The Most Lethal Flying Fortress of WW2
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Built like a tank but agile as a falcon, the twin-engined Bristol Beaufighter was full of contradictions, earning it a reputation that left enemies puzzled and allies grateful.
On June 12, 1942, a Beaufighter, piloted by Ken Catward, skimmed dangerously low over the English Channel, aiming for the very heart of Nazi-occupied Paris. At such low altitudes, the threat of anti-aircraft fire increased by the minute as he approached the continent.
The iconic Arc de Triomphe loomed ahead, and the aircraft released its unexpected cargo-a French Tricolore. The flag fluttered to the ground, a daring message of Allied audacity and hope planted in the heart of Nazi-occupied France.
Pivoting sharply, the Beaufighter set its sights on its next target: the Gestapo headquarters at the Place de la Concorde. Guns blazing, the Beau unleashed havoc, rattling the enemy's nerve center.
Whatever the mission, the Bristol Beaufighter was always up for the challenge.
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Whispering death. A formidable aircraft that excelled in all it did . Vastly underrated.
They had sleeve valves which didn't clatter like the regular poppet valves
Amazing all the stories connected to this amazing airplane. Everyone talks about the Spitfire and the Mosquito but the Hurricane and the Beaufighter did so much too and so much unsung
We are so lucky we was blessed with two pairs of amazing multi role aircraft in WW2
no, not the Hurricane. Obsolete as a day fighter by 1940.
@@bobsakamanos4469 While this is true it did very good work in the ground attack role in the Western Desert and over Burma/India.
@@iskandartaib and that's where people are confused. When a "fighter" becomes obsolete, it is then used as an attack aircraft. The more obsolete, the more it needs top cover from real fighters.
Unfortunately, the RAF continued to use the Hurricane as a fighter in Malta, the Western Desert and Ceylon, etc. It was disasterous for those fighter pilots being treated as cannon fodder.
My comment stands. The OP says "unsung". That's because dead men don't sing, nor do their friends who survived.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Yeah, it's the fighter boys who get the kills and the glory and the bombers and fighter bombers who actually make things happen on the ground. 🙄
One of the most underestimated planes of WW2.
I think one of the advantages the Beau had over the Mossie was its ability to take punishment particularly from lov level ground fire.
My grandfather was a navigator in these in India in WWII. 177 Squadron. When he passed away, he left us (my brothers and I) a huge case of photographs. Some were of their airbase and clubhouse (one with an elephant pulling a roller over the cricket pitch in the background), others were before-and-after aerials shots of various Japanese targets in the Burmese jungle.
Thanks for sharing 👍
It would be great if these could be recorded. Have you thought of getting in touch with e.g. the Imperial War Museum 😊?
Please pass these on (or copies) to a museum or some sort of NGO.
My uncle, Atholl Sutherland Brown, was a Canadian Beaufighter pilot in 177 Squadron RAF. He authored a book that you might find interesting: "Silently Into the Midst of Things: 177 Squadron RAF in Burma, 1943-45".
The Beaufighter packed a serious punch when used in the anti-shipping role, it was also a formidable night fighter
An interesting fact that was not mentioned was that before the war Australia had begun to make Bristol Beauforts. Not far into the war, the Beaufort production line was converted into a Beaufighter production line. Australia made hundreds of Beaufighters for the war against Japan.
Do you know where? I know that the Chullora Rail workshops in Sydney were converted for some war production. I worked at Bankstown Airport years ago - and I was told that aircraft were built there - I was told Mustangs - but I am not sure if that is correct.
@@MotionMcAnixxI read somewhere that it was in a factory that used to make buses. It was in Sydney.
The Beaufighter used a very large proportion of Beaufort parts. This is why it was so quick for the British and Australians to get into production. It's magic trick was being able to haul a torpedo at 320mph at sea level which at that altitude as very hard to intercept. It had excellent range and the huge interior space allowed radar to be integrated rapidly without the radar engineers spending months miniaturizing the radar. Rocket attacks against shipping were also deadly. They did need escorts but once the P-51 was available that was not a problem.
@@MotionMcAnixxcorrect, my father was a sheetyon the railways, worked on them.
