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PICTURE    GALLERY ....

Over Grand Harbour

Painting by Anthony Saunders 

1. Squadron's 85th Birthday at Nelson Bay, 18- 20 September 2001  

2. Arthur Pardey's mementoes ...  the Nazi units on this flag have been identified  

3. A few WW1 prangs (did they all REALLY happen?) plus WW2 memories --- and a few post-war ones too (including The Fred and Meg McKay Peace Garden)

4. Adrian Hellwig has sent in photos from WW1's 2A/C Harold Edwards' collection. They include some 3 Squadron's airfield locations during 1917-18. 

5.   In their production "Battle of the Forces", Channel 7 showed how the present 3 Squadron at Williamtown handle their war-games ... click on here to see some photo extracts.

6. A few photos of Buzz, a special friend of Tiny Cameron, who was a pilot with 3 Squadron during the desert war.

7. Some of the Squadron's WWI aircraft, armaments and vehicles

 Oxford (Queens) 1917

Training class - Oxford

South Carlton 1917

Machine-gun training

Ground wireless 1917

Transports

Training prang

Bailleul -1917

Ready for take-off - RE8

Sandy & Hughes's RE8

Photograph of the Red Baron after death

3 Squadron bury the Red Baron  - 1918

WORLD 

WAR ll

Richmond - 1940

Train travel to Orontes - 1940

Embarking Orontes - 1940

Orontes (note: this isn't the 1940 sailing)

 Squadron trans-shipped at Bombay to Dilwarra

Bath day on board

Disembark at Port Tewfik, Egypt, 23 August 1940

First camp at Ismalia, Egypt

Then onto the real war

For better or for worse

Catch it and pluck it

Start digging in

 More like home

A kero-tin home in the desert

Preparations to fly

Engine work-over 

Bombing-up

Armaments loaded

Scramble

Observation and point marker

Who needs goggles?

Ground staff check-out

Taxiing out with a lookout on the wing

Tail-up

... and away

 Operation underway

Squadron up

Another take-off ... with a 250lb bmb

Safe and  ... 

 ... ready to celebrate victories

Picking up supplies in town

Always time for a nap in the shade

Airmen's mess - desert style

Then a wash-up and ...

... ready for a bit of leave ...

... to Alexandria - always popular for a leave-pass

Waiting for the next sortie; outside or ...

... in the crew tent-room ("Stinky" is in left corner)

Me109G captured by 3 Squadron

The anti-fly squad making fly-traps

The captured Italian mobile workshop

... open and ready for action

Mesh landing ground

 A Mustang being re-fuelled

A bomb-trailer heading for an aircraft bomb-loading area

The yellow marker points to one of "the whistlers" removed from unexploded German bombs and fitted to the wings of our own aircraft to create a terrifying whistle when dive-bombing ... it worked!

A (luckily dud) message dropped by the enemy

Time out in Rosh Pinna, Israel

Kittyhawk on fire

... still burning

Mustangs ready for action

Prop change

JU52 transport shot down over Crete - 1941

Bath time

The time for a change ...

The Three Padres of the Desert Air Force

Sad moments

Inside the office

Happy chappies

C'mon fellers - hurry up

Only a few more to go

Malta Men

Ops planning at Taranto

Anyone seen Slim Moore?

Sid Coates (click here to view more of Sid's album)

Sid Coates and his mates

The Coates family's Wall of Honour to Sid

Desert life in the raw

Designed in 1943 by Norm French ("Frenchie"), this  emblem has become the Squadron's Desert Air Force badge of honour ... the red symbolising the blood shed ... the yellow, the sands of the desert ... and the cross and shield representing the crusade which the Squadron undertook as a fighter-bomber unit...

... before the new emblem was adopted

Apparently "Soapy" and "Gasher" ??

Jones, Stevens, ? and Bray

 

This is a pranged JU88 at Belandah

Who, where, when?

My name is Chris Grigg. I am the grandson of Ivan Hansen, an airframe fitter who was with 3 squadron in North Africa during World War 2. I came across your website when I was reading the latest issue of Flightpath magazine and duly looked it up. Many of the photos you have remind me of the stories he still tells about his time there (especially the practice of putting a lookout on the wing while taxiing!). The reason I am writing is to say that I have in my possession a series of digitized photographs (scanned from the originals) that he took whilst in North Africa and I was wondering if you would be interested in showing some of these on your web pages. I am missing most of the captions from them so many of the people and places in them I can't name, but they are very interesting nonetheless. (e-m: candbgrigg@dodo.com.au )

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