded form (accoring to Wiki in 2004) Maybe the nuance of translation is different, since manuel is in France I presume he read Le Grande Cirque.

 

[manuel]

After war is on the party of Général de Gaulle UDR, it was elected five times deputy, but in the 80 it supports National Front an extremist right party, it's very curious because on the 50 60 it was seen as libertarian.
On the "armée de l'air" it was appointed as Commandant in the war in Algeria. It was appointed as Colonel at he end of his career. For someone who as problems with the armee it seems to me curious.

For more information Pierre Clostermann — Wikipédia the english part of wikipedia insists more in his point of vue about The Malvinas conflict.

 

[fannum]

After war is on the party of Général de Gaulle UDR, it was elected five times deputy, but in the 80 it supports National Front an extremist right party, it's very curious because on the 50 60 it was seen as libertarian.
On the "armée de l'air" it was appointed as Commandant in the war in Algeria. It was appointed as Colonel at he end of his career. For someone who as problems with the armee it seems to me curious.

For more information Pierre Clostermann — Wikipédia the english part of wikipedia insists more in his point of vue about The Malvinas conflict.

I for one, appreciate this information and a different view point. It takes a bit of working through the translation, and I appreciate your effort. I spent a lot of my youth in France, and admire their patriotic passion, yet am often leery when I see that same passion applied to politics and labor activities.
While I took a Fellowship in Modern History, I fully recognize my limitations as a historian. A lot of information being bandied about on websites, and especially Wikipedia, is highly flavored and opinionated ... not bad ... but it has to be recognized as such. Gather all information and verify!
Note that French historians have taken the stance that it's only possible to expect to settle on true history when at least 2 centuries have passed, and all accounts with a personal bias are identified and properly considered.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Search results: Clostermann | The National Archives

The official archive of the UK government. Our vision is to lead and transform information management, guarantee the survival of today's information for tomorrow and bring history to life for everyone.

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Appears to be a few archive files on his combat reports at Kew in London.

I can get them copied for perhaps £40 if anyone wants to join in a collection... £

Someone who knows the squadron history better than I do will have to confirm its
the "right Clostermann"

 

[Snautzer01]

French historians have taken the stance that it's only possible to expect to settle on true history when at least 2 centuries have passed

I think that is a most back ward view of research of modern times. Indeed with listing of books and documents in libraries that are coupled together in a databases around the globe and even scanned documents not only pdf but readable researchable ocr docs. Primairy research is not that bohemoth what it was.

 

[z42]

Search results: Clostermann | The National Archives

The official archive of the UK government. Our vision is to lead and transform information management, guarantee the survival of today's information for tomorrow and bring history to life for everyone.

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Appears to be a few archive files on his combat reports at Kew in London.

I can get them copied for perhaps £40 if anyone wants to join in a collection... £

Someone who knows the squadron history better than I do will have to confirm its
the "right Clostermann"

Linked from the wikipedia page there is this message from an aviation usenet group which shows a message purportedly from Clostermann himself. Wrt verifying his claims he says:

There were I suppose two problems;
ONE, I have been in so many Squadrons; Nos 341, 602, 486, 274, 56, and 3, that
the forms 540 and 541 'Logs of Claims' were quite spread out.
TWO, the French Air Force - as well as the US 8th Fighter Command, considered
aircraft 'probables' and destroyed 'on the ground' as victories. This may
explain some of the ridiculously inflated claims we found in the press, about
me and many American pilots. Not my fault. I tried to rectify often, but to no
avail!

 

[z42]

I think that is a most back ward view of research of modern times.

I agree. If for no other reason in that in 200 years a lot of the tacit knowledge will have been lost in the mists of time. Also, in my non-expert opinion today we are better aware how historical research inevitably reflects the zeitgeist of the time when the research was made, and of the opinions and experiences of the researcher, no matter how objective we try to be. So no, we shouldn't shy away from newer topics, but yes, we should be aware that it has a higher degree of influence on the researcher, perhaps even some personal connection in one way or another.

Indeed with listing of books and documents in libraries that are coupled together in a databases around the globe and even scanned documents not only pdf but readable researchable ocr docs. Primairy research is not that bohemoth what it was.

To the extent this is true, I think the end result is a higher expectation on the productivity of the modern researcher rather than the job getting easier. Further, there's a huge amount of source material that still exists only in paper (or microfilm, depending on which era you're interested in) format.

 

[Snautzer01]

To the extent this is true, I think the end result is a higher expectation on the productivity of the modern researcher rather than the job getting easier. Further, there's a huge amount of source material that still exists only in paper (or microfilm, depending on which era you're interested in) format.

