Heres a picture !!!!!!!! ... I was going through some old Liverpool pictures and found this ....... :clapping: P51 Mustang planes wih their wingtips removed for easy transportation are seen being hauled up Upper Parliament Street en route to Speke Airport in 1944 to play their part in the 1944 D Day landings. The intersection shown is that with St. James Place (left) and Great George Street (right)
I think the guy on the left has blue eyes!! How can you tell they are P-51's they even have their tail fins removed, I'm struggling to see the P-51 in these. The lead plane admitedly appears to have a simliar belly to a 51 but other than that......
That's what the caption said !! :noidea: I was more worried about how long the tram would have to wait while they all passed !!
The undercarriage legs are the big giveaway, Gaz, as is the doghouse (radiator) on the leading aircraft...plus Annie said they were! They're also roughly Mk IIIs or Bs/Cs with the high-back/non-bubble canopy so perhaps not as familiar as the D.
They seem to have very blunt noses for mustangs, looking at the dull finish, I wouldn't be surprised if they were dummy decoys on there way to fool the marauding 110's. If they were, it certainly would not be given away by the war-time press. Cheers Keith
I would have needed a very long hard look at these aircraft if the picture wasn't captioned, but I agree with Andy that they are Mustang IIIs, the high-backed P51B/C. As Andy says, the undercarriage legs and doors, and the radiator are the most obvious giveaway that they are Mustangs of some kind. They are covered by some kind of protective sheet, but if you look closely at the leading one, you can see the outline of the semi-circular window behind the cockpit that characterised the Mk III/ P51B/C. The blunt noses are simply a matter of the props and spinners not being fitted. They could be decoys but there is no specific reason to think so - decoys could have been disassembled for transport more easily. And I don't thing 110s did much marauding over Manchester or anywhere else by the time these pictures were taken!
Planes in Liverpool I have tried very hard to qualify the fact that these are actual servicable aircraft. "On their way to Speke Aerodrome for D.Day" Why didn't they fly there, or have they just arrived at the port, covered for a sea voyage, to be finally assembled at Speke, maybe Annie can tell us if these facilities were available at Speke during the war. Looking at them would you say they were airworthy! All I can see is a blank cigar shape, without even the vestige of a cockpit, granted they appear to have the shape of the P51 radiator housing. The wheels appear servicable, which may be the one thing that makes me doubt my theory that they may be decoys to fool German PR into thinking we were planning a different form of invasion. I have tried to enhance the picture for better viewing but all I can see near the cockpit position is the sign on the local bus for thefirst aircraftand the top of a house door near the second plane. It certainly is worthy of Kyt's invetigative powers!
Now looking closer at the front aircraft, in the enhanced picture, I can see the outline of the covered cockpit windows, and hold my hands up and surrender, my second assumption that they have just arrived at the port to be made airworthy at Speke seems to be the reason for them to be transported through Liverpool. sorry Cheers Keith
The aircraft were probably straight off the ship they'd been brought over in, so they'd be well sheeted up, covered in oil etc and all easily removable parts removed. At the airfield they'd be stripped down and cleaned, then put together properly for use. The little Auster spotter planes were brought to my home town in crates, taken out, all the oil and grease cleaned off then assembled and flown out of two fields. The fact is these aircraft are still in their transport mode, so they have still to be reassembled fully. Thats why they're still a bit misshappen, a lot of the easily recognisable bits aren't yet attached and they're wrapped up for transport.
In Singapore the Buffs were manhandled out of the crates and assemled....flown...and then re assembled when things like the engines were found to contain metal shavings in them because of of the poor production at the factories
P51's in the Pool Hi Kitty, I think we have both reached the same conclusion, here is a slightly better picture, with the tram advert for " Whitbreads Ales & Stouts" and the house hoarding for "Guinness" now readable. Plus an outline of the typical P51 cockpit windows now showing. Cheers Keith
I went back to see if I'd missed anything ... but thats all it says ..... and no other pictures similar ! scroll down to nearly the bottom .... old pictures of Liverpool ... amazing ( well I think so !! ) inacityliving
I don't think I need to use my powers Everyone has done a good job already This the original size pic from the Life Magazine Archive. Same size as Keith's but a tad sharper The original caption is also basically the same Storage wrapped P-51 Mustang fighters (w. wingtips removed for shipment) rolling down city street en route to airbase for use in the D-Day (Operation Overlord) invasion of Normandy. Location: Liverpool, United Kingdom Date taken: 1944
One thing I didn't mention above is that on the wing of the aircraft closest to the camera, there's a lighter spot underneath. IIRC, this'll be a landing light.
