A 1/72 Australian Beaufighter in Coastal Command Service

By Chris Bucholtz

History

The convoy had left its Norwegian port early in the morning, under cover of darkness, and as the sun had risen on a summer morning in 1944, the crews of the ore-laden German transports were heartened to see that a foggy haze was hugging the sea. True, it kept any Luftwaffe fighter coverage from linking up with the convoy, but it also prevented Allied aircraft from spotting the ships out in the open. If luck held, they wouldn’t need fighter cover.

At about noon, however, the temperature rose and the fog began to become patchier, thinner, and finally it disappeared altogether. Under ordinary circumstances, this would have made for a pleasant day, but during wartime the crews knew this left them open to attack.

Aboard the southernmost ship in the convoy, lookouts scanned the horizon for any sign of Allied ships or aircraft. The captain had doubled up all his lookout watches even though there would be very little he could do with an earlier warning to save his ship. The convoy was escorted by three Speerbrechers, converted merchantmen turned into flak ships, but the captain had seen even these formidable ships forced to fight for their lives against the frenzied attack of Coastal Command aircraft.

The day had dragged on long enough and the lookouts had stood enough shifts that, by early afternoon, tension had been replaced by weary apprehension. When the forward lookout shrieked his warning, the bridge crew was doubly startled. The first mate rang the general quarters bell, and men scrambled to their combat stations.

The lookouts had spotted a group of low-flying Bristol Beaufighters at about the same time the Beaufighters had spotted them. As briefed, the trailing squadron of Beaufighters, armed with torpedoes, pulled into a descending turn while the lead squadron bore down on the convoy, aircraft jinking in anticipation of the enemy flak that would soon be bursting around them.

The forward gun crew on the southernmost ship quickly traversed their 37mm gun to point in the direction of the speedy Beaufighters. The veteran gun captain shouted a command and the gun swung slightly to the left and then barked to life, spitting shells at the lead aircraft. The gun’s aim was spoiled as the Beaufighter abruptly rose, then once again pointed its nose at the freighter. The gun captain could see his flak flashing past the airplane, always close, but never close enough. When the plane’s nose came back down, he realized where it was pointed, and he yelled a warning to his crew.

Two of them anticipated the warning and, like the gun captain, flung themselves to the deck behind fittings and deck cargo just as the Beaufighter opened fire with its four 20mm cannon. The shells hit first in the water to the side of the ship, kicking up plumes of white water, before they walked up the side of the ship and into the 37mm mount. One shell hit a loader in the torso and carried half of his body over the opposite side. Other shells burst on the gun shield and deck, spraying the other loader and gun aimer with deadly metal splinters. The gun swung violently to the right, the barrel bobbing crazily from the impacts of the shells.

The Beaufighter’s fire carried across the deck and into the water on the opposite side before correcting and peppering the bridge with gunfire, filling the air in pilothouse with metal splinters, broken glass, cordite fumes and tufts of filler from a shredded life preserver. Just then, the Beaufighter fired its rockets in two salvos. The first salvo hit the water just off the side of the ship and punched four foot-wide holes in the hull below the waterline. The second salvo hit on top of the superstructure, destroying the auxiliary bridge and sending the lee helm tipping over the side, shattering the steam line for the ship’s whistle and twisting the top half of the funnel at a crazy angle. Immediately, the ship slowed.

As the Beaufighter flashed over, the bridge watch and the gun crew survivors rose, stunned. The forward deck was stained with a thin mixture of blood and seawater, and broken glass and damaged cargo cluttered what had been an orderly deck. Again, a lookout’s shriek startled the crew. Two more Beaufighters, coming in more slowly and even lower than the first one, were bearing down on the ship. The aft gun wheeled around and began firing, but short; the Beaufighters’ paths were paralleled by a series of tall spouts as the shells missed their mark low. As the gun corrected, a dark shape slipped first from one Beaufighter’s belly and then the other’s. These gently splashed into the ocean, and the planes veered off sharply to the right, staying low on the water.

The torpedoes struck just forward of the aft gun mount, knocking the crew to the deck. The ship began to list immediately and the captain gave the abandon ship call. As they scrambled for the boats, the crew saw that they were not alone; Beaufighters were strafing and rocketing other ships. A clear day at sea had become a field day for Coastal Command and a fiasco for the German navy.