Yeah, Australian Beaufighters were armed with 4x 50cals in the wings (replacing 6x303 machineguns) along with the 4 nose cannons. They also reportedly thrashed the Havocs(The US was using them and an Australia had inhereted some that had been bound to the Dutch East Indies before Java fell) in races.
My dad was an aircraft mechanic in the RAAF stationed in Borneo, the only recollection I ever got from him was the Beauies would return from a mission, the maintenance crews would patch the bullet holes, service the engines, reload the ammunition then out they'd go again.
Until the P61 was ready, the Beaufighter was the USAAF's first effective radar equipped night fighter serving with the 414th, 415th, 416th and 417th Night Fighter Squadrons which used the plane in both night fighting and long range convoy escort roles. They continued to serve until the end of the war.
Thought the first American night fighter was the (poorly) modified P-70 Havoc/Boston until they got their Beaus, Mossies and Widows?
It was but the Beaus were the first American night fighters used in combat, four squadrons of P70’s were sent to North Africa where they were re-equipped on arrival with Beaufighters, the Americans got their first Mosquito night fighters, in Europe in November 1944. Two further squadrons of P70's were sent to New Guinea where they were eventually replaced with P61's.
My uncle served in one of those Squadrons. Lost over the Med. Sea while on Night fighter duty out of Corsica in 1944.
The UK genuinely had some incredible aircraft designers who created so many iconic planes.
While my favourite WWII plane is the thoroughbred Mosquito, the Beaufighter comes in a close 2nd.
It's the burly, bruiser of a brawler to the Mosquitoes clean lines. The wings & forward position of the engines look like a heavyweight boxer advancing on an opponent.
It's role also seemed to be the A-10 Warthog of its day, able to take & give out punishment in large amounts.
My grandfather was in the 8th Army & didn't often talk about his time in war. But he did say that the Beau was something to see when on an attack run, making the ground ahead of it writhe & boil.
The Honey Badger of the air the incomparable Bristol Beaufighter.
Robert "Moose" Fumerton flew Beaufighters with my dad in 89 Sqdn RAF - both pilots were RCAF Flying Officers, and both participated in the very early trials of AI (Airborne Intercept, or Radar) from the beginning of 89 Sqdn. The AI Mk. 1 sets were hand-built and quite prone to go "u/s" or "unserviceable" in flight. Dad's navigator had been selected partly because he'd been a ham radio operator as a teenager pre-war - although repair in flight was not really an option. But it was the best they had at the time, and soon better sets, Mk II, Mk. III etc. came along. In many wartime photos of Beau night fighters, the nose antenna was hidden by 'editing' the photo negatives since its size and shape would give the enemy several important clues about the equipment.
89 squadron was a "composite" RAF squadron with Brits, Canadians, New Zealanders among others. One of the first squadron commanders was George Stainforth, a career RAF officer widely known for flying R.J. Mitchell's Supermarine float planes in air races during the 1930's, and winning the Schneider Trophy permanently for Britain. It was on display in the RAF Club lobby when I stayed there on one visit. (Oddly enough, so was a picture of my dad and his navigator with Stainforth and a number of other crews, holding up an aircraft skin panel bearing Luftwaffe insignia. Seeing the two of them, looking impossibly young, as I walked in the front entrance off Piccadilly was a rather odd experience).
After the war, "Moose" Fumerton went on to be the head of RCAF fighter command and remarked in a speech (sorry, I have not got it verbatim) "The Beaufighter was a difficult aircraft to fly, and an extraordinarily difficult one to fly well." The two Hercules radial engines, 1700 HP each, couldn't just be 'firewalled' on take-off. The throttles, and power had to be advanced more on one side, so that torque from the two huge engines was offset. If not handled with 'a bit of care' they would cause the aircraft to ground-loop during take-off.
89 Sqdn were doing radar night-fighter work, then were temporarily rushed to Egypt to help stop Rommel's advance on Cairo. The Germans were not pleased by this, and the Luftwaffe took a bit of damage once the Beaus were on scene - flying both night and day sorties. During that period, 5 crews were detached and flew their aircraft to New Delhi, where they formed the nucleus of 176 Sqdn RAF, which did both night-fighter work as well as "beating up" the advancing Japanese, particularly the Japanese railroad trains full of troops and ammunition. "Blew up a treat" was how my dad's navigator/radar operator described them.
