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Westland wildcat

paddy

Well-known member
I came a cross this picture while searching the web for P38 info

image-37.png



Never seen or heard of this before so i was intrigued to find out how i have missed this for 60 years of my life..

Anyway, long story short this was drawn by a royal navy pilot in WWII in stalag luft III along with several other Jet aircraft and left lying about for the Germans to find to trick them into thinking the British had more advanced planes than they really did :)
Luft III was the Great escape camp and this guy was a pilot and a forger .


Airman, Painter, Forger and Spy​

Fake plane
IMAGE SOURCE,NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Image caption,
Guy Griffiths, an accomplished artist, drew pictures of planes to bamboozle the Germans
Guy "Griff" Griffiths, a Royal Marine pilot, was one of the first naval officers to be captured by the Germans.

He was held at camp Stalag Luft III - the setting of the 1963 film The Great Escape - and found distraction from captivity by feeding misleading intelligence to the German authorities.
He was an accomplished artist and his skills as a forger were useful in producing false paperwork for other POWs.
Guy Griffiths
IMAGE SOURCE,NATIONAL ARCHIVES
Image caption,
Guy Griffiths managed to spy for the UK while detained as a POW
He would also draw fake Allied aircraft and leave the pictures lying around for the guards to find.
Griffiths was also in contact with MI9 (British Military Intelligence Section 9) - his letters to the Royal Marines Corps' magazine contained encrypted details about camp personnel.
 
A Griffon and a 5-bladed fan? Whittle jet power? 2 cannons need 2 tails. Airborne intercept radar in the nose? Hmm............
 
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