Building the Kit

Hasegawa’s 1/72 Beaufighter has beautiful panel line detail, a parts breakdown that allows for both easy construction and the flexibility to make multiple variants from a common mold, and an outline that captures the Beaufighter’s lines to a tee. My only question was what paint scheme I should finish her in? I let my wife choose, allowing her to pick from a host of decal sheets, photos and profile paintings. The one she chose was UB-E from 455 Squadron, an aircraft portrayed in the famous photo salvoing her rockets at a target. Some Aussie observer snapped this photo under the duress of combat, immortalizing UB-E and providing me with a great subject for this model.

UB-E was one of the early Mk.Xs, with the Hercules Mk. XVII engine. Other than that—and the different inlets on the exhaust collectors—the aircraft is indistinguishable from a Mk. VI and can be built using the parts in the Mk. VI kit.

Since I ordered the model through HobbyLink Japan, the model came with the metal hedgehog exhausts reserved for the Japanese market. I quite accidentally came into possession of photoetch sets from both PART and Eduard, which made my mind up to fully detail this Beaufighter. I also found lots of help in two issues of Scale Aviation Modeler International; Volume 3 issue 9 had interior drawings by Steve Benstead, while Volume 4 Issue 8 had detailed photos and two modelers’ blow-by-blow accounts of building this kit.

As is the case in many Hasegawa kits, the interior is sparse. I ended up using nothing from the kit interior, with the exception of the flared end of the observer’s machine gun. This was hollowed out and cut off and turned into the top of the observer’s "sanitary bottle!"

The areas behind the pilot and the fuselage interior were ribbed with stringers and formers in the real aircraft. Eduard provided a plate with ribs for the cockpit area alone, while PART gives you a set of cut-out ribs for the entire interior fuselage. Unfortunately, the fit of the PART ribs is questionable, so I cut the ribs from the cockpit shelving and applied them as two pieces. Using super glue sparingly, I put in the structural members and could turn to other details.

The PART set has you use the kit cockpit section and add pieces to it. The Eduard set gives you an entirely new floorboard section. I opted to use the Eduard floor and add the PART details to it when they were better. That included the control panel, the three-piece control yoke, the compass (with its own transparency) and many of the other small parts. These parts were all airbrushed with RAF interior green-gray before installation; then, various panels that were other colors, like black or brown, were masked off and airbrushed the appropriate color and drybrushed with silver or gray.

The PART pilot’s seat was built and received seat belts from the Eduard set; it was built in the collapsed position, which allowed the pilot to enter the cockpit. I also made some of the seat frame details from scratch using styrene strip and wire.

The area behind the cockpit received an assortment of boxes from both sets. I also added a bit of wiring and the behind-the-pilot hydraulic pressure gauges and the prominent red emergency grab rails, all from Eduard parts. I decided to open the armored doors that separate the cockpit from the rest of the fuselage, just to let some more light into the airplane. I also found I had to add wiring below the instruments on the port side and the heating duct on the right side, which runs almost the full length of the cockpit. I understand why neither set makes mention of this duct; all the surviving Beaufighters are Australian Mk. 21s, and the heating duct was probably not much of a concern. The last thing Australian pilots flying low over the South Pacific in 100-degree weather needed was to have more hot air blown on them! The duct was made with thick gauge wire, which was bent to shape, painted a beige color to simulate the asbestos insulation, and run through a hole in the rear cockpit bulkhead thoughtfully provided by PART. The wiring on the port side was made with bits of painted copper wire and a short length of coiled picture frame hanging wire.

Small bits of wire were painted red and added just below the canopy edge to simulate emergency canopy jettison handles, and small "reading lamps" were made from styrene rod and carefully glued to the inside of the canopy frames so that they’d be in their proper locations once the canopy was attached. The two prominent fuel cock wheels were painted separately and added once dry to the left side of the cockpit; everything in the Beaufighter cockpit was color coded quite sensibly, red for port and green for starboard. The final touch—for now, at least—was the addition of a gunsight taken from a Cooper Details Spitfire set and outfitted with an acetate reflector.

I next turned my attention to the rest of the fuselage. A brass floor plate provided in the PART set runs the full length of the fuselage and folds up to provide a rear stowage area. I folded and added the two cannon ammunition drum assemblies amidships, then started working on the observer’s station. The PART seat was folded into shape and "belted" with Eduard parts; next, the spindly seat stand was folded and the footrests were added. Alignment of these parts is tricky and the finished assembly is easy to bend, so I had to take great care; even so, I had to repair this area several times before joining the fuselage. The Benstead drawings helped me locate various components from the two sets in their proper locations. The Australian extra water bottle stowage was omitted from the PART set, but I scratch-built the cylinder for stowage of the observer’s sun blind and the aforementioned sanitary bottle, made from moistened tissue and the "nozzle" from the machine gun. PART also gives you the ability to open both lower fuselage access doors, but I chose to keep mine shut. Still, I added the walls of the recess to the door, since this would be visible through the observer’s glazing. I also took care with the compass to make sure it was reading the same heading as the compass in the cockpit!