The original crews then returned to England to do both night-fighter and "intruder" sorties almost non-stop. They were heavily involved in striking German night-fighters and other targets prior to D-Day. I have my dad's logbooks as well as his personal journals, and although rated "exceptional" as a night-fighter pilot, the Beau could be a bad tempered cow, especially with icing/foggy conditions. This led to some hard landings, but the Beau airframe was tough. My dad died quite young, but his navigator lived to be 106, and we had many interesting trans-Atlantic phone conversations. I wish now that I'd recorded those; my dad rarely spoke of his wartime flying. Just before D-Day, white stripes were applied to the aircraft in a big hurry by an "erk" with a paint roller. The stripes were 'not pretty' - there had been no masking or attempt to keep them straight or even - 'just slopped on' was the kindest description. My dad and his navigator were both very offended; they took great pains to ensure their aircraft was as invisible as possible in the night sky, and would 'black out' even shiny rivet heads or the window edging with small brushes and black paint - in their spare time, and with paint bought with their own money from a bicycle shop ! The white stripes definitely were not invisible - more like an invitation to the Luftwaffe!
That is a really interesting post. Thank you very much.
Magnificent aircraft. So well designed and built.
It’s engines were so powerful they tried to fly away from the plane.
Whispering Death, came from the engine having sleeve valves. These slid open to let in the fuel/air mix another sliding open to let out the exhaust gas. This removed the popping from conventional valves, making the engine incredibly quiet.
Aussie Beaufighters were a nightmare the the Japanese, A great plane and glad we had them to help with the war in the far east.
Thanks for the good show & for featuring the Bristol Beaufighter.
Love the menacing look of this awesome machine .
Reminds me of a boxer, chin tucked in and fists out ready to punch.
Perhaps the most devastating attack involving Beaufighters was the Battle of the Bizmark sea which devistated the convey reinforcing Lae in 1943. Turning into the Beaufighters the escort destroyers were strafed from stem to strem destroying the bridge crews and all on deck.
Spot on, the jap fleet thought it was a torpedo attack so they turned towards the Beaus, this let the awesome firepower take out the bridge and AA crews, very effective raid which prevented my grandfather and his fellow diggers from having to fight several thousand fresh troops
Bismark
Bismarck...
Always interested in a show about Beaufighters. My grandad served in Coastal Command as a crewman in one, mostly anti submarine patrols or escorting convoys I think. Disappeared in the North Atlantic on patrol, engine failure according to records.
Thank you for this video and the breadth of cover of the Beaufighter. I still can't decide which is my favourite twin-engine Allied fighter - Mosquito, Beaufighter and the P38 Lightning. Each with such valuable contributions and all, beautiful aircraft in its own way.
the Westland Whirlwind should of been given more of a chance to show what it could do if the cooling system and the propellor problems hadn't been caused by sub contractors substituting the original parts for lesser performing ones. a great potential missed through meddling by company mismanagement.
@@stevechurch4728 Absolutely so.
There is only one Blenheim (not a Beaufighter) in flying condition. The major issue is the engine as there are only 6 of these engines operating worldwide. A recent air show had the one flying alongside 3 single engine aircraft that had the same engine. 5 of the 6 engines flying in consort. Once a common engine now rarer than the planes that used it.
The Beaufighter actually replaced the Mosquito in tropical climates as the resins holding the “wooden wonder” together wasn’t up to the heat and humidity of these climates.
I was mistaken, a Blenheim is flyable, but no Beaufighters.
Wow. That's really cool
There are no airworthy Beaufighters at his time, the formation you referring to is a Bristol Blenheim with two westland Lysanders and a Gladiator bi plane
I believe there are currently two Beaufighter restorations to flying condition underway, one in Australia and one in the U.K., apparently the major hold up is the lack of suitable engines.
