Dinshaw Eduljee crashed in action behind Japanese lines. His body was never found. The Indian Air Force No. 1 Squadron's Log from Nov. 28, 1944 states:
"F/O Eduljee was the only (then) AFC in the Indian Air Force. He had obtained this award for outstanding service as instructor at Flight Training School, Ambala. Many of the younger pilots in the Indian Air Force may have been his pupils -
Si monumentum requiris, circumspice (If you seek his monument, look around you)."

Hurricane IIB & C
with Images

Hawker Hurricane in the Burma Theatre
The IAF received the first Hawker Hurricanes in 1942 and the IAF's No.1 Squadron, the 'Flying Tigers', was the first unit to be made up of Hurricanes. The Hurricane continued to be the Squadron's main aircraft until 1947. The serial number of Dinshaw Eduljee's plane on November 27, 1944 was LE804.

Model Numbers (Mark) IIB & IIC (Trop.)
According to World Militair, the LE804 was a Hurricane Mark (Mk) IIC. We see the designation IIc frequently followed by (Trop.). According to the squadron's logs, the serial numbers of its aircraft included Hurricane with serial numbers beginning with HW1..., which World Militair designates as II (without a following letter) but which IWM designates as a IIB.

Mk. IIB
According to Wikipedia, the Hurricane IIB (also called Mk IIA Series 2) were fitted with racks allowing them to carry two 250 lb  (110 kg) or 500 lb (230 kg) bombs. This lowered the top speed of the Hurricane to 301 mph (484 km/h). The same racks would allow the Hurricane to carry two 45-gallon (205 l) drop tanks instead of the bombs, more than doubling the Hurricane's fuel load. The IIB was also equipped with new and slightly longer propeller spinner and new wing mounting 12 x .303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns. The first IIA Series 2 aircraft were built in October 1940 and then renamed Mark IIB in April 1941.

Mk. IIC
The Hurricane Mk IIBs were modified with new and slightly longer propeller spinners,  the machine-gun armaments were replaced with four 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk II cannons (two on each wing) with an corresponding change in the wing design and re-designated Hurricane IIC in June 1941. The IIC also served as a night fighter and intruder.

Mk. IIB & IIC Trop.
The Hurricane IIB, IIC and other variants were 'tropicalized' for use in tropical regions. They were fitted with Vokes and Rolls Royce engine dust filters and the pilots were issued with a desert survival kit, including a bottle of water behind the cockpit.

Armament
The Squadron's Hurricane IIc had the twelve .303 calibre machine-gun in the IIb replaced with four 20 mm British Hispano cannon IIc (licence-built version of the French Hispano-Suiza cannon) in June '44.


Fuel Tanks
According to Mukund Murty: The Hurricane IIc had two main wing tanks of 33 gallons each, one reserve tank of 28 gallons just ahead of the engine firewall, and two fixed auxiliary tanks of 44 gallons each (or two drop tanks of 45 or 90 gallons each). When fuelled, two fixed auxiliary tanks gave each pilot a total of 182 gallons for a sortie.

Profile Drawings
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with No. 1 Squadron. Note the smaller forward scoop compared with the large bulges on the underside of the nose in the images below. Image Credit: unavailable.
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with IAF's No. 1 Squadron. Image credit: Allied Aircraft of the CBI
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with IAF's No. 2 Squadron. Note Camera port in the lower fuselage to the right of the
roundel. Image credit: at Bharat Rakshak
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with IAF's No. 3 Squadron. Image credit: unavailable.
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with IAF's No. 4 Squadron. Image credit: safarikovi
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.)  with RAF's 34 Squadron. Flown by F/O James Henry (Jimmy) Whalen based in Palel
(South Imphal) in April. 1944. Image credit: Asisbiz.com
Hawker Hurricane IIC (Trop.) with RAF's 127th Squadron

Images, Plans & Line Drawings
Restored 1944 Hawker Hurricane IIC LF686 at the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, VA.
Image credit: National Air & Space Museum
Description of the Smithsonian's aircraft above: "Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC single seat, low wing monoplane ground attack fighter; enclosed cockpit; steel tube fuselage with aircraft spruce forms and fabric, aluminum cowling, stressed skin aluminum wings and horizontal stablizer, fabric covered aluminum rudder and control surfaces; grey green camouflage top surface paint scheme with dove grey underside;  Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, liquid cooled V-12, 1,280 horsepower engine; Armament, 4: 20mm Hispano cannons." Dinshaw Eduljee's LE804 would have been fairly similar to LF686 above. Also see Air & Space Smithsonian.

Three view drawing of a IIC? While this drawing shows a small forward air scoop, it shows eight machine gun ports rather than four cannons. Image credit: aviastar.org
IIC Drawings. Image credit: samolotypolskie
IIB? Cutaway. Image credit: Flight Global
Images from Wikimedia
A IIC strafing a bridge in Burma
A IIC of No.166 Wing in flight from Chittagong, Bengal, May 1943
A Hurricane and US P-47D at Palel field, South Imphal.

Map of Imphal Airfields
Imphal airfields. Image credit: 113 Squadron.

No comments:

Post a Comment