At this point, it was time to join the fuselage. Much to my relief, the interior floor and bulkhead parts fit very well and caused me no problems, and the kit’s fit was a very pleasant surprise. At this point, using pointed tweezers and slow-setting super glue, I added the many throttle and engine control levers to the right side of the cockpit. I had waited until now because I was afraid any work I might do would be knocked off in the process of joining the fuselage halves. All of these handles were topped with red or green knobs.

The cutout in the vertical stabilizer was added more easily than I expected, and the nose cap fit well with only a hint of sanding needed. The hardest part was the addition of the upper fuselage around the observer’s station; the fit here was a little iffy and was hampered by a chunk that had been taken out of one edge when the part broke off the tree while still in the box. Careful blending, followed by some re-scribing, took care of this problem.

I had a little difficulty fitting the fuselage bottom section to the model. The lower nose plate had its gun troughs drilled out and went into place with little fuss, but I had to do a lot of sanding to blend the center section of the lower fuselage into place.

The wings were assembled next. These fit together very well, and feature both halves of the nacelles, a nice relief for anyone who’s fooled with the fit of underslung nacelles on a multi-engined model before. The lower nacelles also include nicely detailed wheel wells. On the left wing, I sanded flush the two protrusions intended to represent the landing lights and drilled them out. I painted this area interior gray-green, then added MV lenses and a small dividing bulkhead made of styrene card. I also added the plate for mounting the rocket rails; since the photo of UB-E shows it firing rockets, there’s only one real armament option I could consider!

The cover to the wing lights was added, sanded flush and then polished out, and the wings were joined to the fuselage. A minor gap was dressed up at the wing-to-fuselage joint, but this was made up for by the splendid fit of the horizontal tailplanes. Before I added these, I trimmed off the molded-on trim tab actuators; Eduard provides brass replacements, which I added later during final assembly.

At this point, I assembled the cowling halves and the exhaust collector section, but left them aside. These can be painted separately and added later, as can the engines, which are very nicely depicted.

I next added the transparencies. The cockpit glazing was a virtual drop fit, and I had a hard time getting it off once I’d test-fitted it! Before I could attach the observer’s transparency, I needed to add the .303 machine gun. First I made a mount with styrene rod and stiff wire, which I super glued into place against the top of the fuselage in the appropriate location. I made a mounting point and other details from styrene strip, then added an Aeroclub white metal Browning .303 with white glue. I drilled out the end of the gun for greater realism, and added the weapon with Soba glue, a white glue that remains somewhat flexible when dry. I reasoned that I would probably break loose any joint made with a stiff glue like super glue.

The observer’s cupola presented a fit problem; I attached it with white glue, followed by super glue. The white glue prevents fogging by the super glue, while the superglue allowed me to sand the cupola into place. I did this very carefully, since the gun barrel was protruding from the cupola! Once I thought I had blended the cupola in, I carefully polished the transparency out with 2000 grit sandpaper and Blue Magic car polish.

After masking the clear parts—and carefully wrapping tape around the machine gun—I started painting. I had assumed that the scheme Wendy had picked of extra dark sea gray over sky would be a snap. I had overlooked the invasion stripes! I first painted the white band with Humbrol matte white, and then masked the white for application of the black stripes. The wings were no problem, but the dramatic curve and tapering of the fuselage forced me to cut very narrow strips of Tamiya masking tape and force them around the contours of the model. I painted the black stripes with Floquil tire black, and then masked the black stripes off so that I could apply the Floquil extra dark sea gray to the topsides of the model. I also tacked the cowlings and the separate flap sections into place. Once the EDSG was dry, I masked the demarcation between the EDSG and the sky and airbrushed Model Master sky over the bottom of the model. At this point, the model looked more like a tape ball than a Beaufighter, and I was relieved to remove the masking and see that I had very little bleed anywhere on the model!

To prepare the model for decals, I airbrushed a coat of thinned water-based Varathane over the entire model as a gloss coat. I used AeroMaster decals for UB-E, which went on well with the exception of one area. The fuselage roundels go over the invasion stripes, and they’re presented as separate pieces—a white disk with a yellow surround, followed by a blue doughnut and a red center. I found that the white was very translucent; I used a second pair of white disks from another option on the same sheet, but I could still see the demarcation. Luckily, I tried using the blue and red decals with this, and I was amazed to see that the blue-white-red combination is enough to fool the eye; you don’t see the stripe below the decal unless you force yourself to look at it!

