Short Stirling

Here is a great photo of the Sunderland's galley.

The stove looks to have burners...

GrauGeist said:

They dropped paratroopers near the Caen and Orne canal bridges on D-Day and again during Market Garden, at Arnhem.

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On D-Day, The 2nd Ox & Bucks that captured the Bénouville (Pegasus bridge, the Caen to the sea canal) and Ranville bridge (over the Orne river) landed in six gliders.

Stirlings were also used to drop Windows over the Granville countryside to jam radars.

Hi
According to Air Publication 3231 'Airborne Forces', page 269, the Stirling could carry 22 paratroops plus 12 containers. It had a range of 1,500 to 2,000 miles and a practical radius of action (with the load mentioned) of over 700 miles. When towing a Horsa glider the radius of action was 525 miles.

Mike

Frog said:

On D-Day, The 2nd Ox & Bucks that captured the Bénouville (Pegasus bridge, the Caen to the sea canal) and Ranville bridge (over the Orne river) landed in six gliders.

Stirlings were also used to drop Windows over the Granville countryside to jam radars.

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They were transported by six Halifaxes towing six Horsa gliders.

Following them, were 22 Albermarles.

Behind that group, was the main force, carried by 239 C-47s and Stirlings along with 17 Horsa gliders.

The above were the initial strike force that took off at 23:00 on 5 June.

They were followed by the last portion of airborn elements a short while later.

The point being, is that Stirlings did drop Paras during Operation Tonga.

Frog said:

On D-Day, The 2nd Ox & Bucks that captured the Bénouville (Pegasus bridge, the Caen to the sea canal) and Ranville bridge (over the Orne river) landed in six gliders.

Stirlings were also used to drop Windows over the Granville countryside to jam radars.

Click to expand...

I know Ambrose is something of a tainted historian, but his retelling of the Pegasus Bridge fight was a good read all the same, even if he was plagiarizing or putting his name on the work of his assistants. It was a brave deed indeed, no matter.

Shortround6 said:

The twins didn't have the facilities for relieve aircrew,

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Yes they did. Wellingtons and Whitleys had Elsan toilets in the rear fuselage. Sunderlands had stoves aboard them, not a hazard at all and not uncommon aboard long range flying boats.

nuuumannn said:

Yes they did. Wellingtons and Whitleys had Elsan toilets in the rear fuselage

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My own spell checker (brain) didn't phrase that correctly.

There were no facilities for a relieve crew, as in seats, bunks, semi comfortable position/s for spare crewmen to rest while waiting to swapping positions with "on duty" crewmen.

I knew the Sunderland had a stove, what I don't know if it was intended to be used in flight or to be used while afloat, moored.

The manual doesn't say. It is a No 1 Clyde Cooker according to the manual (1938) and the heating element is a bit on scary side.

This is from a No 2 Clyde Cooker

This appears to be sort of a big Primus stove?

Fill the tank, pressurize the tank, dribble a little fuel into the collar around the neck and set fire to it (?) and with enough heat in the neck below the nozzle the fuel atomized quite nicely and gave a nice blue flame around the burner.

Cold fuel squirting up into the burner could be a lot more exciting!!!.

Apparently these were quite common in RN motor boats/ launches.

There is a photo of some of the crew sitting around the dining table with at least one cigarette so perhaps safety standards were not what they are today?

The No 1 had a burner on each side and an oven in the middle. The No 2 had the oven and a burner on one side only.

For pictures of an iron unit (the Sunderland used lighter construction) see.


Some of our members may want to rethink their choice of WW II duty.

The stove advertising talks about being able to do roasting or broiling so depending on the cook in the crew some rather good meals might have been achievable

Shortround6 said:

There were no facilities for a relieve crew, as in seats, bunks, semi comfortable position/s for spare crewmen to rest while waiting to swapping positions with "on duty" crewmen.

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Oh oops! that's funny. The Wellington did have a fold-out stretcher in the rear fuselage, funnily enough, next to the Elsan, but that wasn't so much for a relief crew member as a rest area. The Lancaster had a similar set up between the main spars. You'd be hard pressed to find any bomber of the day fitted with jump seats for spare crew, there was no such facility aboard Lancasters at least.

The Halifax was loved by its crews for one simple reason - it was that rare thing, an RAF bomber easy to escape from!
The Lancaster was simply shocking.

Survival Rates
Lancaster 11%
Halifax 29%

Wasn't there a post that showed statistically it was easier to escape from the Halifax but the Lancaster was less likely to be hit in the first place?

i suppose its already been said, but the weakness of the Short Stirling is plain to see in the OP's pictures. The short Stirling is a massively larger airplane than either the Lancaster or the Halifax. Even if it weighed the same, it has much more wetted area and much more surface drag. Plus size usually means weight, which shows up in its empty weight being around ten thousand pounds heavier than the Lancaster's.

There were wartime analysis of aircrew survival rates based on how many PoW the Germans reported, otherwise the aircrew loss rates are mostly from Martin Middlebrook, following a 1979 article written by Freeman Dyson which estimated 25% of shot down Halifax and Stirling crew could expect to survive versus 15% of Lancaster crew.

Bomber Command War Diaries noted from 213 bombers lost from the 4 Hamburg raids July/August 1943, the Peenemunde raid and the 30 March 1944 Nuremburg raid there was a 13.2% crew survival rate from 126 Lancaster losses versus a 21.9% survival rate from 74 Halifax losses and 24% survival rate from 13 Stirling losses.

Middlebrook's The Berlin Raids gives survival rates as Lancaster 19.2% from 421 losses, Halifax 35% from 151 losses, Stirling 26.2% from 35 losses. Comparing the Lancaster equipped 1 and 5 groups survival rate for 1 group was 23.7%, 5 group 15.8%. In terms of bombers the loss rates were Lancaster 5.2%, Halifax 7.7%, Stirling 13.2%, Mosquito 0.6%, while comparing 1 and 5 group the loss rates were 5.5% and 4.3% respectively. 1 group Lancasters carried an extra 331 pounds of bombs than 5 group on average, Middlebrook points out this meant for every 1,000 sorties sent it upped the bombs dropped on target from 3,705.1 tons to 3,711.8 tons, 6.7 tons, for an extra 14 Lancasters lost.

A comparison of some day and night operations shows Halifaxes had a 40% survival rate when shot down by flak in daylight and Lancasters 30%, at night the Halifax survival rate was 25% the Lancaster 15%.

8th Air Force.

Overall the crews of B-17s lost to fighters had a 63% chance of living, from an average 9.74 man crew and 67.9% if lost to flak from an average 9.16 man crew, but this includes write offs, the RAF losses are failed to return. The early B-17 survival figures when lost to fighters, 1942, Q1/43 and Q2/43 were 45.6%, 40.6% and 49.1% respectively, show training and equipment changes helped reduce crew losses. The monthly survival figures vary from 21.4 to 83.6% for losses to fighters, 25 to 82.1% for losses to flak.

Also, as a note on percentages, in 1944 the B-17 lost to fighters had an average 9.61 man crew, 65.5% survived, in 1945 the average crew was 9.04 men, 58.5% survived. For flak in 1944 69.1% of 9.14 crew, in 1945 64.7% of 8.49 crew. The fatalities per loss went from 3.32 to 3.75 for losses to fighters, 2.83 to 3 for losses to flak. Which is also a hint the average fighter firepower makes a difference. By attacking at an average much closer range night fighters tended to inflict heavier damage quicker.