I thought the Corsair was named whispering death by the Japanese in WW2
@@nickmoloney9820 Whistling Death was the Corsair nickname. I see that they can get confused.
A customer of mine was an observer/gunner in a RAAF squadron in the UK doing anti ship patrpls over the North Sea. He told of the effort to change the 20 mm cannon ammo drums in a moving plane at night. Also about releasing the messenger pigeons they carried for emergencies. They would regularly release them on return leg of patrols to give the birds "practise" at homing from a moving plane over water.
The drums were later replaced by a belt fed system much to the crews relief.
At what speed were these pigeons thrown out of the aircraft?
@@williamzk9083 l don't know exactly, except Reg described to us that on the way home, while still offshore the pilot would slow the plane and the observer would open a hatch (ventral?) and release the bird into the airstream. Stall speed was 100 mph, so it had to be faster then that
Have a nice print....big one too...Showing a Beaufighter straffing a ship. I look at it almost every day. Beauty!!!!
The Beaufighter is one of my all time favourite aircraft and it is such a pity that there are none still in flying condition just like the Typhoon, Tempest and Hornet, which were also iconic planes from that era. Thankfully some dedicated souls are working to return the Typhoon and Tempest to the skies but that seems to be an unlikely prospect for the Beau and Hornet sadly
There is now a Tempest flying in the UK, There are 2 Beaufighters and 2 Typhoons currently being restored with the aim to be restored to fly. The Hornet, is sadly a very difficult proposal. There are currently 3 other Tempest restorations ongoing.
Gimme a mozzie.
I find it Beau-tiful in its own way.
Heh, nice
Proud to be a Bristolian where these came from. Of course, the aircraft factory is part of Airbus now, making wings; and the engine factory is part of Rolls Royce, making F-35 engines
In the Pacific, the Beaufighter was one of the 'Holy trinity" (Or unholy if you were Japanese) of the three most excellent strafing bombers of the war, the other two members being the Douglas A-20 and the North American B-25.
It’s great to learn that during WW2 the Allies had the best aircraft in the world. It made a huge difference.
Nice. Made in Old Mixon near Weston Super Mare as well as Filton, Fisherman's Bend, Australia too (?) What the Hurricane was to the Spitfire, I think of the Beaufighter is to the Mosquito. I need a USAAF model to sit on the shelf next to my RAF Coastal Command one. A great aeroplane. To see one flying again would be amazing.
I love how strange they look, especially for a fighter
Think of it as the A10 Thunderbolts spiritual great grand-dad 😁 but more flexible . A bit of a thug but very useful in a down and dirty brawl.
As well as mugging enemy aircraft at night ..
They ultimately rocked cannons and machine guns ... More powerful motors and radar thimble nose versions. Bombs or torpedoes and a beau speciality the 8 x25lb unguided rockets under the outer wings.
Pity these clips rarely show the interiors the Australian and NZ Beaufighter crews really did make their presence felt .. just like the coastal command versions in Europe.
It would be wonderful to hear and see a Beaufighter fly again..one reason for its quietness was the engine is a sleeve valve motor ... 4 were used in the Sunderland flying boats.
Post war a bunch of Beaus were used as target towing
Tugs.
@@clivestainlesssteelwomble7665 "Whispering death"
At the time they were fondly described as two large engines, followed closely by a plane.
I always loved that description.
You gotta love the Beau! If the Mossie was an elegant rapier the Beaufighter was a snarling bulldog. 4x20mm cannons, 6x.303 mgs PLUS eight 20 pdr rockets, bombs, a torpedo - what on EARTH was a better strike fighter/anti-ship platform?
Thanks for posting this video on this great aircraft. Very well researched and narrated.
Interesting to know some of the rolls and missions of the Beaufighter. Also great to know of a raid conducted from Langham, England, not too far from where I live. There is still an Astrodome there on the old airfield that you can visit. Great video, thank you.
"Whispering Death" ...one of the great nicknames for a machine of war.
I just remember these from Commando comics. These had the best stories by far.
I love the Beau. I have since I was a kid.
I believe the Beaufighter was the most heavily armed fighter operated by the RAF, in its initial configuration it was armed with 4 X 20mm cannon and 6 X .303” machine guns, later on they dropped the wing mounted machine guns, I believe it was in order to carry wing mounted rockets instead.