I sealed in the decals with a second coat of Varathane and then ran a dark gray wash over the entire model. This was a watercolor wash, which gave me a sense of safety; my worry was that the white stripes would pick up the wash and get gray or blotchy. The watercolor wash can be removed with a damp rag so it gave me room to err. I chose dark gray because it sets up an interesting effect on the invasion stripes--dark over the white, but light over the black.

I shot a flat coat over the model and let it dry. When I removed the masking from the cockpit glass, I found a pair of deep scratches; very carefully, I masked the frames and sanded these blemishes out. Somehow, the painted frames survived!

The landing gear came next. The wheels and hubs are presented as separate pieces; I painted the hubs sky and airbrushed Testors rubber onto the tires before combining them. The only ejector pin marks in the entire kit of any consequence are on the landing gear leg components, but since there are four pieces to each leg, it’s a bit of work getting them all. Once cleaned up, all the landing gear strut pieces were airbrushed semi gloss black and assembled into those nice wheel wells. The tail wheel was painted and added, followed by the tires, which were pushed into place between the legs of the struts. The only added details were brake lines, made from brass wire and blackened chemically with Blacken It (available commonly in model railroading stores).

The gear doors also have problems—namely, three ejector pin marks on their inner surfaces between some very nice structural detail! I cleaned these up with a very small dental bit chucked into my Dremel tool, which made short work of the blemishes without ruining the surrounding detail. These parts were painted and slipped neatly into place.

The engine parts are beautiful. I painted the Hercules engines with grimy black and drybrushed them gently with silver. After attaching the cowl flap sections the engines fit neatly into place. The exhaust collectors were painted with Model Master burnt metal metallizer, mixed with a big dollop of brass. Photos of UB-E show that the front of the port exhaust collector has been replaced with a new front rim, so I masked one exhaust collector with parafilm, very carefully cut out a mask for the front rim, and airbrushed metallizer non buffing aluminum onto the forward lip of the part.

I darkened the white metal hedgehog exhausts chemically and set them aside. The cowlings were glued over the engines, and the painted exhaust collectors were added to the cowlings; using this process prevents having to mask these parts and paint them while in place on the model. Inside the cowlings, I now added the small bracing struts to the engines and glued the hedgehog exhausts into place. The propellers were assembled with the proper spinnerless hubs, painted black with yellow tips, and stuck in place with white glue.

Next came the fiddly bits! I added the fuel dumps to the extreme aft bottom area of the nacelles; the instructions tell you to add these earlier, but I found I was knocking them off and then searching the carpet for them with frustrating frequency so I set them aside until later.

The rockets and rails were cleaned up (the rockets have small ejector pin marks, which are rather annoying!), painted and added to the model. I stumbled across a handy way of painting the stripes on the rockets’ warheads. One of the collets for my Dremel tool is a perfect fit for the rocket’s fins, so I chucked them in the tool and spun them at 5000 rpm. By touching a small brush with a bit of thinned yellow paint to the spinning rocket, one can get straight, constant lines, even on compound curves like the warheads’ noses. I’m looking forward to seeing what other ordnance I can spin-stripe on future models!

Mounting points for a torpedo are clearly visible in photos, so I made these from styrene strip and added them to the lower fuselage. The kit’s dorsal antenna had its mounting tab sanded flat, leaving the base plate, and superglued to the model. I also added a whip antenna further back on the fuselage. The wingtip lights are given as clear parts; I painted their backs chrome silver and then drilled small holes in them. Into these holes I added a small amount of clear red or green paint, effectively simulating colored light bulbs. These were then blended into the wings, something I should have done before painting!

As I was admiring the model and patting myself on the back, I noticed that there was a small squared-off scoop on the nose just ahead of the windscreen that I’d completely missed. I took one of the leftover brass "boxes" from the Eduard set and trimmed the sides to form a triangle. After it was painted extra dark sea gray, I carefully glued it into place on the nose.

A very light application of black pastel was run across the wings behind the hedgehog exhausts and in the cannon blast ports. I finally took the masking off the .303 and touched it up, then added an aerial made from a few fibers taken from a pair of smoke-colored panty hose was run from the vertical fin leading edge to the forward antenna. Done!

Conclusion

Despite the detail work I did to this model, the Hasegawa Beaufighter builds into a spectacular kit without the bells and whistles. Still, starting with a great kit makes any detailing project easier. Thanks go out to Drewe Manton, Randy Ray, Robin Powell and Ben Pada, who provided great tips that made this model possible!