Corgi The Aviation Archive - 1/72 Scale

RAF COAST COMMAND SERIES - Released 2006

AA36304 Fairey Swordfish III - NF41/NH-F, No.119 Squadron, RAF Coastal Command, Bircham Newton 1942

Limited Edition

Model is in excellent condition. Listing photographs are of the model and box being sold and form part of the description.

Throughout WWII, several Swordfish Squadrons operated under the control of RAF Coastal Command and were engaged in operations in the English Channel area. The swift movement of German forces through the Low Countries in 1940 led to eight Naval Air Squadrons put at the disposal of Coastal Command, and these included Swordfish squadrons 812,815,818,825, and 829. Operating from their main bases at Manston and Detling in Kent, North Cotes in Lincolnshire, Bircham Newton in Norfolk, and Thorney Island near Portsmouth, their main duties included convoy protection, and dive-bombing military targets such as tanks, gun positions, vehicle convoys, shipping, barges, and E-Boats.

At night they bombed ports, airfields, power stations and fuel dumps, or mined Dutch, Belgian and even German harbors, estuaries and waterways. Mining operations were known as "gardening" – an apt term as the long cylindrical mines dropped by Swordfish aircraft were known as "Cucumbers"! much later in the war, 833 and 819 Squadrons were also seconded to RAF Coastal Command and were involved in laying smoke screens over the Allied Forces en route to the Normandy beaches on and around D-Day, June 6th 1944 (6 June 1944). Coastal Command even had its own RAF Swordfish Squadron, No.119, which swapped the Albacores, which they had been flying, for Swordfish MKII aircraft in January 1945.

This squadron was used for day and night patrols seeking troublesome E-Boats and midget submarines, and in fact successfully attacked a Biber midget submarine on 13 March 1945, the vessel becoming the last submarine to be sunk by British Forces in WWII.