Australian built Beaufighter's had 4 X 20mm cannon and 4 X 50 cal machine guns.
@@gtpumps I remembered this configuration too.
10 gun terrors
Good video! . amazing camera man! ......🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
A great example of the Beaufighter can be seen at The Museum of the United States Air Force at Dayton, Ohio. A great video on a great multi role aircraft.
WOW !! always loved the look of this plane, just didn't realise how effective it was, thanks for this excellent video
Hey that's my favourite uncle, Ken Gatward taking that Beaufighter around Paris. He had some other war time adventures ... He was with brilliant navigator Flight Seargent Fern for Operation Squable to Paris and many other sorties. He led an RCAF squadron. The French really appreciated Operation Squable. He was a fun uncle for sure.
Not only did only 1200 Japanese troops arrive in Lae, but the convoy was destroyed. They came by swimming, small life boats or rescued by patrols. Instead of bringing supplies and reinforcements to Lae they were largely without any equipment and with large numbersof wounded.
This very much helped the subsequent amphibious and Airborne landings at Lae by Australian (Amphibious) (fighting their way inland supported by Matilda tanks)and American (Airbourne) troops(which helped secure a nearby runway to commence operations from).
One of my favorite air frames
The Beaufighter is often overshadowed by the Mosquito. When I was a young boy, I would draw aircraft and I drew a Beaufighter. Teachers and fellow students kept calling it a Mosquito. 😅
Ah but does that tell us more about your drawing skills? 😉😉
Nowadays, in certain liberal US cities, you would be labeled a danger as you dare draw an “armed” vehicle, as biting a pop tart into a shape that barely resembled the shape of a gun led to expulsion of a student.
Just as the Hurricane's contribution gets overshadowed by the Spitfire, I feel that the Beaufighter is similarly overlooked because of the Mosquito.
imagine being on a small ship or in a truck in the desert and seeing one of these turning to unleash all that firepower on you, an early A10 in a way. good vid thank you.
The Beaufighter was the honey badger of ground attack aircraft
0nce described as, "Two bloody great engines, hotly pursued by an airframe".
The story of Ken Gatward is very similar to that of the Belgian pilot Baron Jean de Selys Longchamps. Gatward dropped the French flag over the Arc de Triomphe in the spring and then shot at the "Minister de la Marine" on the Place de la Concorde.
In the autumn of 1942, Jean de Selys Longchamps dropped a Belgian flag over the Royal Palace in Brussels with his Hawker Typhoon and then shot at the Gestapo headquarters, killing several high-ranking SS officers.
One of the great aircraft of WW2. Huge hitting power and extremely rugged. It’s such a shame that there is no flying example anywhere in the world and due to the lack of engines the aircraft under restoration look unlikely to be completed.
Hercules engines are being worked up currently....for the HARS Beau.
Despite the "Fly Tank" description it lacked frontal Armour. I recall one pilot interviewed being shocked when what he through was Armour was only plywood.
Kokoda and PNG was Australia's Stalingrad......it was a horrific, nightmarish fight that turned the tide and was the beginning of the end for the Empire of Japan. The Beaufighter was definitely one of the true MVPs of the skies over the Pacific. It was the A-10 of its day.
You over egging it a bit aren’t you mate. Australias Stalingrad? Come of it thousands of Russian and German soldiers died at Stalingrad . Kokoda was a minor battle in the grand scheme of WW2.
Australia created and built some interesting Planes,the Plant at Fisherman's Bend Melbourne I suppose is long gone ? For a small Country still recovering from WW1 and the Depression we Designed and Produced some Very useful Planes ! The Battle of the Bismarck Sea is worth a look .
Amazing aircraft..great video. Thank you.
I recall at the time from the old 'RAF Flying Review', a photo of the last Beaufighter T10 taking off from Seletar. That was about the time the RAF did away with its Sunderlands, also, in the Far East.
One of the several WW2 model airplanes I made as a preteen was a Beaufighter night fighter, inspired by a contemporaneous book I read. My first use of matte paint.