Fast amounts of info are available. The soviet side is just starting to get those files digitalized. Things that took many weeks and quite a few dollars are just there for armchair researchers.

how about a bit of ULTRA? ULTRA in 1940

The 200 years i dont know where that came from. Perhaps protecting the still living. There are moutains of documents. It is far less difficult then it used to be for research.

But here is the bitch: one have to put in efford to find stuff and then concoct a readable as true as it get story. Ask any writer. Red tape is as red tape does. One has to be really into the stuff the discard fluff and facts. And then there are the the just paper archives.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Fast amounts of info are available. The soviet side is just starting to get those files digitalized. Things that took many weeks and quite a few dollars are just there for armchair researchers.

how about a bit of ULTRA? ULTRA in 1940

The 200 years i dont know where that came from. Perhaps protecting the still living. There are moutains of documents. It is far less difficult then it used to be for research.

But here is the bitch: one have to put in efford to find stuff and then concoct a readable as true as it get story. Ask any writer. Red tape is as red tape does. One has to be really into the stuff the discard fluff and facts. And then there are the the just paper archives.

I would have to disagree, research in the last 3 years has become dramatically worse than it has been for a long long time due to the dramatic increase of restrictions on archive access during covid, which many museums have gleefully just "kept" despite the end of the pandemic. Something like 50% of the files in my book came from IWM Duxford, none of which is digitised, want to go and see any of it ?

You cant the archive has been closed to public access for three years, and nobody there knows when they will reopen it.

IWM London has retained limited access to their reading room from the pandemic times, and none of the ULTRA records you mentioned
are digitised, that website is just a brief look at the sort of content which is now released.

The USAF archive has halved the permitted requests to five a month (it used to be ten before Covid).

Some positive signs exist, during the pandemic a few of the better run archives decided to spend the time digitising files like
the Bundesarchiv and NARA (neither British archives, of course).

Generally any very in depth research will require months and possibly years of meticolous and very expensive research of
paper, microfilm and microfiche records. The main advantage over authors of forty or fifty years ago is that
certainly in the case of British records, nearly ANY aviation book on WW2 written before 1974 will be
hopelessly vague because thats the date that a vast volume of Air Ministry files were declassified.

It cost me about £20,000 to research THE SECRET HORSEPOWER RACE, and with skyrocketing travel costs
it would be even more were I to write it now, in fact I couldn't even do it at all as IWM Duxford is shut
to researchers as mentioned above.

We`re in a deeply precarious position for research at the moment in Britain. I think if they could, many
so called "museums" would stop archive access totally as its not a big profit maker and costs a lot of
money to store and preserve.

 

[Snautzer01]

Strangely enough some windows closed but others are opened. Depends on your field of intrest it seems.
I am sure you know what you are talking about in your field of intrest.
However i found for mine new openings. Thats all.
Good luck on your new enterprise. Hope it will be as good and succesfull as the former one.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

Strangely enough some windows closed but others are opened. Depends on your field of intrest it seems.
I am sure you know what you are talking about in your field of intrest.
However i found for mine new openings. Thats all.
Good luck on your new enterprise. Hope it will be as good and succesfull as the former one.

I`m glad its not so difficult everywhere as it is here.

 

[Maxrobot1]

the Typhoon compared to the Mossie. Both old Monogram 1/48 scale models.s

 

[WAFU]

His CAC account brooked no false emotions, and he obviously considered the Typhoon to be a necessary tool, not an item of reverence. Note that 1 in 3 of the pilots did not survive their Typhoon careers. Ince spoke wistfully about the Typhoon, and once asked if he'd like to fly one if restored, he looked askance and asked, "Why?"
I wish the restorers well, but echo David's answer.
Remember that the Typhoon was rushed into service as a foil against the Fw190, and suffered from being incompletely developed. Still, it proved versatile despite its quirks and flaws.

It was a plane of its time, at a time when its deadly vices could be accepted for its virtues.
But once the enemy stopped trying to kill them, the RAF to its credit immediately stopped it killing its pilots.

 

[Larrythepilot]

I have been involved on the edges of both of these restorations. For the group in England, I traded them a Typhoon radiator ( I had the one from MN-235) for a "broomhandle" Mauser pistol. I loaned the Canadian group a propeller blade (3-blade prop) because our museum has the only remaining blade in the world. They had it laser-measured and returned it to me.

It is interesting and exciting to be the volunteer Curator of a small WWII museum. You never know who will call you, or who you will get to meet next.

 

[GTX]