Military Illustrated Modeller 11/2013

The combat career of the F4U Corsair stretched longer than almost any other WWII fighter aircraft. The first of more than 12,000 Corsairs was produced in 1940, and the last of these bent wing birds were still doing battle above Central America nearly thirty years later. The Vought Aircraft company had a strong association with the US Navy during the inter war decades, but their focus in the 1930s was observation aircraft, trainers and seaplanes. In response to a US Navy specification issued in February 1938, Vought submitted two designs. With the second of these carrier-based fighter proposals, Vought adopted the simple strategy of building the smallest possible airframe around the most powerful available engine. At the same time, Pratt & Whitney was developing the supercharged R-2800 radial engine. Radial engines had recently lost favour to the sleeker inline configuration, but the US Navy preferred the ruggedness and simplicity of the radial arrangement. Vought therefore designed their new V-166B around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 powerplant. The brute force of the R-2800 engine had to be absorbed by a correspondingly large propeller. With a diameter of 13' 4", the Hamilton Standard three-bladed propeller assembly was the largest fitted to a fighter aircraft to that date.

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Legion Magazine 09-10/2013

On the afternoon of Aug. 18,1944, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division redeployed its forces in response to a directive from the corps commander to prevent the enemy from escaping the Falaise Pocket. The division was to establish blocking positions along the River Dives between the villages of Trun and Chambois. The Polish Armd. Div. was to secure Chambois, linking up with the American 90th Infantry Div. It is not clear why Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds thought that the 10th Canadian Inf. Brigade, less the Algonquin Regiment, was a sufficient force to accomplish this task, but as corps commander he was preoccupied with the next phase of operations: the pursuit to the River Seine. Simonds ordered Major-General George Kitching to deploy the 4th Armd. Bde., with three of the division's four armoured regiments and two infantry battalions, north of Trun, where they would begin the advance north. This decision forced Brigadier-General Jim Jefferson to try and close a six-kilometre gap with the tanks of the South Alberta Regiment (SAR) and the rifle companies of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, and the Lincoln and Weiland Regt. The Lines were committed to holding Trun and the nearby village of Magny, where a bridge crossed the River Dives. Jefferson ordered the SARs and Argylls to advance towards Chambois, gaining control of the village of St. Lambert-sur-Dives, where a second bridge was located.

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Legion Magazine 07-08/2013

The Korean war broke out on June 25, 1950, when the Soviet-trained and equipped army of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea) in a blatant effort to unite the peninsula by force. The fighting ended with the signing of the Korea Armistice Agreement between the United Nations Command, the Republic of Korea, China and North Korea on July 27,1953. The war cost tens of thousands of lives of the soldiers who fought the war and many more lives of Korean civilians. In looking at the Canadian story on the 60th anniversary of the armistice, it is important to not overlook the fact that more Canadians were killed or wounded in the long stalemate that followed the on-again-off-again armistice talks of 1951 than in the nine months since Canadians soldiers first went into action in early 1951. This is because while talks dragged on, UN front-line commanders were not allowed to mount any major offensives. Their orders were to dig in and hold. While company-sized attacks were sometimes mounted to improve defences or keep the enemy off balance, the war— for the most part—was fought in no man's land with patrolling, night raids and artillery barrages.

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Flypast Special - Wellington

The experience of the high-flying Mk.Vs was such that a major effort was centred on a Rolls-Royce Merlin 60-powered version. This had the ability to take a crew of five inside the pressure shell. Rated at l,280hp (954.8kW), the Merlin 60 had a two-speed, two-stage supercharger and intercooler. This was the Mk.VI and the prototype, W5795, appeared in 1942. Up to March 1943 a total of 64 had been completed. It was hoped to put the type into operational service but this never materialised and the majority were delivered straight into storage and eventual scrapping. Like the Mk.Vs, the Mk.VIs had a remotely controlled four-gun rear turret. While the high-flying Mk.Vs and Mk.VIs may seem to have achieved little in direct terms, they advanced the knowledge of pressure shells considerably, helping the entire UK aircraft industry. Vickers used its experience in the post-war Valiant V-bomber and the incredibly successful Viscount turboprop airliner.

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