My favourite aircraft of ww2 such a beautiful plane such a shame that there are none flying
The more glamorous planes tended to overshadow these workhorses I think.
Well deserved credit to an often bit overshadowed aircraft. To little corrections; the port the German ships came from is spelled Den Helder and was and is the home base of the Koninklijke Marine (the Royal Dutch Navy); if memory serves me well the torpedo carrying versions were named Torbeau, not Torbleau.
indeed, the torpedoes were carried by Torbeaus whilst the ships defenses were the target of the Flakbeaus (armed with rockets).
5:03
A real Bulldog!❤
My absolute favorite aircraft.
Thank you. Impressive
The Beaufighter was even used as a day fighter in some extreme cases like Malta. Also very important in the anti-shipping role to deprive Rommel of his supplies.
I like the Mosquito, but I love the Beaufighter. If I would have to choose in which one go into battle, I think I would go for the Beau. Not because the Mossie is not good, it is, but somehow I would feel more safe in this flying tank.
Beau is The Poster Child of Your British Bulldogs,Cousin!!
My former Squadron - 410 Sqn RCAF - flew Beaufighter Mk II's (with the RR Merlin engines) during WW2. As a Night Fighter squadron, we adopted the name "Cougars" because of the Cougar's legendary nocturnal hunting ability. Our motto is "Noctivaga" - Latin for "Wandering by night" for our Night-Fighter role. They ended the war with 75+ Enemy A/C shot down.
Currently, 410 flies CF-18 fighters as the RCAF's CF-18 Operational Training Unit.
Thnx for the shoutout to Damian Parer, (ww2 chronicles on film). Some of the photographers were fearless buggers, (and war doco's would be dull, without the pics, we have seen a hundred times or more?).
Wilfred Burchett, is another war chronicle collector, more ppl should know of...look him up..
With at least 975 kills the Beaufighter is the third most successful British fighter in history, after the Hurricane and Spitfire.
Ten gun terror. It had six .303 in the wings as well as the cannon (two one side with a nav light and four on the other wing).
Fantastic war machine. Salute to the aircrew
It’s impressive that the manufacturer made both the airframe and engines, something that few manufacturers achieved….
it is a shame that such an important aircraft as the Beaufighter has so few existing examples left.
Those Beaus managed to disguise themselves like Wellingtons
Transformers… Transform… 😉
What a great plane!!!
" .. heavy fighters will always get through ... " Remus the Rem. :D
Great vid on a beautiful plane 👍
Were these built at GAF?
As a famous British Air Commodore replied on being asked about his personal response to his personal umpteenth bail-out - ‘You don’t appear to understand - we had become ‘Bird-men’ ‘ (quoted by Stephen Bungay in ‘The most dangerous enemy’.)
The spiritual forefather of the A-10.
I feel like I'd go watching a video on any ground attack plane ever built and there is atleast one idiotic comment comparing it to the A-10, which by the way, was fairly useless when it was introduced and has killed more US pilots in friendly fire than any other US aircraft.
A big doco called Whispering Death Beaufighter Forgotten Warhorse is about the Australian use of the plane
These things were beasts
The story of Op Squabble, the strike on Paris, is a good way to start as it highlights the Beaufighter's range and versatility. But the second target wasn't a Gestapo headquarters; it was the Ministere de la Marine, the French Naval Ministry building.
I knew some video clips would be odd and there's no disappointment here. Some of the 'fighters' shown initially are Skua dive bombers, and an FW190 isn't really an Allied fighter even if it has RAF roundels. At least there is much footage of actual Beaufighters, even if the shots depicting the first order for the aircraft are from late-1944. The D Day stripes are a pretty big giveaway. As you've used earlier footage later in the video, why not swap them to match the story? I guess you might have to know what you're looking at.
The Bristol test pilot, Cyril Uwins never held the rank of captain, having left the RAF as a flight lieutenant.
The night-time bombing of the UK is shown to include an RAF B-24.
If talking about the night fighter variant, why are they strafing a shoreline?
The enemy aircraft being destroyed at 5:34 is a Spitfire Mk1.
You start off talking about the Beau being armed with torpedos and guns but keep showing it using its 5" rockets. You do finally mention them toward the end so why not do it when you're actually showing them in use?
The nickname 'Whispering Death' has become cemented in memory of the aircraft. However, it was not coined by the Japanese. Rather it was invented by a journalist as part of a wider Allied propaganda effort and struck significant resonance with Allied crews and the civilian population back home. There is no evidence it was ever used by the enemy.
The Japanese misidentification of the aircraft in the convoy attack in the Bismarck Sea is understandable as the first wave had indeed included Beaufort torpedo bombers. Contrary to the video, this meant that the Japanese turned their ships head on to the second attack, allowing the Beaufighters to strafe the entire length of each ship.
A Beaufighter couldn't 'bristle' with torpedos; it carried one.
UK production totalled 5564 but another 364 were built as DAP Mk21s at Melbourne, Australia. The total is therefore 5,928.
On the whole though, not a bad telling.
Why did you show clips of a Bell Aerocomet fighter whilst talking about pre or early war fighters?
Wow. Men of steel in a strong plane.
I likes the engines, the bristol sleeve engine.😮❤
It's probably my all-time favourite aircraft of WW2
US Air Forces actually flew these. There is a great restored example at The Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Beautiful aircraft.
absulute beaut
An excellent video but there's just one small point I wish to make: You pronounced the name of the Bristol Blenheim incorrectly. It should be pronounced 'blennim' and the 'h' is silent. I know this because my father made wing and fuselage panels for Blenheims, Beauforts and Beaufighters during the war, and I have lived in Bristol for my whole life.
Love the Mossie but the Beau was my fav when it came to British twin engine planes
Can you do a video on radars? The first radars from radio to mech scanned and electronically scanned
I see why some photos mismatch the text: it's difficulty of finding the exactly matching ones. This is not a criticism. But for information: at 0:46 we see Paris Hotel de Ville (City Hall), which is quite far (another side of the entire Louvre complex) from the Place de la Concorde.
By the way, I remember from a book written by a former RAF pilot flying Beaufighters, that initially Mk.II, while much faster, occurred much more problematic, with reliability issues, compared to Mk. I. It had glycol-cooled (rather than water-cooled) engines and many other modifications but early on was feared by crews as dangerous.
Didn't mention that the Beaufighter design was derived ultimately from the early war Blenheim light bomber.
I could be wrong but I don't know if the Bf110 was used as a night bomber.
This aircraft makes me think of the modern A10 more than the Stuka, IL2 or any other.
The engines are pretty quiet when compared to others of the era, although there are no records of the Japanese using the term 'whispering death' for that reason though.
If I recall correctly, Catward dropped a second tricolour at La Place de la Concorde. He had practiced with weighted flags to get them to fall so they could be seen. I think he also hoped to shoot up the daily military parade down the Champs Elysee. Alas, he was on time, but the Nazis were late.
Isn't that a Blenheim lV in the main pic though?
Like a lot of documentaries, this one uses, at least at the beginning, any old bit of film showing aeroplanes of about the same period. For those of us that know something of the period it may not matter too much but for anyone new to the subject it could be very confusing.
At 12.28 - 12.30, did I hear nicknamed TORBLEAU? So far as I'm aware.Its TORBEAU. No "L"
I just heard that too!
Also known as 'The Whispering Death' by the Japanese. The props being in forward of the front of the nose/fuselage kept it quiet on approach to a target, it was not heard until it went past you.
Guy Gibson of Dam Busters fame did a stint as a Beaufighter pilot as a 'rest' from night bombing over Germany. Read his book.
the 14 cylinder Bristol Sleeve Valve engines have a considerably softer exhaust note than standard poppet valve engines .Hence the monicker Silent Death !!!
Seems there are 2 possible way to say the name of this great plane:
Bewfighter (the one I particularly use) as in beautiful.
Bowfighter (the one used in this commentary) or as my departed old mate (Boxer dog) Beau.
Is either correct or one of them?
The one used in the commentary is correct. It is named after a British aristocrat called Beaufort, which is a Norman French/Huguenot name hence the French pronunciation, beau means beautiful.